Next | Order & Stock Management | FAQs

Next | Order & Stock Management | FAQs

 


Next Supplier Onboarding FAQs
Direct Dispatch & Personalised Suppliers


Welcome to the KornitX Platform

The following document has been written to supplement to information provided in the Technical Documentation.
This document covers the most common queries that arise when a Next Supplier is integrating with KornitX.


Technical Documentation

All Technical Documentation can be found here:

  1. Next Technical Documentation 

If you know your chosen method of integration, specific links can be found below: 

  1. API Documentation
  2. CSV Documentation
  3. XML Documentation 


KornitX Test Environment

We don’t create a sandbox account when onboarding new Next Brands, as nothing will be live on Next until every step is tested and signed off. Log-ins and credentials provided to you will give you access to the KornitX live environment. 


Until the launch on Next, all orders on KornitX will be test orders. 

 

Products under Catalog and Inventory are, however, the final products created by Next according to the PIF you filled and sent to them. If you see any incorrect details on products, please inform us and Next.



Integration Test Plans

Test plan templates for each integration type can be found below and should be completed in full during the testing stage.
  1. Integration Test Plan - API
  2. Integration Test Plan - XML
  3. Integration Test Plan - CSV

Access to the KornitX Portal 

It is essential that you have access to the portal to allow you to verify that your testing has been successful.  A user will be set up at the beginning of the onboarding process. You will receive an email which will allow you to set your own unique password and then log into the KornitX Portal.

 

If you require any additional users to have access to the portal, please let us know the following information and we will create these for you: 

      Name & Email Address 
      Type of Access - Please specify Permanent or Temporary
      ! Select Temporary access for users who will require access for testing phase only.  Access will be removed once testing is signed of.

If you do not receive the email to access the portal after it has been requested, please initially check your Junk / Spam folder as the emails can occasionally be directed there. 


Creating Additional Test Orders 

If you require additional test orders, or need to re-push an order that has previously failed to be accepted by the integration during testing, please use one of the below options:


Re-triggering an order in Error State

The Integration will not attempt to push and order that is in Error State.  

Once the issue has been resolved, the error should be removed from the order. 

To release an order that is in Error State, click 'Edit' and untick the 'Has Error' button, ensuing the order status is 'Received'.  This will allow the integration to attempt to re-push the order. 


Duplicate Existing Test Orders 

If you require additional test orders, you can use the 'Duplicate' button at the top right of the Order screen to duplicate an order.

! Please Ensure the order reference number is updated each time to ensure that each test order has a unique order reference.
! Please Note, an order can only be removed if it is not in error state.   

Once duplicated, if you require different information on the order (ie Delivery Address etc) you can adjust the information and Save – this must be done prior to the integration running again. 


If several changes are to be made to the order data, we recommend updating the order to ‘On Hold’ until the changes are made, then move back to ‘Received’ once it’s ready to be pushed.  This will prevent the order being pushed before it is ready. 



New Scenario Test Orders 

If you require completely new test orders (ie with new SKUs or new scenarios), please request these from KornitX directly.  

 

Please refer to the ‘Order Consolidation’ section before requesting multi line tests. 

 

 

Order Data

Example data formats / payloads are included within the relevant version of the Technical Documentation.
Further clarity on certain fields can be found below:

Customer Information

      Email - This will always be provided.

      Telephone Number - This is not provided as standard.
      If you require a telephone number to be included as part of the order information, please request this from Next who will be able to enable this. 

Address Information

      Shipping Address - This will always be provided, as outlined below:

      shipping_address_1 - Will always be populated 

      shipping_address_2 - Blank 

      shipping_address_3 - Blank 

      shipping_address_4 - Town / City 

      shipping_address_5 - Region / State / County 


      Billing Address - This is never provided within the data. 


Pricing

Price values may not always be provided in the data. 

If price values are included in the data, they should not be used for invoicing purposes.

Please see ‘Invoicing, Pricing & Reports’ for more information. 


Required Dispatch Date

The required dispatch date indicates the latest date that the customer should receive the order on.
This is calculated based on the lead time and transit time combined - this information is provided to Next separately.


SKUs & EANs (Barcodes)

We supply 2 SKUs with each order:

      Retail SKU - This SKU is generated by Next and is the SKU required for invoicing.

  • Supplier SKU - This SKU is the Manufacturing SKU that was added to the PIF Sheet at the point of product creation.

  • The specific field headers are outlined in the relevant version of the Technical Documentation. 


  • EAN (Barcode) - Whilst an EAN can be added to the product, this will not be included in the data.


