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Importing Materials

Empower provides a Wizard that allows Material data to be imported from a spreadsheet.  Using the Wizard can help in reducing potential data entry error.  

If the Material or the Supplier is not in Empower, it will create them.  

If the Material for a particular Supplier is in Empower, the wizard will update Empower with the new data, eg if there is an update with new costs, then the Material costs will be updated.


The spreadsheet needs to be in a particular format, as follows

-   The Sheet name should be Sheet1

 -  Row 1 should have F0 to F26 in it

-  Except for cell A1, the rest of column A should be blank and except for cell B1 the rest of column B should have your user name in it.

-  If you are going to reuse the spreadsheet please delete Material data rows from previous imports - this will make the import much faster.

There are a number of characters that Empower recommends not be used in this spreadsheet - for more information see Special Characters.

The wizard allows up to 999 rows of data to be imported at once.

An example spreadsheet in the format required can be downloaded here.

To start the wizard

1. From the main menu go to Tools > Import Materials.

You should see a page similar to

     


Either drag and drop a file on to the Choose File Button.  If you do this you should see something similar to

  



Note the name of the file (highlighted above in yellow) that has been dragged and dropped onto the Choose File button.

Or alternatively click on the Choose File button.

You should see a standard windows type file selection window (see below)

 

Navigate to the file you wish to import.


Then choose a Template.  A Template is a saved mapping or match up of the fields and spreadsheet columns that you have used on a prior import.  You can have an unlimited number of Templates.


If there are no Templates in the drop down box or if you do not wish to use a previously saved Template click Next to go to Step 2.

2.  If you do select a Template click Next to go to Step 2.



    
 
 

Select the columns that matches or maps to the Empower fields.

Fields that have a red asterix next to them are required fields.   


  3.  Click the Next button to go to Step 3.



    

 
4.  And click on the green Import button.  Depending on the size of your file this may take several minutes.

Once completed, a message will confirm the data has been imported.

To save the column match ups or mappings in a Template for future imports, so you do not need to select them all again type in a name for the Template and click Save Template.  You can save an unlimited number of Templates.

See also