Simpro's Data Feed just got smarter.

With Natural Language Processing, creating custom feeds and mapping data extraction fields is a breeze. Learn more in our on-demand webinar and revolutionize your data entry processes.

Discover the power of Data Feed automation in this podcast episode! Join us as we explore the benefits and features of this time-saving tool, with expert insights and a comprehensive demo. Streamline your data entry processes and boost productivity with Simpro's Data Feed. 

Read more here: https://www.simprogroup.com/resources/podcasts/episode-11

This is Trades, Tools & Talks, a podcast powered by Simpro.

I'm your host, Karlie.

Huckels.

It's time to say goodbye to tedious data entry tasks and

reclaim your valuable time.

You can effortlessly automate manual data entry with Bonitao's Data Feed

to get time back into your day.

In this episode, we're gonna learn more about it.

Let's dig in.

Hi everybody and welcome to an on-Demand webinar on Data Feed.

My name's Bonita Reck.

I'm a product marketing specialist here at Simpro.

And joining me today I've got Jodi Honan, who is the product manager for Data Feed.

Hi, Bonita.

So on the agenda today, we will be discussing what is data feed?

Who is data feed for?

We'll be doing a in-depth demo of data feed and how to create a

receipt for a po and we'll also look at what's new in data feed.

So what is data feed?

Feed is an add-on that can be purchased and added to an

existing Simpro premium build.

It's a data automation tool that can help eliminate or reduce the

need for manual data entry tasks.

And what's really great about data feed is that once it's set up, it automatically

scans and extracts information from emails and attachments such as PDFs, CSV files,

scanned and image files, and it enters it as that desired information into Simpro

premium through things called feeds.

This is especially helpful when automating tasks, such as receiving a po, creating

a new job, creating a lead, updating a new job, creating a new quote,

update an existing quote, receive a packing slip, or creating a new task.

When you set up your feeds, you can tell data, feed what information

you want it to extract, and it'll store those settings and continue to

perform this task around the clock.

So Jody, what is a feed?

A second feed is similar to a rule in your emails.

Importantly, one feed can only contain one rule or connection between data and its

corresponding action in Simpro premium.

For example, a specific supplier invoice feed has been mapped exactly to suit

that supplier, so that equals one feed a second supplier with a different P D F

invoice layout will equal another feed.

Therefore, this customer would need two feeds in total.

Great.

So let's jump into a quick demonstration where Jody will show how to receipt a po.

Take it away, Jody.

To begin setting up your own feeds, please ensure that you have

your data feed admin settings enabled in your security group permissions.

Once these are enabled, you can access data feed via the

utilities menu, and then data feed.

With the admin function enabled in your permissions group, you will now have

access to the feeds tab where you will be able to go in, start creating your

own feeds, or modify any existing feeds that you have to create a new feed.

Simply click on the create feed button.

Create a new feed and select from the list of fee types available for you today.

For our demonstration, we'll be creating a receipt, a purchase order

feed, where this will allow you to upload your supplier invoice.

We'll have it emailed directly into the feeds and then have this

process to receipt your purchase order, firstly, click on the

receipt purchase order fee type.

If you have a multi-company build, select your multi your company

name, then enter in your feed name.

If you would like to receive email notifications, simply enter

in the email address you wish the notification to be sent to.

If you'd like to send to multiple people, just separate the email addresses.

If you would like to only send for feeds that failed to be processing.

Just simply select this little tick box here.

This way it will stop you from getting emails from every time a feed has been

successfully processed, and you'll only receive the email for feeds that

have not been able to be processed.

If you are receiving.

Processing an email which, which will have your PDF attachment in there.

Just leave this attachment type as any attachments.

And that will allow you to process any attachment type or extract

data from any attachment type.

That is included in your email.

If you are know, you're only processing from a particular file type.

Like today.

We're just, we know we're getting the data solely from a pdf.

I'm just gonna select PDF here.

While you're testing your feed setup, you can just use interactive mode.

Once you are happy that your feed is processed and all the data extracted

is correct, you can update this to production mode and that will process all

of your feeds automatically once they're received into the, your emails and.

