But it’s not magic or a snap of the fingers that makes the DXM work. It takes some effort. So is it worth it for your company to setup and implement the DXM? Here are a few things to consider.
If you typically ship the same handful of items over and over, it may not be worth the effort to setup the DXM. You can store your product and contact information in the Shipping Solutions databases and point and click to create your shipments in minutes. However, if you usually have 25 or more line items in a shipment, you can save a lot of time by implementing the DXM.
With the DXM your shipment records are pulled from your ERP system, so they appear in Shipping Solutions with the contact and product information already completed on the EZ Start screen. You don’t have to keep up with price or address changes in the Shipping Solutions databases, so your documents may be more accurate. You will have to fill in any missing information that doesn’t reside in your ERP system, however, which leads to the next consideration.
Many accounting and ERP systems are biased towards domestic orders and therefore may not include all the product information required on your export forms. For example, the Schedule B code may not be stored with the rest of your product information. If so, you will need to manually add the missing data for each product on every export shipment imported from your accounting or ERP system via the DXM.
Alternatively you can store the missing data in the Shipping Solutions database and check the Add Fields from Product Database box on the DXM setup screen. Click the Setup button and check the box next to each field that you want supplemented from the Product Database. When the DXM runs it will pull the missing data from the Product Database matching on Product ID. This will require maintaining the product information in Shipping Solutions, so you will need to decide if it is worth using the DXM with the product supplement or if it would be simpler to just create your shipments entirely in Shipping Solutions.
This is probably the most important consideration when deciding whether to use the DXM. You will need someone with IT knowledge to get the data out of your ERP or accounting system and into the correct format for pulling into Shipping Solutions. The data can either be a single XML file or two text files. Text files can be tab, pipe or comma delimited, although tab or pipe is preferred.
If you are using the delimited text file format, you will need two files. The first contains header information, which is information that pertains to the whole shipment such as the customer’s name and address, the PO number, and the payment terms. The second file contains line item details, such as the product ID, description, and unit price.
Once you have your two text files you will need to map your data to the Shipping Solutions data fields, but this can usually be done without IT support. The process is outlined in the User Guide, and we can help you with it as well.
Working with the XML format greatly simplifies the process of moving data because once the XML file is created, it is ready to pull into Shipping Solutions with no mapping required. The data will need to conform, however, to the XML schema we provide. The schema provides XML structure validation and validation of elements to correspond to the database’s expected data types, and in some cases, the fields’ allowed values. The User Guide has more details on using XML files.
Once the DXM is setup, you need to decide how you will run it on an ongoing basis. The DXM can be run manually from within Shipping Solutions, but if you want to make use of one of the more automated methods for running the DXM, you will need additional IT support.
The DXM is only available in Shipping Solutions Professional, so if you are using Classic you will need to upgrade before utilizing the DXM.
If you are still wondering whether or not the DXM is right for your company, give us a call at 651-905-1727, send us an email at help@shipsolutions.com, or consult the User Guide.