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Importing a Vendor Catalog (VCATALOG.EXE)

Many districts have developed agreements with vendors to supply common office supplies to their schools and act as the warehouse for these items. This allows the district to warehouse fewer items and keep costs down. Some of these vendors can provide files containing available item information that can be formatted for use by software programs.

The program VCATALOG.EXE has been developed to import catalog files supplied by Corporate Express and Office Depot into Escape usable data files. These files are then used by the Escape program to create Purchase orders that are sent to these vendors. In fact, any vendor catalog file could be formatted (and possibly appended to other catalog files) for use with Escape. This document includes two file layouts supported by the VCATALOG.EXE program, as defaults for catalogs from Corporate Express and Office Depot.

NOTE: Should a vendor supplied file not match our supported file layout, you can easily modify the file using Microsoft Excel, then follow the steps outlined below to import the file.

Corporate Express File Layout

Below is the default layout for Corporate Express files.

The Item Price field is an 8 character number that is divided by 100 to compute the price of the item. For example: A price of 19 cents should be entered as "      19". An item that has a price of $145.67 would be entered as "  14567".

Office Depot/Eastman File Layout

Below is the default layout for Office Depot and Eastman files.

Field	Data Type	Start Column	End Column	Description
Not used *	String(1)	1	1	*
Sku_num	String(6)	2	7	SKU Number
Not used *	String(13)	8	20	*
Unit	String(2)	21	22	Unit
Mfg_number	String(20)	23	42	Manufacturers Number
Not used *	String(40)	43	82	*
Desc	String(30)	83	112	Description of item
Not used *	String(7)	113	119	*
Price	String(8)	120	127	Price (see below)
TOTAL			127	Total characters for FIXED import containing all fields.

The price field is an 8 character number that is divied by 1000 to compute the price of the item. For example: A price of 12 1/2 cents should be entered as "     125". An item that has a price of $123.49 would be entered as "  123490".

Running the VCATALOG.EXE Program

Step 1 - Make a copy of the catalog in use now.

Start by making a backup copy of the existing catalog file in case something doesn't work correctly with the conversion. The Escape files for the catalog are stored in the \ESCAPE\PUR directory and are called EASTMANS.DAT and EASTMANS.K01.

TIP: One way to accomplish this is to create a zip file containing these two files. From the \ESCAPE\PUR directory type: Pkzip vcat399.zip eastmans.dat eastmans.k01. (In this example the 399 in the file name is the 3rd month of 1999; 699 would be June 99, etc.)

Step 2 - Prepare the file supplied for importing into a new catalog.

Create a new directory on your local disk drive and copy the VCATALOG.EXE and the file supplied by the vendor to this directory. (The program VCATALOG.EXE is usually found in the \escape\util directory.)

Make a copy of the file your vendor supplied and name it VCATALOG.TXT. This will give you three files in this directory; vcatalog.exe, vcatalog.txt and the original file supplied by your vendor. If necessary, format the file to match the Escape default, using Excel.

Step 3 - Import the File.

From the directory you just created, type in the command:

VCATALOG.EXE 

The program will respond with this message on your screen:

Please make sure your import file is a named "VCATALOG.TXT"

Enter "1" for Eastman or "2" for Corporate Express
Are you sure? y
Percent Complete = 25%

Once complete, the computer will emit a beep and the screen should show 100 % on the last line. You will now have two new files in this directory: EASTMANS.DAT and EASTMANS.K01.

Step 4 - Copy up the Files.

Copy these new catalog files (EASTMANS.DAT and EASTMANS.K01 )to your \ESCAPE\PUR directory of your TEST system.

Step 5 - Test the import.

Test a few items to make sure the catalog is working by creating a REQMFG type requisition. Create a new requisition, and go to the line item page and type in the item number for a few items. If the correct information comes up, then you converted the file correctly. The best items to test are items that you know have changed in price from the last catalog. Your vendor should be able to supply you with a list of these items.

Making the New Catalog Available for Use

Once you have verified that the new catalog files work correctly in your TEST system, simply copy these files to the \ESCAPE\PUR directory on your LIVE system.

You should also test a few items in the LIVE system to make sure the catalog is working correctly.

Create a new requisition, and go to the line item page and type in the item number for a few items. If the correct information comes up, then you are done.

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