Update Existing Items

This use case describes updating the product data for existing items in a customer's item database. At a high level, it consists of the following steps:

1. Sync basic product data to GDSN Connect

   • GDSN matches the Client App item to a Source Record and creates a Local Record in GDSN Connect that holds data from the Source Record from the GDSN Connect Database.

   • The automated matching process is described in greater detail on the Matching Process page and greatly depends on the completeness and quality of the input data from the Client App.

   • This product data sync process includes two steps:

     1. Sync the vendor information to update vendor names.

        • This is to make sure that the vendors are properly set up in GDSN Connect so that the automatic matching process can properly match on vendor product IDs

        • If the vendor information is unavailable for an item in the Client App (e.g. menu planning only user), the vendor can be left "Unspecified".

     2. Sync the product data

        • There are two different endpoints and processes: one for syncing a single item (e.g. manually initiated by a user) and one for syncing the full database (e.g. ran automatically once a week or manually initiated by the user).

2. Get enhanced product data from GDSN Connect

   • If the item was successfully matched, the response will contain the full data from GDSN Connect Database along with any data quality warnings.

   • If the item wasn't successfully matched, the response will only contain the match status.

   • The Client App should show the user a list of the attributes that would be updated and let them decide to accept or reject them. They should also be able to accept all changes once they're comfortable with the process. See Reviewing Item Updates for an example from GDSN Connect's Product Updates page.

Individual Item Sync

• This process is relatively fast and the endpoint response includes the enhanced product data if it was matched.

• We recommend that this be implemented from within the individual item detail screen within the Client App.

Full Database Sync

• This process may take several minutes depending on how many items are synced (~1 second per item), so this is split into multiple endpoints.

  1. Send all items to GDSN Connect. This initiates a new sync process and the response includes a Sync ID. This is not technically required, but running this ensures any new or updated items are included in the sync.

  2. Periodically check sync status (optional). Using the Sync ID, the Client App can periodically check the sync status to see when it's complete or if there were any errors.

  3. Get data for all items. This includes match status for all items and the full data and any data quality warnings from GDSN Connect Database for match items. This request will be rejected if there are any syncs in process.

• We recommend that this be implemented from within a separate module within the Client App.

Miscellaneous Recommendations

• Show the sync and matching status of each item to the user so they can know which items are ready to review. See Item Syncing States for more information.

• The Full Database Sync process can be run on a regular, scheduled basis (e.g. 1x per week) to automatically update data for any synced items.

• This process should generally not be used to add new items. There is a dedicated Add New Items endpoints.

Process Flowchart - Individual Item Sync

The process to sync and update items is a single calls to GDSN Connect.

Process Flowchart - Full Database Sync

The process to sync and update items requires multiple calls to GDSN Connect.

Example User Experience

For an Individual Item

In the Client App, we recommend showing the sync status and functions on the relevant page(s) of the item record. For example, in the mockup below, a dynamic status button is shown to the left of the link to the Search Hub on the item detail page. The text and tool-tip information on that button change on the state of the item's sync and match status.

Refer to Item Syncing States for more details on the recommended states.

Another option to keep the Search Hub button at the general/header level of the item and put the status button or icon next to the GTIN field (or some other field that makes sense).