[Question] 3rd Party Application accessing information on Pastel Partner

[J7J]

Hi,

Is it possible for a 3rd party application to access information on Pastel Partner?

For example: Can a Customer detail lookup be done by the 3rd party application from Pastel's customer masterfile in the following scenario:

A third party application (barcode scanner) is used to generate a list of the barcodes and quantites of items that will eventually be used to populate a sales order in Pastel Partner. If you import only the item code and quantity into the sales order, leaving the other import fields blank, the sales order does not pull through the other fields from the masterfiles (eg. Customer Delivery Address, Inventory item selling prices, descriptions etc). This leaves you with a sales order that has only the codes and quantities showing.

It seems like you have to import all the information to populate the sales order (incl Delivery addresses, Inventory Selling Prices etc) and whatever you put or don't put in the import file, will appear on the sales order.

Now, I am wondering how I can give Pastel the Customer code, Item code and Quantity that I get from the barcode scanner application and Pastel automatically completes the rest of the information (item descriptions, prices etc) on the sales order.

Thank you.

[Neville Bailey]

There is a standard CSV layout that you can import into Pastel in order to create a sales order.

The crux of your problem (as I see it) is how to populate that CSV file with the required data. I suppose one can write an Excel model that can rearrange the data from the scanner, together with the remaining required data, and then copy the data into the CSV file.

I will need some more details about your scenario before I can offer more meaningful input.

[J7J]

Hi Neville. Thank you for your reply.

The scenario is as follows:

The barcode scanner can only supply the barcode and qty of the items that should appear on the sales order. We have a 3rd party application that converts this, together with the customer code, into the required CSV format that could be imported into the sales order. I thought that when you import the customer code through the CSV file, the address details will be pulled from the masterfile onto the sales order. The same with the inventory items. I thought if you import the item code through the CSV (already done a lookup from the barcode to allocate the correct item code), the item description, selling price etc will be pulled from the masterfile. Apparently not. It seems like you must have all the details on the CSV file that you want to appear on the sales order (address details, item descriptions, etc) and that nothing pulls from the masterfile.

Referring to your idea of the Excel model... How will this Excel model get the data from Pastel? Or will we have to export the data from Pastel (ie. Customer details) and then import again into another CSV (in the sales order format) and then import back into Pastel to create the sales order?

[Neville Bailey]

I have never had a problem importing sales orders from CSV files. The CSV file does, however, need to be populated with certain mandatory data, but data such as stock description and address details need not be on the CSV file.

Can you email me a sample CSV file so that I can check it?

[J7J]

I have never had a problem importing sales orders from CSV files. The CSV file does, however, need to be populated with certain mandatory data, but data such as stock description and address details need not be on the CSV file.

Can you email me a sample CSV file so that I can check it?

Hi Neville,

I will e-mail the CSV to you and the customer details as well as the stock items that are appearing on the CSV file.

Thanks.

[J7J]

Hi Neville,

Could you maybe send me a CSV file in the meantime that imports correctly into a sales order (ie. the CSV file does not contain the delivery address for example, but on the sales order it pulls the delivery address from the masterfile). I can then compare your CSV to mine and maybe see what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

[Sybrand Kruger]

Hi Guys,

I have the same problem. I created a workbook to generate orders in excel based on a number of things. It also keeps track of history and so on.

I have written a little macro to rearrange a couple of things so that Pastel can understand it and do a correct import of the sales orders but it only imports what I tell it to, it does not merge it with the client and product information stored in Pastel.

How can I import the code for example 0005 and the quantity for example 1.5 en then the price, product details etc. is added during the importation process with the information that Pastel has?

I will really appreciate any feedback.

Thank you

[Neville Bailey]

After some testing on my side, it has become clear that one needs to define all the details required in the CSV file before importing it into Pastel, i.e. Pastel will not automatically pick up the relevant price and product details.

In order to overcome this limitation, one can create an ODBC query in Excel, to pull through the relevant data (such as product codes, with their descriptions and default prices) from the Pastel database into Excel, and then create a vlookup formula to populate the cells into a regular Excel file (which has the same layout as the CSV file), and then a macro to copy and paste...special...values into the CSV file.

[Sybrand Kruger]

Sounds like alot of work still lies ahead before I can start using this thing :P

Thank you for the reply!

Sybrand Kruger

[Nicole29]

Hi Neville

I wonder if you could help us. We have just gotten a Posiflex till display and Symbol barcode scanner. We are having trouble setting these up with our Pastel Partner version 11 software. We do have the POS add on for the two tills.

With the Posiflex till display, we can get it to work straight from windows, but we are struggling to get it to show items as they are entered onto POS or even the totals of the POD invoice.

With the Symbol barcode scanner, it recognises certain barcodes from the items but when we print labels with barcodes on it, the scanner on POS either does not pick the barcode up at all or it adds a random digit onto the end of the barcode number (the scanner beeps and an item code appears for a moment on the POS system but then immediately disappears and no item is left on the POS invoicing lines. I don't know if it a problem with the label setup for barcodes or with the scanner setup.

Please advise if you have any suggestions, as I am a bit stumped at this point.

Your advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Nicole

[Neville Bailey]

Hi Nicole,

The problems you have described are very difficult to troubleshoot without an onsite visit, in order to physically test various options, so I am unable to give you any offhand advice, I'm afraid.

Regarding the pole display, have you selected the correct connection option, i.e. serial, parallel or USB?