Even if Inventory Planner does not directly support your eCommerce platform, you can connect to Inventory Planner using the CSV connector by making special CSV/Excel files available via Google Drive, Dropbox or a web server. This file needs to be kept up to date on your side and Inventory Planner will automatically sync the data daily.
Note: Please be aware that due to bad API responses, file hosting websites other than Google Drive or Dropbox may experience issues maintaining a connection to Inventory Planner. In order to sustain sync stability and avoid errors, using Google Drive or Dropbox as a standard for your CSV/Excel integration is recommended.
Each CSV integration will create one warehouse in Inventory Planner. If you want to forecast for more than one warehouse, you will need a separate CSV connector for each warehouse.
When you connect your store via CSV connector you will need to provide your store's primary currency and two to three CSV/Excel files:
Products file
Sales orders file
Purchase orders file (optional)
Setting up the CSV connector
Go to Settings > Connections & warehouses and click "+ New Connection" at the bottom left-hand side of the page.
Click the "CSV/Excel" integration.
Enter the URLs for the hosted CSV files.
Note: If you use Google Docs/Drive or Dropbox, make sure to set up permissions so that anyone with the link can edit the file. If using Dropbox, you will also need to make sure the URL ends in &dl=1.)
Sales orders define the demand for your products and are used to compute replenishment suggestions when combined with current stock from the products file and on order quantities for your suppliers from the purchase orders file. Note that you can also choose to omit the purchase orders file and manage purchase orders in Inventory Planner if your eCommerce system does not have them.
When setting up the CSV connector, you should provide three permanent URLs for these files. These URLs should not require authorization. If you use Google Drive or Dropbox, make sure to set up permissions so that anyone with the link can edit the file. Inventory Planner will automatically access these files every day.
These files must always contain all products and orders (as opposed to just updates). If a product or a sales order is removed from files it will be deleted in Inventory Planner as well.
Inventory Planner uses HTTP method GET to download the file and method HEAD to verify that the file exists during initial connection.
Inventory Planner optionally supports HTTP basic authentication for additional security. You can specify a username and password when you connect your store. If you don't have authentication set up, leave these fields blank.
Product file specification
Field | Description |
product_id | Product ID (required)
All variants with the same product_id will be listed under the same product.
All variants of the same product should have the same vendor, brand and tags (but can have different options). If you do not have options/variations (i.e. all products have a single variant), you can use SKU in this column. |
title | Product title (required) |
SKU | Stock Keeping Unit (required)
All variants should have unique SKUs. |
created_at | Product creation date, e.g. 2016-03-28 (required) |
stock_quantity | Inventory quantity (required) |
price | Retail price (required) |
replenishable | Replenishment status, set as TRUE (replenishment) or FALSE (non-replenishable) |
regular_price | Retail price without discount |
cost_price | Product cost price |
landing_cost_price | Product landing cost price |
barcode | Product barcode (e.g. UPC) |
updated_at | Last updated date of a product, e.g. 2016-04-28 |
visible | Product visibility in your store, set as TRUE (visible) or FALSE (non-visible) |
managing_stock | Stock management status, set as TRUE (stock managed) or FALSE (stock not managed) |
max_stock | Maximum stock level |
min_stock | Minimum safety stock |
vendor | Product vendor. Note that the CSV connector does not support multiple vendors per variant, and there should only be one vendor in the file. You can assign other vendors to the variant later in Inventory Planner. Learn more about assigning vendors here. |
vendor_reference | Vendor product SKU |
vendor_product_name | Vendor product name |
permalink | Product URL |
categories | Product categories, e.g. women,dresses |
image | Product image URL |
brand | Product brand |
options | Product options, e.g. "Color=Red, Size=X" |
tags | Product tags, e.g. dress, last collection |
moq | Minimum order quantity |
uom | Units of measurement |
asin | Product ASIN |
fnsku | Product's fulfillment network SKU (used with Amazon FBA) |
competitive price | Product's competitive price, used with Amazon. Learn more about the competitive price here. |
cbm | Product volume in cubic meters |
net weight | Product weight without packaging |
gross weight | Product weight with packaging |
notes | Any other notes to be added to the product record |
Note: If you are a premium user, it's possible to add custom fields at the variant level by adding a column header that corresponds to the name of the custom field.
The column header must be lowercase and should use an underscore (_) in place of any spaces. For example, if your custom field is "Category 1" or "Category 2" then the column header should be titled "category_1" and "category_2" respectively.
Sales order file specification
Field | Description |
order_number | Order ID (required) |
product_id | Product ID (required) |
SKU | Product SKU (required) |
date | Order creation date, e.g. 2016-03-28 (required) |
price | Product price (required) |
quantity | Product quantity (required) A negative quantity indicates a return |
discount | Line discount value (from price * quantity) |
tax | Line tax value (from price * quantity) |
tax_included | Whether tax is included in price flag (true/false, yes/no or 1/0)
Requires tax column |
shipping | Line shipping value |
cost_price | Product cost price |
customer | Email or "first and last name" (for wholesale planning) |
currency | Sales order currency ISO 3-letter code, e.g. USD, EUR (optional, defaults to store currency if not present or empty) |
canceled | True if order is canceled, false otherwise |
Purchase Order file specification
Field | Description |
po_id | Purchase order ID (required) |
po_name | The display name of the purchase order (optional) |
vendor | The vendor associated with the purchase order (optional) |
date | Purchase order creation date, e.g. 2016-03-28 (required) |
expected_date | Purchase order due date (required) |
product_id | Product ID (required) |
sku | Product SKU (required) |
cost_price | Line item price (required) |
currency | Purchase order currency ISO 3-letter code, e.g. USD, EUR (optional, defaults to store currency if not present or empty) |
status | Purchase order status, e.g. open, partially_received, closed (required) |
notes | Purchase order notes |
ordered | Line item ordered quantity (required) |
received | Line item received quantity (required) |
received_date | Line item received date (optional) |
tax | Line item tax (optional) |
tax_included | Whether line item tax is included (optional, 1/0 or true/false) |
Note: Shipping can be indicated in cost_price and tax fields in separate row with product_id value Shipping.