SKU Library and Non-Unique SKUs

[dmathias]

There are a number of SKU values in the SKU Library that are incorrectly recognized.  Example: SKU 100202 is apparently a valid value for a SolarWinds product.  However, that SKU is also used by a different vendor, AllTerra, for a subscription for a product by publisher = Trimble.

The account I am now supporting appears to have a number of purchases where the SKU library points to incorrect products, but the back office team accepted the recommendations and processed the purchases anyway.  These tend to be very "simple" SKU values from resellers like "147" or "152".  I assume that I will need to have my team to back out or delete those purchase order line items for reprocessing.

Since recognition by the SKU library is automatic when populated with a recognized value, do we have a way to "ignore" the recommendation?  We don't seem to have a way to consider multiple possible recommendations.  Is the best practice in this scenario to manually edit the SKU to make it "unrecognizable" at the expense of accurate loading of customer purchase data (e.g. modify SKU from "147" to "147-K" when reprocessing the purchase line item)?

Thanks,

David Mathias

NTT DATA Services

[mfranz · Accepted solution]

Yes, we have seen other situations where the actual SKU is misleading or forces functionality by irgnoring manually set values, like purchase type. Adding a character (#) is common practice in these cases.

[dmathias]

Thank you for your input.  While I can accept that as a reasonable practice, we will also have to go the extra mile at our end to ensure I or future managers don't review the purchase data with SKUs that are "unrecognized" at a later date and attempt to submit them again to Flexera for processing as modified.  I'll accept this recommendation as a solution.  Thanks, @mfranz 

[Garias213]

Hello all,

We found this to be the case with SKU 11671- it generates as a Solarwinds valid value for software but we have done software validation and found this to be the SKU on our purchase order for a product named Bentley STAAD.PRO.  Per the above suggestion we are recommended to add a character for example B11671 to distinguish the SKU? Is the adding the character the suggestion for all non-unique SKUs and then submission by opening a case for unrecognized SKUS to the Flexera team or no need to submit the new unrecognized SKU to Flexera support team? 

Thank you,

- Gabi

[dmathias]

Try substituting this SKU for that product: 

3681

STAAD.Pro

Hopefully that will work for you.

David

[dmathias]

Screenshot of SKU recognition for you, Gabi.

[Garias213]

David,

Thanks so much for your prompt response. In this case, that will not work for the product I am speaking about because we actually already have SKU 3681 for STAAD.Pro input as a purchase. The Software line item we processed that generated the SolarWinds non unique SKU is for "Bentley STAAD.PRO Perpetual License" which is different from Bently STAAD.Pro Select that we also track with a different license in our environment. 

I appreciate your assistance. 

Thanks, 

Gabi 

[dmathias]

My team was responsible for submitting a lot of those Bentley SKUs (Flexera case #02180670), but I don't think our customer has the product you are looking for.  Good luck!