You’ve just subscribed to the iPoint Library!!! What are you going to do next?
Settings
First things first, you’ve got to set up the settings of the iPoint Library.
Selecting what fields you sync determines what information will come over from the iPoint Library in each nightly sync. So if you are in love with your descriptions right now, leave that unchecked so they aren’t overridden. But you’ll want to check the cost box to make sure you get the latest price changes from your vendors. NOTE that for new items you import from the Library, we will bring over all the data we have as it’s easier for you to start with something and edit it than to have to write your own descriptions.
For approving cost/price changes, we recommend you select that box. This way when a price change occurs with a vendor, you will see a list of all items with a potential price change and you can approve those changes before they go live in your system. This list automatically pops up when you go to the Items list if there are changes pending approval.
Setting up your Vendors and Brands
Ok, settings are out of the way, next we need to know what Vendors and Brands you sell. Click the Manage Saved Vendors & Submit Pricesheets button. This will open anew window where you can import your vendors you want to use. Clicking Import Vendors provides a list of the vendors you have in iPoint and we grab your account number from iPoint right there for you. Select all or scroll through and select the ones you want to use. Then click Add Selected and we’ll load in those vendors.
The next screen you’ll see are all the brands for each of those vendors you selected. Once again you can select all or cherry pick which brands you use. Click Add Selected to load them up.
You will then be presented with a list of all the Brands you selected. The Default box means that is the vendor you use to sell that brand from. You’ll want to sort by Brand by clicking the arrow next to Brand and take a little time to scroll through your brands and make sure your default vendor per brand are accurate. In the screenshot below you can see that our default vendor for Sony products is Tech Data.
Importing Price Sheets
This step is IMPORTANT!
For any vendors we are partnered with (see list here), you do NOT need to submit a price sheet. We will work with that vendor to get you approved at your appropriate pricing level.
For any other vendor, we need you to submit your latest price sheet to us so we can approve you to get future pricing updates at your correct pricing tier. Simplest way to do this is to click Edit for a brand for each vendor, fill in your pricing level and click New Price Sheet. This opens a screen where you can drag and drop your latest price sheet and that submits it to us and we’ll review and get your pricing approved.
I know it may take you some time to submit all your price sheets. Make sure you utilize the Filter to show records with No Price Level Only so you can see the vendors/brands you haven’t touched and know you need to import price sheets for.
We are aiming for same day approvals, but if 20 dealers all submit price sheets for 30 vendors each, we may be slightly delayed.
Permission Sets
Alright, you’ve got your vendors and brands selected! Now onto permission sets to ensure your team can do what you want them to do in the iPoint Library. Head to Settings > Permission Sets and scroll doooooowwwwwwn to the bottom and you’ll see the iPoint Library permissions. Check the appropriate boxes for each of your permission sets.
- Full Access: Gives you everything – you can manage your vendors/brands and import new items
- Import New Items: Let’s those users import items from the iPoint Library into your iPoint file. Great for salespeople so they can easily add products as they are designing a proposal
- Manage Vendors/Brands: Gives user access to the Manage Vendor/Brands & Import Price Sheet section where you set price levels and all that.
BOOM That’s IT!
Congratulations! You’ve setup the iPoint Library! Take a minute, pour yourself a drink and pat yourself heartily on the back!
What, you are too excited for that and want to keep working? OK, that’s cool too!
Next steps are a bit of a waiting game while we authorize your pricing. Tonight iPoint will automatically link up the items in your database with the iPoint Library based on Part number. Tomorrow you can check what items are linked by filtering your items list for Items Linked to iPoint Library. You might also get price updates overnights if the iPoint Library has updated pricing for any of your items. So when you view the Items List you’ll be alerted of any price changes that need approval.
You can also now add items into your iPoint from the iPoint Library. This is done either from the Items List or from the Designer (hopefully making proposal creation faster for your team when they need to add new items!).