TPC Publishing Date

Future Publishing

To ensure that products have the most up-to-date data we have made some changes to the way the product data is published into Toniq Product Catalogue (TPC).

When a future publish date is set against a product group any data relating to that product group will not be published until that date, however, the core product data will be saved into TPC as soon as the product is processed.

For products that have previously been published any changes to the core data will be updated as soon as the product changes are processed.

For new products, the product data will be saved in the background as an approved product.

Why has Toniq made these changes?

The ability to set future publish dates has been a very successful feature of TPC with suppliers using this functionality to set up new products in advance of their release date. This created the product as a Draft product in TPC. The Draft product would become a Published product on the future publish date. However, if there was an error, such as a typo, it was impossible to fix this in the Draft product status. The Approved product status will allow errors to be fixed or product details updated before the product appears on a pricelist.

How will this affect me?

If you currently load product data in advance of the release of your products you will now be able to make changes to the product data before the product is added to your pricelist.

If you supply products that are also available from other suppliers, and another supplier has already created the products, you will be able to add the new product to your Product Catalogue before it has been added to any pricelist.

What changes can I future date?

Future dated changes are limited to the data specific to a product group such as the cost price and RRP. All other changes are published as soon as the product is approved.

Can I future date changes to core product data?

No. Before changing any core product data, you should consider whether the changes would constitute a new product. The core product data should not change. However, we appreciate that you may want to correct a typo or change the capitalization in a product name. These changes will be published as soon as they are processed.

GS1 has a useful tool to help you decide a change is a new product or a product change: GTIN Management | GS1 - The global language of business.

Can I create a new product with a future publish date?

Yes. When creating a new product, the core data will be published in the background as an ‘approved product’ as soon as the QA process is completed. However, the product will not be available in your published product list or on any pricelists until the future publish date.

I have created a new product to be published in the future, how do I edit that product?

As the Approved product won’t be in your published products list yet, you’ll need to search for it from the dashboard.

If you have entered a barcode or pharmacode on the product use this to search as you will get an exact match.

It is possible to search on the description if you have not yet entered a pharmacode or barcode. You may get multiple results based on your search term so make sure you select the correct product to update:

You may now make changes as you would for any other product.

Follow the usual process to save and submit to Toniq.

Where can I see the changes that will be published at a future date?

A count of products with changes to be published on future dates is shown on the right-hand side of your dashboard:

To view the product list, click the count. The Products to be published page will be shown:

For more information on the changes to be published click on the Info button:

The fields that are being updated along with their current value, future value, and publication date will be shown.

How can I change the publication date?

There are two options to change the publication date

• 1. If you would like to publish the product now, click the green Publish now button:

• 2. If you would like to change the publication date, double-click in the To be published date field. From here you can either type in a new date or select from the calendar by clicking on the date picker icon:

 

Note: If you pick today’s date the product changes will be published immediately.

Can I delete a future change?

Yes. If a change has been entered in error, or an expected change is no longer going ahead a future change can be removed and will not be published.

To remove the change, click the remove change rubbish bin icon to the right of the To be published date:

A confirmation message will be displayed:

 

Click Confirm to remove the change from the future publish list.

Can I make multiple changes that occur on different dates?

Yes, you can make changes to the product data as many times as you want before the future publish date. However, care needs to be taken as the changes will be applied sequentially and could overwrite previous changes.

A line is shown for each product for each future publish date, by default they are sorted in chronological order with the closest date first.

In the example below a change is shown for a product on 2/12/22.

The change details show the values now and the values that will become on 2/12/22.

A subsequent change has also been entered for the same product on 1/2/23.

The second entry shows the change details from both the first and second changes in the order that they occur so that we can see all changes.

The changes are also colour-coded. The lines displayed in blue show the changes on the selected future publish date, the lines in black refer to changes that will be made on a previous future publish date:

 

If I have created a new product, can I make multiple changes before it is released?

Yes, any changes to the core product data are published in the background as an ‘approved product’ so this data can be edited at any time. The product won’t be added to your Price list or published products page until the future publish date.

In the example below a new product has been created with minimal data, and then subsequent changes have been made. In this case a colour was added in the first update and a barcode in the second. As this data is published in the background the current product data is always shown against each line: