Christian Books & More Database
Data Submission Specifications
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Specifications for
Submitting Data
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Providing Images
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Standards
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Record Descriptions
Specifications
for Submitting Data
In order to input consistent information in the Christian Books
& More Database, it is very important that
the following specifications be used by each vendor when submitting product
information to be included in the database.
Every vendor supplying information will be assigned an
abbreviation. This abbreviation will be used for naming of the file that is to
be sent to Christian Databases, Inc. Even if your company distributes
products under multiple vendor names, there will be only one file submitted.
For example, Nelson/Word would only submit one file. The name of the file would
be the vendor abbreviation with extension ASC and then compressed. The
compressed file should use the vendor abbreviation for the file name with the
appropriate extension indicating the compression method used. You can compress
the file using PKZIP for DOS, WinZip for Windows or DROPSTUFF for Macintosh. (Note
: PKZIP utilities are available from
http://www.pkware.com, WinZip utilities are available from
http://www.winzip.com, and DROPSTUFF from
http://www.aladdinsys.com.)
Email Information:
You can email update information to
database@bsmgr.com.
FTP Information:
You can FTP your update information to Bookstore
Manager. Please contact database@bsmgr.com
for the login and password for uploading.
Consider the following example:
A-Company sells and distributes its own products, as well as
products for B-Company and C-Company. The vendor abbreviation assigned by Christian
Databases, Inc. for A-Company is ACO. (Check here
for a list of vendors and their abbreviations.)
When A-company prepares their data file, it will include
information for A-Company, B-Company and C-Company in a file called
"ACO.ASC". The file "ACO.ASC" is compressed into a
"ZIP" file called "ACO.ZIP" and e-mailed to
database@bsmgr.com.
Alternately, you may upload the file via FTP to Bookstore
Manager. You must contact database@bsmgr.com
for the login and password for uploading.
Within the file sent to Bookstore Manager, every line is
considered a new record. Within the file, however, there can be different types
of records. There can be a "Price Record," a "Book Record,"
a "Bible Record," etc. This document will describe the "Price
Record." In the near future, other type records will be included with this
document.
Every record in the file will have several data items on it. For
example: UPC, Title, Price. The delimiter, or character which marks the end of
a data item and the beginning of another, is the tilde "~" or the tab
character (Hex 09). Finally, every record or line within the file is to be
terminated with a carriage return/line feed. Hexadecimal values "0D"
"0A".
Providing Images
When available, we include a picture of the product with the
database. You can send us a copy of your product, and we will scan in the
image, or you can provide the image directly to us. If you want to provide
scanned images to us, please use the following guidelines:
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Progressive JPG
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250 pixels wide (height as appropriate for image proportions)
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72 dots per inch (dpi)
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The file name must be the item number with no spaces, dashes,
slashes, etc., followed by the .JPG extension.
For example, use 0805401601.jpg, not 080-540-1601.jpg.
Standards
Prices
The input for prices should always include two decimal places,
i.e. 49.90.
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Valid entries would be: 49.95, .90, 150.00.
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Invalid entries would be: 49.995 .9 150.
Item Numbers
The item number fields are for input of UPC, EAN, ISBN, SPCN or
Vendor numbers. The number of characters for each of these type item numbers
should be as follows:
UPC 12 digits
EAN 13 digits
ISBN 10 digits
SPCN 10 digits
Vendor up to 13 digits
We request that Books and Bibles be submitted with ISBN and EAN
numbers when available. For all other records, please include the UPC number
and SPCN number when available.
Spaces
All field leading and trailing spaces should be removed.
Omissions
If there are fields for which your company does not have
appropriate information, insert only the tilde.