Once you've got your feed details set up, click on the next button.

The next page is uploading your document or selecting the file You're going to

be extracting the data from, because I know I'm only extracting from a P

D F file and I've already uploaded my document via the documents tab.

I can just select on the list and that will show me all the current PDFs that are

uploaded that have not yet been processed.

If you haven't uploaded your file, Simply click here and you'll be able

to select your file from your computer.

Today we're gonna process a Bunnings invoice.

So once your invoice is uploaded, you'll be able to see an

example copy of the invoice.

If it's not correct, simply click on the remove button and that will

allow you to upload your file.

Again, once you're happy, your file is correct.

Click on the next button.

The next page is selecting your mailbox.

So your mailbox is used.

It's a unique email address that you can either set up auto forwarding

rules to for your suppliers.

Or you can also send this email address directly to your supplier

and they can email the supplier invoices directly to this, and that

will go through and process the feed without any auto forwarding rules.

If you just want a one-to-one basis for every feed, so one mailbox for every feed.

That you create, you can just click on this box here.

Just enter a name for the mailbox so it's easy for you to find in your mailbox list.

If you are receiving from an email and you're going to be using the same

mailbox for multiple feeds, please ensure that you set up email matching rules.

You can use a number of different options here to select this,

and then you just enter in.

If you're using the subject line, so the text contained in the subject line and

you know it, the text is going to include Bunnings, you can just enter that in there

and when the feed gets processed to the mailbox, it will first look to see if

the Bunnings is included in the subject line, and then it will know to use this

particular feed to process this invoice.

If you're using another feeds mailbox, so using the, an existing mailbox that may

be applied to multiple different feeds.

Just select the mailbox from the list here.

Scroll to the bottom, and again, you'll see the The advanced filters,

if you click on that, it will show you any other feeds that are actually

using that particular mailbox, so you know not to reuse the same text.

For the email matching rules.

The fixed data page, this will allow you to predefine your vendor name that will

be applied for this particular feed.

If you're using accounting categories, you can apply your accounting category here.

Also, if you are using, if you know you're going to be extracting freight from

the supplier invoice, you will need to select a freight tax code in this field

here for the freight to be extracted.

If this isn't selected here and you're extracting freight, the freight won't

be applied to your receipts and any information selected in the fixed

data page, regardless of the fee type.

Once you get to your data extraction settings, you won't be able to apply.

You won't be able to extract that same data again.

It will, this will be the source of truth for the feed.

Next is our business rule.

So this is pretty vital in setting up a fee.

So this is what your business processes are going to be pretty much.

So if you hover for the business rules, I'll give you a little

explanation as to what each of them do when they're enabled and disabled.

So each fee type has got their own list of business rules, and that will be

specific to how your business operates.

For our example today, we're going to enable.

This one here.

So if the purchase order doesn't exist, we're gonna create one.

If there's an item on the invoice that's not on the purchase

order, we're going to add it.

And if we find an item on the invoice that doesn't exist in the catalog,

we're also going to create it.

The last page in the wizard setup is just selecting the amount and date formats.

If you're extracting dates from your document, you just need to make sure

that the date format here matches the date for that is listed on your document.

And the same with sending an email notifications.

Once you're happy with all of it, you can click the finish button.

And as we've been setting all of our feed configuration up, the natural

language processing has gone through our Bunning supply invoice and it has

gone and it has found what it believes to be up to the top for options for

each of the data extraction fields.

It's not it will try and extract out as much information as

it possibly can back based.

The word formatting and stuff that we've created.

Then that's been saved from previous data extraction and fee processing.

They can see here with our vendor name.

We've already applied it in the fixed data, so we can't extract that one again.

So that gets ignored invoice number here.

So you just gotta have a look at the options and then choose which one.

Best matches the information you wanna extract.

So we know this is our invoice number here and we know this

is the correct field here.

So we can just select that one there cause it's already available and click save.

If any of them don't quite match what you've got on your document,

you still have the option to manually update the data.

For example, Or if it hasn't extracted the data, you can just click on the field,

go to our data source, which we know is a PDF attachment, create the instruction.

There are different options to what the approach will be.

In most cases.

You're right to use the before and afterwards.

So here we need to get out our invoice state.

We wanna use invoice state as a before word.

The before word will extract anything that's after that word.

So you, the forward is the information that is before the

text that you want to extract.

So we are going to put in invoice date here and just be mindful that it is case

sensitive and it has the word formatting.

The text forming has to match what's actually listed on the document

You're extracting the data from.

Once you've answered in that, you can click on the test extraction button.

And you can see here we've got three options and just select the

first available option that matches with what's on your documents.

So you just go through each of the data extractions.

We've got our order number field here now.

Yep.

So that matches correctly.

So we can select that.

It doesn't automatically extract the items table.

So to extract the items you just need to do that manually yourself.

Table extraction options, a simple extraction and the advanced extraction.

The simple extraction is when you've just, you're only getting a one page PDF from.

Your supplier every single time.

And their header row is just a nice, simple, straight line of text.

There's no multiple rows.

There's no empty columns, and in that case, you just put down

how many columns you've got the information in the first column and

the information in the last column.

But for today's example, we're going to use the advanced extraction.

So the advanced extraction is good to be used when you've got a column

header like this where you've got.

Your information spread across multiple rows in your column header

and you know that your invoices may go across multiple pages.

Yep.

So first of all, we wanna go through and we wanna draw a box around

what we know is our column headers.

So click on the draw box button.

Click at the top left and the bottom you only need single clicks for here.

You don't need to double click or anything, and that will just draw

a box around that field and you'll see here all of the texts that's

included in that header information.

Once you're happy with that, click on the next button.

And I'm gonna ask you to draw a box around text that is consistent in the PDF that

signifies the end of the items table.

So it may be on the first page, it may be on the last page.

It just has to be consistent text that you know is well data feed will know that.

Okay?

You can stop extracting the items now cause that is the end of the

table with our Bunnings invoice.

I know that your subtotal fields are at the bottom of the table.

So I can just draw a box around them again, click in the top left and bottom

right and it will again show you the text that will be populated in that field.

Now it's asking you to just to draw the borders as to where

each of your columns are.

So just click on the draw borders box, and you just wanna do a single

click where each of your borders are to break up your columns.

If you happen to make a mistake, you can just go click the back button

and you can redraw your borders.

Once you're happy with your borders, just click on the run extraction button

and you can see here it's mapped out each of our columns through here.

Doubled up on this one here because I have made a mistake, but I can just

go back now and draw my borders again.

So

once you're happy with your borders, run the extraction.

And you can see here now it's gone and broken up all of my

columns into where they should be.

So now we just need to map the columns that need to be extracted.

You don't need to map every single column.

You can just leave the ones you don't need to be extracted as ignored.

And just a little hint here, if you've got any columns that have got any.

Discounts.

For your, from your supplier, it's best just to ignore them.

You don't extract, cause we can't process any discounts.

So it's best just to do the quantity and the item total price and it will

calculate what the unit price is from there once the feed's processed.

So now we can just go through, okay, we, now our first column is our part number,

our second column is our item description.

Third column is the quantity we can ignore the unit, yeah, the unit price

and the rate excluding discount.

And the discount.

And we can just use the amount excluding discount column here, which would be 94.

This one here.

So we can just map that as the item.

Total price here.

Then we can just go save.

So this is just saying too that we are extracting the items,

excluding gst, so we can click save.

And you can see here it's extracted out our items.

Please be mindful too that data feed will only extract it all of

your item quantity description.

Part number and pricing all have to be on a single row of of data you can't extract.

Multiple rows.

So once you're happy with that's all good.

We can now go down and do the other fields.

If there's fate, you can extract your freight.

If there's any notes, you can extract your notes.

If for some reason you know that G S T rounding may be a little

bit off with how data feed processes, its invoices and or how.

The supplier invoices calculate their GST may slightly differ

to how Simpro process their gst.

So occasionally you may have those one and 2 cent discount variances.

One and 2 cent.

Variances between what your supplier invoice says and

what your Simpro receipt says.

You can then extract the invoice total.

