Import Setup

The connector imports through two import definitions of the hub. The download links are not stored on the definitions but as credentials in the ITscope settings.

The Import Definitions

Import code	Content	Import category
`ITSCOPE-FULL`	Full export: product master (`product.csv`), distributor offers (`supplierItem.csv`), project prices (`project.csv`) and accessories (`accessory.csv`)	Catalog
`ITSCOPE-UPDATE`	Update export: prices and stock of the offers only	Stock

Newly created definitions are inactive; the setup wizard activates them when it finishes. If they are ever missing, Create Import Definitions on the ITscope Connection Setup creates them again.

The Import Sections

Each definition has a section: Full Import (product / supplierItem / project) and Update Import (incremental). Both appear on the supplier card ITSCOPE below the ITscope settings and on the ITscope Connection Setup.

Field	Meaning
Active	Whether the definition runs in the schedule and through the import actions. Can only be changed with write permission on the import definitions
Status	Inactive, Ready, Last import failed or Imported %1 records on %2

Action	Description
Run Full Import or Run Update Import	Downloads the export of this section and imports it. If the definition is inactive, the action stops with a message instead of silently doing nothing
Import from File	Feeds in an export ZIP downloaded by hand with the definition of this section — in the Update Import section, as an update

The supplier-wide import

Where the hub starts all imports of a supplier at once — for example with Execute Import in the supplier list —, ITscope runs the full import only. The full export contains prices and stock anyway; an update import appended to it would be a second download for the same result.

The First Import

Start the first import with Run Full Import, for example on the dashboard. It writes no offer yet — and that is intended. It stages the product master, fills the manufacturer catalog and adds every distributor of the export as an inactive line to the vendor mapping. An ITscope export contains the offers of all distributors your account sees; one becomes a source of supply only once it is settled which vendor the distributor is for you.

If you start the download import again before any distributor is assigned, the connector declines before the download and offers the way to the vendor mappings.

Assigning Distributors

Open ITscope Connection Setup → Assign Distributors, or click the tile Distributors active on the dashboard.
The Vendor Mappings open, filtered to ITscope. Each line is a distributor with Source Vendor ID (the ITscope distributor ID) and Source Vendor Name.
Give every distributor you buy from a vendor:
- Target Vendor No. — enter the vendor by hand and set the line to Active. Choosing it through the drill-down on Target Vendor Name makes the line active right away.
- Assign Vendors by Name — looks for a vendor with a matching name for the selected lines and assigns unambiguous hits only.
- Create Vendors — creates a new vendor for selected lines without one (number and name only; add posting groups, payment terms and address before the first posting).
Distributors you do not buy from stay inactive. Their offers are skipped and counted on every import.

One vendor per distributor

If the same vendor lists the same item twice — through the same vendor item number or manufacturer part number —, the connector writes neither of the two offers, because the export does not say which one can be ordered. Putting several distributors on one vendor creates exactly this case.

Run 2

Start Run Full Import again. Now the connector writes the offers of every mapped distributor into the supplier data, applies the project prices and creates the accessory relations. The result message ITscope - Import sums up the run; if it wrote nothing, a sentence below the table says why — see Troubleshooting.

Full Import and Update Import

The full export is the complete truth. An offer the full export no longer contains drops to quantity 0 and status Draft after the run — a delisted offer never looks sellable.

This happens only after the run, and only if it ran through completely. If an import is interrupted, nothing is set to zero.
If a full import writes no offer at all although active offers exist, it stops before setting anything to zero — the range stays as the last successful import left it.
If the offer reappears in a later export, it becomes active again.
If a full export suddenly sets a large part of the range to zero, that is the signature of a truncated export — check the file before you continue.

Before its first write, the import checks the header lines of the export files. If the layout differs from the one the connector reads, nothing is imported, and the message names the file and the column. Large exports are written in blocks of 1,000 lines, so a catalog with hundreds of thousands of offers does not lock other users for minutes. While an ITscope import is running, no second one starts — both would write the same offers.

The update export brings prices and stock only, no product master. It writes along the same path as the full import: offers it contains are updated or created, and an offer in status Draft that it contains again becomes active again. What it does not contain stays as it is — it sets nothing to Draft. Project prices are applied again after every run — an update therefore does not overwrite a valid project price with the distributor price.

Import from File

Import from File feeds in a ZIP file that you downloaded from ITscope beforehand. The result is the same as downloading the same file.

On the dashboard and on the ITscope Connection Setup, the action always runs as a full import.
In the import sections, it runs with the definition of the section.

No full export file in the update section

Full and update export have different column positions. The import therefore rejects a full export file in the Update Import section: "The update import received the FULL export" — nothing was imported. If the message appears on a download, the two links in the ITscope settings are probably swapped.

Schedule

The job queue for all supplier connectors is created by the hub: supplier card → Create Job Queue Entries.

Entry	Runs	Runs for ITscope
merchantCENTRAL - Supplier catalog import (all connectors)	daily between 01:00 and 05:00	`ITSCOPE-FULL`
merchantCENTRAL - Supplier stock import (all connectors)	hourly between 06:00 and 23:00	`ITSCOPE-UPDATE`

Scheduled runs first check that ITscope is switched on, the definition is active and the module is licensed. Existing entries stay unchanged when you create them again.

Download Limits

Five minutes. Business Central online waits at most five minutes for a response. ITscope builds the export only when the link is called; with a large range that can take longer. The import then reports an error — wait briefly and start it again: the file built in the meantime arrives in seconds.
150 MiB. Business Central online rejects larger responses. A full export with about 350,000 offers stays well below that at roughly 85 MB.
Throttling. ITscope throttles repeated downloads and locks the account after too many in a row. For test and repeat runs, download the export once in the browser and feed it in with Import from File as often as you need.