Mission:  The purpose of this document is to outline some common questions that come up during the integration process so that you can better understand how it works, what to expect, and what practices you need to put in place in order for Shuttle to receive the best data possible.

Which version of Shuttle should be installed for this POS?

N/A

Does this POS use a relational database?  How does this affect Shuttle?

Yes.  This means that when you make a change to an item (i.e., the department on the item), it automatically updates history in the POS with the changes you made.  Therefore, if we re-pull the historical data, the changes will be reflected in Retail Orbit as well.  NOTE:  Support must be notified if items were changed and a history pull is required because of the departments changing on items.  This shuttle cannot be accessed by the client and so the Management One support team must initiate any shuttle pulls.

How does the department mapping work for this POS?

When a Shuttle flight is run for this POS, any Lightspeed X Product Categories that exist in Lightspeed X but do not exist in the Retail Orbit mapping will show up as unmapped departments.  If notified, Management One support can send an excel document that lists out all the Lightspeed X Product Categories so that you can fill in the M1 class that it should feed data to.  Just send support back the filled in Document and we will update the mapping and pull data.

Are there any character limitations that we need to be concerned with for Shuttle to work?

We highly recommend that Class Codes should be limited to Letters and Numbers with a length not exceeding 10 characters. Shuttle currently has the following limitations:

-Maximum Number of Characters: 20 (Please note that reporting can be thrown off if the combination of class code, class name, location name and category are too long).

-Characters Accepted: A-Z, 0-9, &, /, $, +, -, #, <, >,?
-Characters NOT Accepted: |, %, ‘, `, ,(comma)

Is Shuttle able to collect 24months of historical data, and if so, how is the historical inventory populated?

Yes, history can be obtained for 24months, however, Inventory and On Order values are not available during this process.  To get the historic inventory values, we will need to run shuttle for the current month, and then calculate the historic inventory based on the transactions obtained during the history pull.

What options are available for collection of Markdown data?

POS markdowns are available for this Shuttle, however we are limited to what Lightspeed X calls 'checkout discounts' applied to the item. Promotions or 'Price Book' markdowns are not included. We do collect inventory data directly so any permanent markdowns will be reflected in the inventory value, it just will not show up as a markdown.

This may mean that our 'Markdown' value may be less than the 'Discounted' amount in your sales report, if you use more than 'checkout discounts' per item.

What dates are used when determining where to collect the Purchase Order data?

The ‘Delivery Due’ date should be filled in, in order for us to record the On Order correctly.  This is how it determines what month to put the On Order into.

What status of Purchase Orders (called ‘Orders’ in LSX) are tracked for On Order?

We track ‘Open’ or ‘Sent’ orders that are assigned a ‘Supplier’. ‘Cancelled’ orders are ignored.

How far back do we collect data on Open Purchase Orders?

The Lightspeed X Shuttle looks at any Open or Sent Purchase Orders. When the ‘Delivery Due’ is blank or older than the current month, we are adding it to the current month’s On Order.

What stops shuttle from working properly with this POS?

This shuttle runs automatically every night, and should work without issue, unless the user that authenticated is removed, or the permissions for the user are changed.

Does Shuttle with Lightspeed Series X support custom calendars?

Not at this time. Only the Gregorian calendar is supported. 

Are there any other nuances with Shuttle that I need to be aware of for this POS?

Data validation can be confusing for Lightspeed Series X users because their are reports that can be easily customized for Sales, Markdowns and Inventory. But On Order, Receiving and Return To Vendor are difficult to validate because there is no report, and each document for each type has to be reviewed individually.

For sales and markdowns use a Sales Report with Report Type = Product Category and Measure = Discounted. Set the date range and export to excel. The column ‘Revenue’ is Sales and the column ‘Discounted’ is for Markdowns (please remember that we are only tracking 'checkout discounts' applied to the item. Permanent markdowns or promotional/price-book markdowns are not tracked)

For Inventory, use the Inventory Report with Report Type = Product Category. And also on the right side of the visual report, there is a plus sign where you can add Retail Value as another column.

If there is an issue, where do I get support?

The best place to start with support regarding the collection of data is to contact Retail Orbit support by email at support@retailorbit.com, by phone at 520-612-2001 or by appointment at retailorbit.setmore.com