Microsoft Dynamics RMS to CR Database Import Q&A

Modified on Mon, 25 Jul, 2022 at 9:34 AM

Overview

A key message relating to importing of historical data: historical data brought in as a result of an import should be regarded as reference only. It's a great help if you need to know how much of something sold last year to plan your buying this year. In the event you need data that is perfectly accurate eg; for an IRS auditor, or to pay last month's sales tax then you should run the report from the original system. It's simple to keep the backups around for a long time as required.

It is against RITE policy to allow customers to use previous data imported from a 3rd party system for any data reporting where Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) would be applicable.

Q: If I'm migrating multiple stores and I want to import the sales history from one store and then a month later import the sales history from another store, can I do that?

A: Yes, but... The system links the sales history to the products and customers records in a particular way so:

If you change an item lookup code and it can no longer find a match it won't import that sales record. If you create a new product in the RMS databases still being used it must be inputted into CR using the same item lookup code as a result.
If you modify a customer record in RMS and that record is not updated in CR then it will likely create a new customer record.
If you modify a supplier code, location code or product code in RMS, please let us know and/or update it in CR to avoid duplication

Q: Will the import merge customer records?

A: It may. We do not use account numbers as the key differentiator for the customer import, we instead check first name, last name, and the address 1 field. If those are all the same, we assume it's the same customer. The result is that if you have 2 customer accounts in RMS with the same information but separate accounts the two will be merged when importing into CR. This is particularly useful for multi-store customers moving over to CR.

Q: If I have a single store and I want to migrate one POS over today and import my sales history and then a month from now migrate the remaining POS stations over, can I?

A: Yes, however, the same rules mentioned above regarding products and customers apply in this scenario as well.

Q: Will my sales journal images move over with the import?

A: No. While we can import the sales transaction history, we cannot migrate images of the receipts printed in RMS.

Q: Will my tax data move over?

A: Yes, however, all historical data imported should be used for reference only. If you are being audited by the IRS the imported data may not have the level of accuracy required to provide that level of detail. Please continue to keep a backup of your RMS database or printed reports for this purpose.

Q: Why are my imported sold costs for sales history not an exact match to RMS?

A: We apply FIFO costing to sales history as well based on past purchase orders to maintain consistency with costing in Cloud Retailer. All values applied to sales are derived from imported purchase orders.

Q: Will sale prices and other price changes import into cloud retailer on our final import?

A: Yes. We do a final import before go live to gather any item changes made since the initial import. This includes sales prices, sale start and end dates, regular prices changes, cost, and other attributes. Changing a primary item lookup code however will result in a new item created and this should be avoided.

Q: Will my discount schemes move over?

A: Yes! Most Discount schemes should automatically import into Cloud Retailer. However, we will need to create names for these imported discounts as RMS doesn't always have a name for a discount. These imported discounts will import from RMS as "RMS Imported Discounts" and should be easily identifiable as such.

Q: Can I migrate multiple stores worth of data over if I'm not using RMS HQ?

A: No. Due to database inconsistencies between systems, there's no easy way to cleanly merge the data. We've tried in the past and the results were not very good. We had a well-organized client with 3 large liquor stores with what they had products set up in their system consistently. What we found were things like:

Smirnoff Vodka 750 ml - UPC 12345 @ Store 1 with an alternate of 5555Smirnoff Vodka 1 liter - alternate UPC 12345 @ Store 2Smirnoff Vodka Vanilla Flavor 750 ml - UPC 12345 @ Store 3Smirnoff Vodka 1 liter - alternate UPC of 5555 @ Store 3

This is a near-literal example and these folks were well organized! The best part was when they tried to figure out which product UPC 12345 or 5555, they couldn't find those UPCs on any product as they were probably old. As a result, when we were trying to attach sales data to a product record the system had no clue how to manage it.

For customers that absolutely need an import process that varies from our SOP we recommend that they manage it through our import utilities themselves OR if they commission us to do something custom, the costs are significant - because the work is complex, tedious, and hard to get right (risky). Typically starting at $5,000.

Q: Will any of my Product Codes (UPCs) Change?

A: Yes. Certain special characters will be replaced with an Underscore ( _ ) during the import process. Characters that will be replaced include the following: & # $ ( ) . * ^ , ; and blank spaces. There may also be cases where because of these substitutions there are multiple products with a very similar code. In this case, we will add an underscore and a number to the end (ie 5555_1 and 5555_2, etc). As a result of these changes, some of your products may not scan. In these cases, you can still search the product by description and complete the sale at the POS.

Q: Does Any of my Supplier / Reorder Information Change?

