Trade item hierarchy

My Product Manager's data quality reports show that incorrectly specifying trade units (or products) within the hierarchy is one of the most common and made mistakes. A product has several levels within the hierarchy of the trade units, each of which has a different application. The retailer uses this information to order and process the products and to publish the product information. 

How can you see if your products have this error? 

In the data quality report, which you will find in My Product Manager under “My reports”, check whether there are products that have one or more of the error messages or warnings below:  

• ‘isTradeItemADespatchUnit must not be empty’, 

• ‘isTradeItemAnOrderableUnit must not be empty’, 

• ‘isTradeItemAVariableUnit shall not be empty’, 

• ‘Is Trade Item A Base Unit should be entered’, 

• ‘If ChildTradeItem/gtin is empty, then attribute isTradeItemABaseUnit must be equal to 'true'’, 

• ‘If unitDescriptorCode is BASE_UNIT_OR_EACH, isTradeItemABaseUnit must be equal to 'true'. 

Then follow the steps below to correctly specify the different levels in the hierarchy of trading units. In this way, the product sheets are also visible to the data customers after all system checks have been re-executed. 

How do you resolve the error or warning? 

It depends on how you register or edit the product sheets in My Product Manager. 

Web interface My Product Manager  

STEP 1  

Log in to the webinterface of My Product Manager with your login details and go to ‘My products’. 

Use the search function and enter the product description, GTIN or brand of the product. To open the product sheet, click below 'GTIN' on the 14-digit GTIN of the product.  

Then click on 'Edit data' to edit the product sheet. 

Go to the 'Identification' tab or use the search function and enter 'Indication'. 

Within the hierarchy you indicate for all levels and per level whether the product is a: 

• Base unit (Yes or No), 

• (Base unit is the lowest level within the hierarchy) 

• Delivery unit (Yes or No), 

• Order unit (Yes or No),  

• Variable item (Yes or No) 

• (Variable item is an item whose weight, volume or dimensions may differ for one and the same product) 

Overview of the available fields:

Click on the empty square or '(click to select)' to select the value 'Yes'.

Click the square again (or the text 'Yes') to select the value 'No'.

If necessary, the square can be clicked a third time to delete the selected value 'No'.

Click on 'Save' or 'Validate & next' to check and validate the adjustment and the entire product sheet. Are there any error messages and/or warnings? Then resolve these as well. 

Click on 'Validate and Release', the updated product sheet is now available for data recipients.

After releasing the updated product data sheet in the My Product Manager data quality report, check whether the product data sheet no longer mentions an error message and/or warning.

Via another GS1 GDSN-data pool or via a machine-to-machine-connection   

STEP 1  

Log in to the user environment of your system and open the product sheet. 

Then specify per level in the trade unit hierarchy whether the product is a 

• Base unit (isTradeItemABaseUnit) (True or False), 

• Consumer unit (isTradeItemAConsumerUnit) (True of False), 

• Delivery unit (isTradeItemADespatchUnit) (True of False), 

• Order unit (isTradeItemAOrderableUnit) (True of False),  

Variable item (isTradeItemAVariableUnit) (True of False) 

Make sure that the change has been saved and that the updated product sheet is available to the data recipients by releasing or (re)publishing it on the data pool. 

After release or (re)publishing, check the CIC messages from the data recipients and whether the product sheet in the My Product Manager data quality report no longer contains error messages and/or warnings.