Data Management Methods

Interacting with the Outperform application by importing and exporting data is key to normal functioning of the application. There are a couple of different methods to import/export data to the application. The first step is to determine what data is needed and for what purpose the import/export is.

The first reason is to input all the critical business information such as products, warehouses, customers, Bill of Materials, etc. Depending on the installation, this information is usually imported by using one of the ERP data connectors described here. However, in the absence of an ERP integration, this data can be imported via an Excel template. Details of this can be found here.  Any homeless master data, i.e. data that is required by Outperform Planning but cannot be integrated from an ERP system or Excel, can be created and edited in the 'Data Shelter' section within the application. 

Finally, normal users can share reports from the application with non-Outperform Planning users via the export process. Users can also take exported data from Outperform Planning to collaborate and update with non-Outperform Planning users and then return this information to the application. For example, a user can export a specific product forecast, collaborate with a marketing manager, and then import the changes to the system. The how-to of these processes can be seen here.