GDSN Accelerator
Providing an interface to the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) for accurate product data exchange
This add-on to Product 360 lets you synchronize product data with GS1 GDSN standards. Throughout the lifecycle of a product, many people rely on access to information about that product and that product information must constantly be maintained and updated by manufacturers and brands. After all, reliable and even more detailed product information is required to comply with changing regulations and satisfy consumer expectations of accessing product information from any channel. Distributors, retailers, and operators are constantly challenged with insufficient and inaccurate product data across their warehouses, stores or online.
Enter the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), a system of interoperable data pools and a global product classification system and registry, that enables companies to exchange standardized and synchronized supply chain data with their trading partners. Suppliers and retailers can cut down the cost of building point-to-point integrations and speed product introductions by accessing the most accurate and most current product information.
The Informatica GDSN Accelerator is an add-on to the Informatica Product 360 system that provides access to the 1WorldSync Item Management and Data Sync Engine - two GDSN-certified data pools. It is designed to help organizations securely and continuously exchange, update, and synchronize product data with trading partners according to the standards defined by GS1.
After being integrated in your Product 360 system, the GDSN accelerator helps you easily transfer product data to the data pool and fully control the information shared with a specific trading partner. The solution offers great flexibility to map item attributes to the GDSN standard and can be tailored to customer specific needs like providing industry-specific or optional fields.
There are many benefits of using the GDSN Accelerator:
Provides improved and consistent product data quality across the entire supply chain, increasing the accuracy of orders, reducing invoice errors, streamlining processes and slashing supply-chain costs
Improves efficiency and collaboration with trading partners as it shares and updates product information quickly
Streamlines and accelerates item setup processes and automates data exchange between data sources and recipients by accessing a single source of the truth. This helps speed time to market and time to shelf for new products or products with modified attributes like ingredients or package sizes.
Can support manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to comply with regulations, and satisfies consumer and regulatory demands for more and better product information
Informatica is a partner of 1WorldSync, atrify and GS1 Germany
Item Management
Item Management "IM" is the data pool solution of 1WorldSync inc, former 1Sync. This is mainly used in USA.
Standard GDSN
We implemented the Accelerator against the Data Sync Engine "DSE" which is the data pool solution of atrify (former 1WorldSync GmbH). This pool is commonly used in Europe. In this documentation the terms "Standard GDSN" and "DSE" are used interchangeably.
The GDSN accelerator for Product 360
The GDSN accelerator consists of three main features. The first one is the data model extension. For GDSN Major Release 3, we made our data model compliant and added further parts of the GDSN Extension Food and Beverage. The second feature provided with the GDSN accelerator is a lot of data quality rules and rule configurations to check if the data which will be sent to the GDSN data pool is valid. Last but not least it contains templates to export the data in the corresponding format which will be accepted by the GDSN data pool.
Data model extension
The Product 360 data model supports the core GDSN data model attributes, most of the Food and Beverage extension and the Canada extension (IM only). A complete list of all provided fields can be found in the chapter "GDSN Accelerator field list". The included languages are English and German for field labels, value lists and descriptions, other languages need to be accessed from the local GS1 Organization, as they refer to standardized terms and cannot be translated without introducing ambiguity and confusion.
Packaging hierarchies
GDSN defines a special hierarchy for items, the so-called packaging hierarchy. In Product 360 this packaging hierarchy is represented by a special reference type called Next lower level. You can build a packaging hierarchy by creating a reference of type Next lower level from one item to another. The important thing here is that the parent has a reference to the child with the corresponding quantity (number). One example is shown in the screenshot below where a case was dropped on a pallet to create a packaging hierarchy. Here the created packaging hierarchy will contain one pallet with 25 cases.
The existing "Item references" view can be used to edit respectively delete the Next lower level references:
New UI components
With the GDSN accelerator Product360 provides new UI views within several UI perspectives like "GDSN (core)" and "Food and beverage (core)" where the attributes can be displayed and maintained. All views except the GDSN packaging hierarchy support the full repertoire of standard functionality like grouping, filtering etc. Please find more detailed information for the packaging view in chapter "GDSN Accelerator operation". Product 360 Web also provides UI components to visualize and maintain GDSN data with some limitations mentioned below.
Limitations of Product 360 Web
The publication status view is also not available in Product 360 Web
In Product 360 Web language specific GDSN attributes can only be maintained in the key language, but it is possible to adjust the XML configurations
Communicating with the GDSN data pool
Product 360 uses the core competence of its export to send the data to the GDSN pool. The export creates an XML file according to an XSD schema defined by the pool in use. This file will be sent to either OpenAS2, which is the recommended approach, or to Informatica B2B DX which forwards it to the connected GDSN pool. OpenAS2 and Informatica B2B DX can be seen as a mediator who communicates with the GDSN pool. The picture below gives an overview of the interaction of all three systems using Informatica B2B DX.
Answers from the GDSN pool
After a message from Product 360 is sent to either OpenAS2 or Informatica B2B DX, immediately a "Publication status" is written back to Product 360 to indicate that the message was received. The message will be forwarded to the GDSN pool and the answer of the pool will be transferred from OpenAS2/Informatica B2B DX to Product 360 by writing a "Publication status".
Media assets
The data model of media assets was enhanced with five new GDSN related fields. The field "Uniform resource identifier" contains the URL to the image to add to your data in the GDSN pool.
Please note that there is currently no supported way to upload physical images to the GDSN pool.