ETL

Velocity manages the entire process of collecting and updating retail POS data, including EDI, AS2, and proprietary sources. Velocity automatically loads and updates the most granular level of data every night from all of your data sources, affording you the luxury and value of having the most current information at your fingertips every morning.

Velocity normalizes (or "harmonizes") the data so that valid comparisons composites can be made within and across retailers. The ETL unit of the demand data warehouse cleanses the data, provides default values for omitted data and prepares the data for storage and subsequent analysis.

Several features are critical for the ETL processes of a successful demand signal repository.

• Relational Data Warehousing Technology
• Support For Standards (X.12, Tradacom, EDIFACT, GTIN, UPC, GLN)
• Customer Item code cross referencing
• Multi-Retailer Normalization and Reporting
• Retailer Fiscal Calendars
• Multiple Currencies
• Transaction Tracking (Prevent Duplication)
• Automated Processing with Logging, Data Suspension and Recovery

Add new measures and dimensions to your data warehouse as your requirements expand. Velocity's open architecture allows you to add and support new data sources. Velocity's "hook procedures" allow you to add new processing and summarization capabilities for new features and special analyses. For example, if a retailer does not provide comp store sales, you can have Velocity calculate them for you.

Add new measures and dimensions to your data warehouse as your requirements expand. Velocity's open architecture allows you to add and support new data sources. Velocity's "hook procedures" allow you to add new processing and summarization capabilities for new features and special analyses. For example, if a retailer does not provide comp store sales, you can have Velocity calculate them for you.

Velocity eliminates the need to create or purchase EDI translation and transaction maps. Velocity is ready to load EDI data "out of the box". Retailers are notorious for different implemtentions of EDI transactions, especially the EDI 852 (POS Data) transaction.

Velocity provides native importing of many different EDI X.12 transactions used by DSRs. The following transactions are supported:

• 852 (POS activity)
• 867 (Reseller activity)
• 830 (forecasts)
• 816 (store information)

Several retailers send their data to vendors over the internet using AS2 data transfers. This eliminates the cost of intermediaries (VANs) and expedites the flow of information. Velocity supports the proprietary file formats used by these retailers:

• Wal-Mart, RetailLink
• Sam's Club, RetailLink
• Target, Partners On Line

While many other POS applications resolve speed issues by downloading summarized data from retailers, Velocity loads the raw POS elements in its most granular form (by item, by store, by week or day). By loading each data point once, you eliminate duplicate data and redundant data loads, which reduces the processing time and data volume. Velocity's built-in cleansing and translation algorithms allow Velocity to accomplish in hours what takes others days.

By only loading granular data and and reporting from the same set of data, you get "one version of the truth" with all reports and analyses adding up to the same total. Since Velocity's granularity is at the store and item level, users have the flexibility to do all their analysis on the fly, drilling down as needed, adding calculations, changing time frames, etc. without having to rerun downloads or load different versions of the same data.