A: Yes. However, in RMS, Blank Reorder Numbers were allowed and in Cloud Retailer, they are not. We will replace any blank reorder numbers with the Item's Product ID. This ID will be prefixed by a series of letters so you can identify these for later updates. Additionally, CR does not allow 2 products from the same supplier to share a Reorder Number. In the event that you currently have duplicate ReorderNumbers, we will append the ID of the entry to the Reorder number; eg; AB1234_1122 and AB1234_5526 instead of 2 copies of AB1234.

Q: Can You Import my Cashier's?

A: Yes, but not their Passwords. Please check with your Project Manager regarding the password reset procedures that are needed after the import is complete.

Q: What about Deleted Employees?

A: All records associated with a Deleted Employee will be mapped to a new Cashier named 'Unknown Cashier' and will be imported under that user. (Sales Transactions, Purchase Orders, etc)

Q: What will happen to items or other things I've deleted from RMS?

A: Products which have been deleted from RMS but which are present on a sales transaction will be mapped to an item named 'Deleted Item' this will allow historical sales data for retired items to import, but not the item itself. Inactive items from RMS will be imported to CR as inactive items. Cashiers and Customers who have been removed will also be remapped to an Unknown Cashier record to ensure accurate reports.

Q: What about Aliases?

A: As long as your Alias exists in RMS and isn't also the primary UPC of another item, it should import no problem.

Q: What about Loyalty Points, Vouchers, Gift Cards, etc...

A: RITE Fireworks Loyalty Points will be imported if they exist. RMS Vouchers, RITE Gift and some 3rd Party gift card or loyalty services can also be imported. For anything related to a 3rd Party, please mention to your CSL during the product kick-off meeting so we can be sure to prepare any required import files for you.

Q: Do I have to close all my Purchase Orders before import?A: We will import Open Purchase Orders from RMS to CloudRetailer. The imported Purchase Orders will carry over the Date Created from RMS to Cloud Retailer. To ensure a fully accurate inventory, you should close all Purchase Orders that are received before the Import. Any unfulfilled Purchase Orders should remain open; however, you will need to update the EntryTime of the imported Purchase Order when you close the Purchase Order. If you have questions, please speak with your Import Tech.

Q: Will the import move ALL my data over?

A: It will move a lot of it but not all, for example, there are product fields in RMS that don't exist in CR and vice versa. Those data fields are not mapped.

Once we complete the import the onus is on the retailer to check and verify that the data import meets their expectations. If something did not get imported in a way the user finds suitable it is likely that it will not be able to be imported after the fact without incurring additional costs or possibly not at all.

Some other key bullet points (some of which repeat but bear repeating):

Sales data is imported BUT images of the sales receipts (journals) are not.
Historical timeclock data is not imported from RMS
Inventory transfers that are not inner store are created as purchase orders with no supplier with either a positive or negative quantity.
Cloud Retailer does not have the ability to do partial purchase orders. As a result, imported partial POs will import as fully completed POs with the quantities set to whatever the received quantity was.
Your inventory levels are imported as a physical inventory count on go-live day. During testing, you may notice stale or inaccurate counts.
While product discounts ARE imported, you should always double check that they import and function as you expect they should. If not, it's often a matter of updating settings as the CloudRetailer Discount engine is much more powerful than in RMS.
Gift cards CAN be well managed during a multi-store deployment. If you're using RITE Gift, your old POS stations can be connected to Cloud Retailer to retrieve balances during the migration.
Work orders, layaways, quotes, and hold orders will not be imported.
Matrix sub items will but the parent matrix item will not. Same holds true for lot matrix and assembly items.
Serial numbers and history will not be imported.
Cloud Retailer does not have "sales rep" functionality or commission tracking so this data will not be imported.
Keg registration - old keg registrations will NOT be migrated. We recommend that you print or export the old data and use the printout to manage it during the interim OR distribute an online spreadsheet like Google Spreadsheets.
Loyalty - you're using a loyalty app with points; we can typically import these values but discussion may be required.
Worksheet history (in RMS HQ) would not be imported.
Credit card type data (Visa versus Mastercard versus Discover) that you'd typically see on the consolidated Z will not be imported. Electronic signatures captured from credit card processing will also not import.
Parent-child relationships will not move into Cloud Retailer. We have a concept called "Unit of measure" that is a replacement for this functionality however it's not identical in function and therefore does not automatically migrate. We DO have an import feature for unit of measure. If this is a concern, please speak to your project manage prior to data import.
Cloud Retailer ONLY uses sale start and end dates to evaluate if something is on sale. In RMS there's an additional checkbox, which we ignore when importing data. If an item has a sale start and end date and the current date is inside that date range it WILL ring up with that sale price.

NOTE: This advanced import functionality is ONLY available for Microsoft RMS migrations and is likely not available for other types of imports.