Alternate product groups are the way your aSa system understands product IDs from a non-connected system. Alternate product groups are defined in the Environment module (General > Alternate Product Group). 

For example: 

  • Joe's Detailing Service does work for Fabricator A and Fabricator B. 
  • Joe has products defined in his own system. 
  • He creates an alternate product group called "FabA" to specify which of his internally defined product IDs match which product IDs used by Fabricator A. Similarly, he creates another product group to match his products to Fabricator B. 
  • When Joe creates orders for Fabricator A, he uses his own product IDs, but selects the alternate product group "FabA" during the export process. This way, when he sends the file, it already has Fabricator A's product IDs. 

The process also works in the other direction. For example:

Jane's Detailing Service also does work for Fabricator A and Fabricator B.

  • Jane does not set up an alternate product group on her system.
  • However, she sends a list of her product IDs and definitions to Fabricator B. Fabricator B uses this information to create an alternate product file called "Jane" that match's Jane's products to their own. 
  • When Fabricator B imports orders created by Jane, they select the alternate product group "Jane" during the import process.