      SKU Mapping 

  • Whilst you can map to either SKU, we suggest mapping to the Fulfiller SKU as this option contains a SKU that is unique to each size / colour option. 

 

      SKU Updates 

  • The Next Retail SKUs may not be updated. 

  • To update the Supplier SKUs on your products, please let the Next team know and they can arrange this. 

 

Order References 

      We supply 3 order references with each order:

      External Order Reference (Next) 

  • API: "external_ref" | XML: <order><external_ref> | CSV: order.external_ref 

  • Required 

This is the order reference that the customer will receive.  Whilst the Next order ref is not required for the integration itself, we do suggest that you collect and store this order reference as you may need to provide this alongside your invoices. 


      Order ID 

  • API: "id" | XML: <order><id> | CSV: order.id 

  • Required 

This is the reference used for status updates.  This should be stored in your systems and used as the order identifier for status updates for all integrations. 

 

      Order Reference (KornitX) 

  • API: "ref" | XML: <order><ref> | CSV: order.ref 

  • Optional 

This reference is a unique identifier for the order within the KornitX Platform. 

This is not required for the integration or invoicing and can therefore be ignored. 

 

Multi Line Order Consolidation 

As standard, Next pass all multi- line orders to us as individual orders with unique order references. 

The Fulfiller can consolidate any orders going to the same address at the packing stage if desired.    

If you wish for multi-line orders to be consolidated, this should be raised with the Next team directly at the beginning of the Onboarding process - they will confirm if this can be enabled for your brand.

 

Cancellations 

There are 2 scenarios where an order may be Cancelled:

Customer Cancellation 

 This scenario will be handled outside of the integration.  The Next Customer Service team will contact you via an agreed process which will be agreed during your Next SLA call. 


Fulfiller Cancellation 

If the supplier is unable to fulfill the order they have received, they should update the order status to Cancelled via the Integration and contact the Next Customer Service team to make them away. 
If preferred, this status can be handled by logging into the KornitX portal directly and manually updating the status to Cancelled. 

Shipping and Tracking Information

Own Carrier Service

When using your Own Carrier to dispatch the items, Tracking Information should be stored against each order, wherever possible.

There is no need to include the tracking service – this will have been pre-agreed with Next prior to launch.  Only the tracking reference or tracking link is required. 

The Shipping Method value is the lead time you agreed with Next. 


Next NDD Service

When the Next NDD Service is used, tracking information does not need to be added to the order. 

Inventory

Stock Updates Frequency

A full stock feed can be updated once a day, every hour or once a week. This can be set and agreed between the Next team and yourselves.
You can also chose to submit delta feeds throughout the day at any period. 

Removing Items from Next.co.uk

​A stock quantity of 0 should be sent if the Brand would like to remove an item from the Next website. A stock update of zero will update the item to show “Currently unavailable” on the Next website, then after 20 minutes the item will be automatically removed from the search feed, unavailable for customers to purchase.

Ring-fenced / Stock Pool Stock

Stock values can be provided based on either a ring-fenced or shared stock pool. Where the stock is ring-fenced, the frequency with which the data is provided is less critical.  However, if stock is part of a shared stock pool, stock updates are required frequently, based on stock position changes, in order to mitigate issues with fulfillment.

Personalised / Made to Order Products

Personalised or Made to Order items still require a stock value to be loaded in order for the line to be  visible on next.co.uk.  If your items are personalised or made to order and do not have an actual stock balance, you should load a dummy balance to indicate the item is available to purchase.  For example, some suppliers choose to add '999' for IN STOCK and '0' for OUT OF STOCK.


IP Whitelisting 

KornitX use dynamic whitelisting therefore specific IP Whitelisting is not required.


Invoicing, Pricing & Reports 

Invoicing is not handled via the KornitX Platform. 

Pricing within the KornitX Portal should not be used for invoicing purposes as this cost is not always accurate. 

Next provide access to a separate portal where you can access all info required for Invoicing. 

The reports section (outlined in the KornitX documentation) allows you to extract order information which can be used as an accompanying report for your invoices if required. 


Troubleshooting 

All Data formats and Authentication methods are outlined in the documentation for your reference. 

 

If any data is submitted but is not successful, please initially ensure that the file locations, headers, formats and data values are all correct as per the documentation. 


If your tests are not successful and you require assistance with diagnosing an issue, please send us the data files that you have submitted so we review and offer feedback. 

      - Please ensure to include as much information as possible, including screenshots, payloads, file formats etc to allow us to diagnose the issue effectively. 

      - Please send any XML files as a .txt file (.xml files will not be accepted via email) 

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