This article is intended for Suppliers who are interested in onboarding to the National Product Catalogue (NPC) for ITM and are already using the NPC for other retailers.
Overview
ITM is working hard to transform their product information management processes to ensure they have the correct, and most up to date product master data. They are using the NPC as one of their tools to help with this process. The NPC is an online data sharing solution that will help you enter, validate, store, maintain and share all your product details with ITM.
ITM Onboarding Steps:
The following sections cover the NPC onboarding process for ITM:
- Request sent from ITM to set up your National Product Catalogue (NPC).
- Initial contact from GS1 to discuss the steps involved in getting your catalogue set up.
- Sign up to the NPC for ITM
- Complete project ‘Start Up’ meeting with GS1
- Complete NPC training (if required)
- Determine product range for ITM
- Update the NPC for ITM
- Data Validation completed by GS1
- Further updates to the NPC based on feedback from GS1 (if required)
- Final Data Validation completed by GS1
- NPC catalogue signed off as ‘Ready’ by GS1
- Data audit completed by ITM
- NPC catalogue signed of as ‘Live’ by ITM
Step 1 & 2: Communication from ITM and GS1
You will receive a request from ITM to sign up to the NPC. You will then be contacted by your account manager at GS1 to discuss the different options and the costs associated with onboarding to the NPC for ITM.
Step 3: Sign up to the NPC for ITM
To officially start the onboarding process for ITM, you will be required to complete an NPC Registration form. This can be found on the GS1 website here.
Step 4: Complete project ‘Start Up’ meeting with GS1
Once GS1 has received your NPC registration form for ITM, one of our Implementation team will be in contact to talk you through the onboarding process and the data requirements for ITM. Click here for further details on the ITM data requirements.
Step 5: NPC Training
If you are a new user to the NPC or feel you need a refresher on how to use the NPC then GS1 will organize a training session with you.
Step 6: Determine product range for ITM
Before you start to make changes to the NPC for ITM we suggest that you first determine what products are currently ranged with ITM. To do this we recommend that you pull a report from your system that shows all the products sold to the ITM network in the past two years. You will use this list to determine which products to 'publish' to the NPC for ITM.
Step 7: Update the NPC for ITM
Complete the following steps to ensure the full product range for ITM is loaded to the NPC:
- Pull a data extract from the NPC and run a comparison against the product range report you pulled from your system for ITM. This will identify any products already in the NPC for other retailers, as well as products that you will need to add. (Please talk to GS1 if you would like some help with this process).
- Where applicable update the item data for the existing products in the NPC to ensure the data is up to date and applicable for ITM.
- Load any products that are missing from the NPC.
- Load a price for all products applicable for ITM.
- Ensure the full range for ITM has been ‘published’ to ITM
For articles to help you through this process please see the links below:
- Add a product to the NPC
- Creating a Price in the NPC
- How to bulk add/change products and prices to the NPC
- ITM Pricing Guidelines
Steps 8, 9, 10 & 11- Data Validation and ‘Ready’ Status
Once you are confident that the all the data has been loaded to the NPC for ITM please get in contact with GS1 so they can run a data validation against the products you have published to ITM. During this process GS1 will be assessing the following:
- All the data requirements for ITM have been meet for each product
- All products have a price for ITM
- All products that were included in the initial range report have been published correctly to ITM
- Review the quality of the data entered to ensure it meets the correct standards
Once this process has been completed, GS1 will be in contact to let you know if any further changes are required. If necessary GS1 will run a final data validation to ensure all the data meets ITM’s requirements.
Once GS1 has confirmed that all ITM’s data requirements have been meet, and that key staff are capable of maintaining the NPC they will send out a 'Ready' certificate which confirms that the data is now ready for ITM to review and consume.
Steps 12 & 13 - Data audit and 'Live' Status
ITM will complete an audit of the product and price data that has been published to them in the NPC and if they are happy with the data, they will make your NPC catalogue ‘Live’.
A Live status means that going forward all product and price changes for ITM must be provided to ITM via the NPC.
Created: 27 July 2021