Now, I know with the Bunnings invoices, they can vary between

how we calculate the price and how Bunnings calculates the price.

So you can just extract the invoice total out here.

So we know that's correct and we can save that.

The way data feed processes, its invoices, it will add, it will

calculate the invoice total just by adding up each of the row items.

Having it calculated that way there to, and then that may differ to

how Simpro processes the invoices.

So sometimes it's just best to extract the invoice total.

You're not having any variances between what Simpro has and

what the supplier invoice has.

Once you're all happy with.

That you can then go through and test processing your your supplier invoice.

So to test the process, you can just click on your documents tab, select the

document that you've just set the feed up on, search for your feed name, and then

click on the start processing button.

In the log tab, it will show you how the feed's been processing.

You can see it's adding all the items in here.

The API logs might be visible to you.

That's just an internal status so that if there's any errors and stuff we know

we can go in there and have a look to see how the APIs actually processed the pdf.

Or the document so you can see it's succeeded.

If you scroll down, you will see that it's created a new supplier

invoice, which is our receipt.

You can click directly on that link and it will go through and

it will take you directly to the receipt that's been created.

So you can see here in the notes it's stating it was created by data feed.

It's got all of our items from our supplier invoice.

And you can see here because we have extracted the.

Invoice total.

Along with the items there is a 1 cent GST rounding different,

so that just gets supplied as a tax adjustment in the receipts.

And it will also always attach a copy of your PDF documents that was processed.

And in the log you can see that the purchase been created, items added

and receipt created all by data feed.

Thank you for watching our demonstration on setting up a receipt

purchase order feed in data feed.

Thanks so

much for that demo, Jody.

So let's discuss what's new in data feed.

Okay.

Our latest releases over the past few months.

We've included natural language processing feature which is it focuses

on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language.

This feature allows data feed to automatically extract a number

of data extraction options during the setup of your feeds.

We've also now had the ability to create or modify your own feeds.

Previously, you were required to go through our data feed support team

to create or modify your feeds.

However, with these new updates, you can now update or create

your own feeds in your own time.

We can now have the ability to process supply credits.

So data feeds, new credit receipt feed.

This will allow you to process the supply credit note and have this applied to the

applicable receipt in Simpro premium.

We also now have the ability to extract data from scanned or image files.

This gives the customer the ability to use scanned documents and

image images and data feed will extract text from these images.

And this wasn't previously an option in data feed.

And we also now have the ability to create individual customer cards.

Previously data feed only had the ability to create a company customer card, but

with this improvement data feed can now create individual customer cards.

Awesome.

Some great updates that have come through recently.

So who is data feed for?

Data Feed is for any company that deals with manual data entry.

It doesn't matter your size of the business or what industry you're in,

everybody tends to get logged down with tedious tasks that can be automated.

So there are a number of key reasons why data feed can be suited for your business.

Employee productivity data feed enables employees to spend more time on high value

tasks and less time on the manual data entry into systems so you can focus on

improving that customer experience and getting information into Simpro Premium

faster has also fast and accurate.

Data entry.

Data feed reduces the possibility for human error because it's an

automated process, it's only extracting exactly what's on the document.

But you've also got the option to step in at any time if you feel

like you need to review the process.

By implementing an intelligent document processing program like Data Feed, you can

accomplish hours of work in an instant.

There's also direct cost savings.

So data feed dramatically cuts the cost to process large volumes of data.

It saves not only human resourcing, but also hours in the day.

As you can see, we have over 770 customers around the world currently

utilizing data feed and improving their workflows and company efficiencies.

With over 38,000 tasks processed every month and over 2000 hours saved, there's

no reason why your business can't also take advantage of data automation.

For more information on data feed, head to the website at Simpro

group.com/campaigns/datafeed, or to learn more about setup and to get

help with your feeds, contact customer support in your area, or access the

learning toolbox and help guide.

Thanks so much for your time, and we'll see you on the next on Demand webinar.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Trades, Tools.

& Talks, a podcast powered by Simpro.

If you are looking to learn more about data feed, make sure you check out the

link in this episode's description.

I'm Karlie Huckels.