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Walmart Updating Inventory Automated EDI via SFTP

By: Karianne Muckle


Automated EDI Upload via SFTP

Updating inventory information through automated EDI uploads via SFTP works best if your internal systems can automate the delivery and pickup of EDI files.

Dsco with EDI Files

Dsco supports the 4010VICS standard of the EDI 846 file. Note that even if you do not support all different EDI document types, you can still use EDI with Dsco because you can mix and match your integration method to Dsco with what works best for your own systems. For example, you can upload inventory using CSV files and download orders using EDI 850 documents. How you configure your integration with Dsco is up to you. However, note that it is typically much easier for companies and their internal systems to use only one of the EDI formats that Dsco supports, as opposed to using different formats for different documents.

Before contacting Dsco support with questions concerning EDI, please review the following extensive documentation about the Walmart-Dsco EDI specification and its processes:

Once you have reviewed the above documentation, mapped to the Walmart-Dsco EDI specification, and are ready to begin integration, please continue below to configure your SFTP connection to Dsco.

Configure the SFTP Connection

NOTE: If you already configured an SFTP account in a previous step, you can skip this step.

When creating your Dsco account, we also created an SFTP account for your use. We can either use this SFTP account or your own. To see the details of the SFTP account, select Automation in the side navigation and then SFTP in the sub-navigation, or just click here. On the page, you will notice information for connecting to the account, as well as how the file structure works.

Schedule Job Automation

Now it is time to schedule job automation in Dsco. Scheduling jobs gives you control of how often you would like Dsco to process files for you. In this case, you are going to create an import job by following the steps below.

NOTE: If you have already created an EDI Import job, you do not need to do this again. Only one EDI Import job is needed.

  1. Select Automation in the side navigation.
  2. Then select Create Job.
  3. Enter EDI Import as the Job Title.
  4. Select EDI – Import as the Process.
  5. Choose the file Standard from the drop down:
    • Select DSCO. Then select EDI for the File Type, if necessary.
  6. Select Next Step.
  7. Use the Import Source Type to specify whether to use your own or your Dsco account’s SFTP server:
    • To use the SFTP server we created for your account:
      1. Select DSCO SFTP.
      2. The Username, Password, and Location fields will populate for you.
    • To use your own SFTP server:
      1. Select External SFTP.
      2. Specify the Username, Password, and Location values so that Dsco can connect to your server.
    • NOTE: The filename portion of the Location field is always case sensitive, regardless of whether it is your own SFTP server or Dsco’s. Also, each file you send to Dsco MUST have a unique file name. To help Dsco identify the proper file(s) to import, you can use stars (*) as wildcards in the Location field. For example, entering my_dsco_file_* would tell Dsco to process any file that starts with my_dsco_file_. So, my_dsco_file_123, my_dsco_file_is_awesome, and my_dsco_file_#F$32 would all be processed by this job.
  8. Check the Generate 997 Flag checkbox if you would like to receive 997 functional acknowledgements.
  9. Enter an email address in the Failure Notifications email field to receive an email from Dsco whenever an automated job fails. You may enter multiple email addresses by separating each with a comma.
  10. Click Next Step.
  11. Select from the Run This Job dropdown the frequency at which you will send new data to Dsco. It is best-practice to set this to run hourly to ensure that Dsco stays up-to-date.
  12. Click Save Job.

If you schedule the job to run every hour (or any other periodic option), it will continue to do so indefinitely. As scheduled, the job will continue to check the SFTP to see if there are any files ready for processing. If there is a file ready for processing Dsco will process it, if not then the job will automatically terminate.

File Transaction History

A powerful feature in Dsco is the ability to view the history of any file processing in Dsco. This goes for all manual or automated uploads or downloads. You can use it now to see if the file you sent Dsco was properly loaded onto the platform. To check your automation history, select Automation in the main navigation and then select History, or just click here.

On this page, you will see a list of all the processes that have run on your account. On the left side are options to filter the list on the right. One of the most useful is the Did Work checkbox. Selecting this checkbox will filter the list to show only processes that actually performed some type of work importing inventory or exporting orders.

You may see the top process in the list has a Status of Queued, Running, or Finished. If you refresh the page, you may see the status change depending on the state of the process. Some processes may take a couple of minutes to complete if there are many records being processed. Once you see the Status is Finished you can see a summary of the Result of the process —- how many records were Successful, Failed or Ignored —- on the far right side. Click the Finished/Failed link and you will see the specific result of each record in the process. If they were not successful, the history will tell you exactly what failed and why.

Import an Inventory Update

Now that you have configured your SFTP connection to Dsco and scheduled job automation, you can import an inventory update to Dsco and I will perform my test. Please continue to the following steps:

  1. Please send a file that contains at least one inventory update to the SFTP connection you configured.
  2. Verify that the file has been sent to the SFTP location you previously configured. Note that if you are using a 3rd-party SFTP provider, you will need to contact your provider to ensure they delivered the file.
  3. Run the job automation immediately. To do this select Automation in the main navigation and then click the Run Now icon in the action list next to the import job.

Inventory Update Test

Once you have successfully updated the quantity of an item in your inventory, enter the SKU, click the button below and I will validate your inventory update.