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O/PUS® PSN Price File Advice

While several vendors include their general catalogs in the OPdb® Multi-Vendor Catalog Update, all vendors offer additional pricing plans, programs, flyers, and catalogs with special items and pricing, with updates quarterly, even monthly, weekly, and daily. You can download these vendor-specific price files and loading programs from the O/PUS Private Supply Network (PSN) service using PSNControl, and process the data using the (+IFP) Process a file screen.

To help ensure that your quarter-end procedures go smoothly, we offer a collection of FAQs related to O/PUS PSN Price File Advice. We hope that this information will help make your quarterly update faster and easier. For the latest information on your O/PUS quarterly update, please see O/PUS Update Notes.

Determining Which Pricing Plans to Load

Before loading your O/PUS update, you need to find out from your vendor which pricing plans you need to load, and if a specific dealer cost level or consumer price column applies. You also need to find out whether your pricing plans are included on the O/PUS OPdb™ CD-ROM, or if you need to obtain them from the O/PUS BPIR. To learn how to find the answers to these questions, please read FAQ #126: Determining Which Price Plans to Load. If you are an ASP dealer, see Determining Which Pricing Plans to Load for ASP (pdf)

See FYI² Notes for Price Files in the SIMPLE Update

In the quarterly newsletter, “For Your Immediate Information – OPdb MultiVendor Update” (also known as FYI² Notes), you will find news for this quarter and vendor-specific notes.

The "Contracts & Flyers & Programs" section lists the names of vendor price files that can be loaded using the SIMPLE wizard as part of the O/PUS OPdb catalog update. You will also find each file's dealer cost level and consumer price column, if applicable.

Make sure the edition you're viewing is up to date. We will announce publication in a mass email message to all O/PUS Customers and put a link to it with the date it's published in the section for each new quarter on the O/PUS Update Notes page.

Vendor-, Plan-Specific "U-" Loading Programs

If you download price files from the PSN, the items and pricing are not yet reflected in your Item database and contracts. You must run the appropriate vendor loading program from the (+IFP) Run Program option in the OPdb Toolbox.

For a list of vendor-specific loading programs, see Vendor Price File Loading Instructions.

The vendor loading programs, (a.k.a. "U_" programs) are available for download from the O/PUS Business Products Information Resources (BPIR™) via PSNControl.

The U_ programs are engineered to be plan specific — they will ask you questions that relate to the specific plan that you are loading. For instance, instead of asking you if the plan is a Catalog or a Promotion, the program will already know!

The program will notify you how the file will be loaded:

If it is a Catalog, it will create new inventory records and update wholesaler (I-WHL) information on existing inventory records.
If it is a Promotion, the file may have dealer costs, consumer pricing, or both. New cost and pricing records will be loaded into the multi-vendor Scanalog (I-CAT) file if the promotional items exist in your inventory. Special consumer prices can be loaded into a DDMS contract.

If necessary, you can switch between promotion and catalog by typing “SWITCH” in the filename field once the program indicates how it will be loaded.

See the revised Electronic Item Update Instructions for each vendor.

When to Process Vendor Pricing Files

Some pricing files contain only selling prices. These files can be processed at any time.

However, some pricing files include dealer costs, especially files where a dealer cost level is specified. These files must be processed after you load the O/PUS update, but before you perform post-load procedures.

If you're not sure whether your pricing file contains dealer costs, it's safer to process it between the O/PUS update and the post-load procedures.

Here is a brief outline of the procedure:

Download the pricing files, using O/PUS PSNControl. You may do this before loading the O/PUS update or afterwards.
Load the O/PUS update.
Process pricing files that may have dealer costs, using the (+I-F-P) screen.
Set your purchasing vendor using the (+I-L), (+I-Z), or (+I-T) screens.

For more details in the sequence of steps, please use the O/PUS Quick Reference Checklist and O/PUS Quarter-End Procedure FAQs.

How To Load the Price Files for Each Vendor

Vendor-specific instructions for loading pricing files are available for viewing, downloading, and printing from the Vendor-Specific BPIR Instructions page.

To receive instructions for loading buying group price files and vendor price files that are not listed on our Web page, contact your buying group or vendor representative or email the BPIR Support Group at bpirsupport@eci2.com.

Check File Availability, Date As You Download

Because of the speed of the O/PUS PSN service, you will know within seconds if your pricing files are available from O/PUS.

Check price file availability as you download by following these steps:

Run PSN Control by clicking Start > Programs > PSN Control.
At Select Update Quarter, click the quarter for which you are downloading files (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th).
At Enter File Name, type the name of the pricing file and press ENTER or click the Add to File Transfer List button. The file name appears in the File Transfer List on the right side of the screen. Repeat for each pricing file you need to download.
Click the Transfer button. For each file being downloaded, the screen indicates:
- which pricing file is currently being downloaded
- how many bytes have been transferred so far
- how many bytes must be transferred in total
- where the files are being downloaded (PSNControl version 1.0.130 and higher)
- “Download Complete” and last updated date for each completed file
- “File Not Found” in the event a file cannot be downloaded

To see a picture of the PSNControl Window, please see http://www.ddms.com/resources/support/faq/opus/PSNControlWindow.htm

For additional information, please see the online help, by clicking the Help button in the PSNControl window.

What To Do If PSNControl Reports File Not Found

If there is a problem downloading a selected pricing file, the message “File Not Found” appears in the PSN File Transfer List. If this occurs, you can still get the pricing file(s) by following these steps:

1 Check that the filename you entered is spelled correctly, and try again. Hints:

• Most Action files start with “AC-”
• Most Emco files start with “EM-”
• All Horizon files start with “H-“
• All O’Henry files start with “OH-”
• All United 3-character files end with “-Q3,” “-Q4,” etc. (depending on the quarter)
• Most loading program files begin with “U_”

2 Contact your vendor to confirm that the filename you entered is the correct name, and that they have sent the pricing file to O/PUS. If they have sent the file, find out when they did so.

Note: Files sent to O/PUS for BPIR distribution may require up to 2 business days to process. If it has not been two business days since the vendor sent the file, please wait two business days and then try your download again.

3 If, after waiting the necessary two business days after the file was sent to O/PUS, PSNControl still indicates “File Not Found,” please complete the O/PUS PSN ‘File Not Found’ form.

There are two versions of the form:

A Microsoft® Word file that you can email. (PSNFileDownload.doc) To use the Word form, open the file and fill it out. E-mail the completed form to bpirsupport@eci2.com
An Adobe® Acrobat Reader file that you can fill out online for optimum readability. (PSNFileDownload.pdf) To use the Acrobat form, open the file and fill it out. Then print the form and fax it to 682-831-9909. (Friday, September 26, 2008 12:05 PM Adobe Acrobat installed, it will not send the data you entered.)

H. How to Get the O/PUS PSN Service

The O/PUS PSN service is part of the ECi PSN. If you do not already have an O/PUS BPIR account set up for the PSN, you can sign up to download O/PUS pricing files via PSN. See Starting a New PSN Account.