Common Problems

The most frequent obstacles in a DATANORM import, with cause and remedy.

During import

The file is not read, or the session ends with an error

Cause — The file is not a DATANORM file, is compressed, or the header record is missing.

Remedy — Check the first line of the file: it must start with V. Unpack compressed deliveries first. A covering letter or an Excel list cannot be imported.

Umlauts appear as odd characters

Cause — The file was opened in a text editor and saved as UTF-8 before importing. DATANORM files are DOS-encoded.

Remedy — Use the supplier's original file, unmodified.

You expected twice as many article rows but staging has half

Cause — Not an error. In DATANORM 4 the A and B record of an article are merged into one record.

Remedy — The Merged Source Records field shows how many lines the record was built from. See Differences Between DATANORM 4 and 5.

Very many records are flagged as duplicates

Cause — The file has already been imported, or an earlier session is sitting unsynchronised in staging and is being checked too.

Remedy — Check the import sessions for an earlier run of the same file. Turn off Check Pending Staging for Duplicates if you deliberately keep older sessions open. See Duplicates and Validation.

Articles from different suppliers overwrite each other

Cause — Match Duplicates per Vendor is off and both suppliers use the same article numbers.

Remedy — Enable the option and pick the correct vendor when importing.

During synchronisation

The item has no base unit of measure

Cause — There is no mapping for the unit code from the file.

Remedy — Run DATANORM Setup → Initialize Units and add missing codes in the unit mapping. Then synchronise the record again.

Synchronisation reports a missing posting group

Cause — One of the item defaults in the setup is empty or points at a value that does not exist.

Remedy — Set the general product posting group, VAT product posting group and inventory posting group in Base Configuration and synchronise again.

No item is created at all

Cause — The records are still on Review and not approved, or the number series is exhausted.

Remedy — Approve staging; check the number series under No. Series.

With prices

No price lines were written

Cause — The articles are not synchronised yet, or the selected price source holds no value.

Remedy — Synchronise the articles first. Set Purchase Price Source to Net Price then List Price. See Purchase Price Lists.

Writing the price list stops with a message about the vendor

Cause — No vendor is assigned to the import.

Remedy — Run Assign Vendor on the import session.

Prices ended up in the wrong vendor's price list

Cause — The import ran with the default vendor, for example via SFTP.

Remedy — Run Assign Vendor and then repeat Write Purchase Price List. Review the lines under the wrong vendor in that vendor's price list afterwards.

Discounts have no effect on the price

Cause — Apply Discount Groups to Purchase Price is off, or the .RAB file was imported after the price list was written, or the supplier delivers 0%.

Remedy — Enable the option, import .RAB first, write the price list again. See Discount Groups.

With part lists

No BOM is created

Cause — Process Part Lists or Create Assembly BOM from Part Lists is off, or the file contains no J records.

Remedy — Check both options and look at DATANORM Part Lists: if the list is empty, the file contains no sets.

Lines are marked as "Skipped"

Cause — No item exists for the component, or it is an optional line while Include Optional Set Lines is off.

Remedy — Synchronise the missing items and run Build Part Lists again. See Building Assembly BOMs.

Manual additions to a BOM have disappeared

Cause — A repeat import replaced the BOM. DATANORM always delivers sets in full.

Remedy — Keep bundles of your own on a separate item, not on the DATANORM set item.

With SFTP import

No files are collected

Cause — Enabled is off, the job queue is not running, the name filter does not match, or the Azure Function is unreachable.

Remedy — Read the Last Polling Status field in the SFTP setup, run the connection test, and open DATANORM SFTP Files to see what is in the inbound folder. See Automated SFTP Import.

Unrelated files create failed sessions

Cause — The file name filter is too broad.

Remedy — Narrow the filter, for example to DATANORM.*.

With the licence

Import and synchronisation are aborted

Cause — The trial period of a directly supplied sandbox build has expired. Installations from AppSource are unaffected; there the entitlement follows the subscription.

Remedy — Check the status in the setup and either extend the trial through Support Contacts or move to the AppSource version. Data already imported stays intact.