Getting Started with PromoStandards Webinar

Insights from the video:

Benefits and Features of PromoStandards

📊 The Best Practices Committee plays a crucial role in ensuring consistent and effective utilization of PromoStandards across different entities.

💼 The top level advisory members are responsible for voting on standards and proposing new ones, making them crucial in shaping the industry.

💡 Getting involved in the slack community is now the recommended way to reach out and connect with industry experts, surpassing traditional methods like email or contacting sales representatives.

💼 Membership in the organization provides valuable access to standards, early event registration, education, and networking opportunities.

💡 PromoStandards Webinar demonstrates how their platform allows users to quickly understand the structure and information provided by different products without the need for coding or complex processes.

🚀 Users can access the order status service and retrieve all the order details of star lines by providing the necessary credentials and query parameters, making it a convenient tool for distributors.

📊 Developing an infrastructure that can handle millions of requests a month is crucial for success.

💼 PromoStandards has a scalable system that can handle a high volume of requests, as demonstrated by Staples generating 20 to 30,000 requests a week on their endpoints.

💡 Starting simple with inventory and order status can provide the quickest ROI and immediate value in the supply chain world.

💥 The current number of suppliers using PromoStandards is somewhere north of 200, showing its growing popularity and adoption in the industry.

PromoStandards Mission and Industry Impact

💼 The PromoStandards mission is to collaborate and create industry-leading open standards that improve customer experience, reduce transaction friction, and execute a digital strategy.

💪 PromoStandards aims to establish itself as the dominant and leading open standard for the industry, with over 50 industry firms already signing on to support it.

🌞 The upcoming technology summit and hackathon in Tampa aims to provide a fun and entertaining experience, focusing on rebuilding networking, friendships, and community within the industry.

Summary

PromoStandards is a not-for-profit organization promoting open standards in the industry, offering membership benefits and emphasizing the importance of consistent implementation of standards.

📝 00:00 PromoStandards is a not-for-profit organization promoting open standards in the industry, with a successful campaign and upcoming technology summit, offering benefits to members and emphasizing the importance of consistent implementation of standards.

• This webinar is part of a monthly education session by PromoStandards, open to both members and non-members, aiming to keep the wider community informed about the latest developments in PromoStandards.
• The promo series mission is to collaborate and create industry-leading open standards that improve customer experience, reduce transaction friction, and execute a digital strategy, with the organization being a not-for-profit funded by membership to maintain openness and drive standards forward.
• The speaker will provide QR codes throughout the video that link to the pages being discussed, allowing viewers to easily access and explore the content on their own.
• Promo services launched a successful campaign to promote promo standards as the leading integration standard for the industry, with 50 industry firms already signing on and a goal to reach out to the wider community and establish promo standards as the dominant open standard.
• Pre-registration for a technology summit and hackathon will be launched soon, with a focus on networking, education, and supply chain efficiencies, taking place in Tampa in October.
• The webinar covers the benefits of becoming a member, the tools and resources offered by PromoStandards, changes in credentialing, examples of data input, and the importance of following best practices to ensure consistent implementation of the standards.

📝 09:19 Join PromoStandards for membership benefits, including involvement in creating standards, access to endpoints, and networking opportunities, with the added security of a login wall; connect with industry professionals in the slack community for assistance and guidance.

• We rely on membership for funding and offer different levels of membership with increasing involvement and benefits, including the opportunity to serve on committees that create standards, guidance, marketing, and education materials.
• Get involved in the industry by volunteering or becoming an advisory member, and if you don't want to be involved, there is a tier where you can access endpoints for free, but the main reason for the login wall is to ensure the security of the standards and licensing.
• There is a slack community with industry technologists and business leaders where you can easily connect with distributors and suppliers to get your tech and promo standards questions answered and find the person you're looking for.
• Becoming a member of PromoStandards grants access to standards, early event registration, education, and networking opportunities with industry peers.
• Jessica, the admin at advan promostanders.org, is a helpful resource for getting assistance and guidance on membership.
• The speaker discusses the importance of protecting standards and ensuring that entities understand their rights and abilities to use them, and then proceeds to answer common questions about finding standards, endpoints, and credentials.

📝 15:19 The PromoStandards website provides a list of over 1500 endpoints for suppliers and their services, with the webinar simplifying and explaining these tools, including access to service documentation and the ability to search for suppliers and their offered services.

• The resources section of the PromoStandards website provides a list of endpoints for suppliers and their services, with over 1500 options available, but the speaker will help simplify and explain these tools throughout the webinar.
• PromoStandards keeps a listing of all their services, deprecating them as they become outdated, but still supporting both the current and previous versions.
• The webinar discusses the resources and endpoints available in PromoStandards, including the ability to access service documentation and search for suppliers and their offered services.
• There are 1500 endpoints listed on a page where you can check their statuses, including live urls, test urls, and review statuses, making it easy to find the desired end points and versions.

📧 20:08 Use the member directory search to find technical support contacts, request credentials to access supplier data, and handle onboarding through individual relationships; core services include orders, inventory status, product data, media, and purchase orders, with emphasis on ROI.

• To find contact data for technical support, use the member directory search and filter for technical contacts to easily obtain their email addresses and contact information.
• To access a supplier or service provider's data, you need to request credentials, but PromoStandards does not issue credentials and focuses on matchmaking instead.
• PromoStandards sends an email to the requester and the person in charge of credentials, and from there it is up to the individual relationships to handle the onboarding process.
• The core services available include orders, inventory order status, ownership notification, product data, product media, product price configuration, purchase orders, and invoices, with the speaker emphasizing the importance of focusing on ROI.
• The speaker discusses the importance of inventory and order status notifications for distributors and suppliers, as well as the inefficiencies of the invoice vouching process in the industry.
• There are quick wins with the product data and media services, with over 300 suppliers and 900,000 SKUs available, and the community is discussing the difference between a configured purchase order and a simple purchase order.

📝 31:51 PromoStandards Webinar discussed the availability and effectiveness of their purchase order service, as well as a validation tool for exploring and processing data, making it valuable for communicating requirements to development teams or project managers.

• PromoStandards Webinar discusses the availability and effectiveness of their purchase order service, as well as a validation tool that allows users to explore and process data.
• To use the web service, select the active service and version, input the endpoint, fill out the request parameters, validate, and copy the response to convert it to XML.
• This tool allows users to easily access and analyze product data, such as inventory levels and future availability, without the need for coding or complex processes, making it valuable for communicating requirements to development teams or project managers.
• You can test and view data responses from various product codes and endpoints without the need for extensive development or data storage.
• Order statuses in the industry are not a one-to-one relationship, but rather a one-to-many relationship, and the order status 2.0 service will soon provide line item details to order status responses, making it easier to test endpoints and data before building an integration strategy.
• PromoStandards has developed comprehensive best practices for distributors, consumers, and suppliers, including strategies for integration, call philosophies, retry logic, and managing request volume.

📝 41:55 Join the PromoStandards community, partner with a business, and start scaling your process with a service provider to access support and services for developing your own data and system without needing to be a developer or IT guru.

• You don't need a team, but you do need IT resources and access to your data in order to build an infrastructure that can handle millions of requests a month.
• Staples and other active members of PromoStandards generate thousands of requests a week on their endpoints, and there are already companies and platforms that have built tools and software based on PromoStandards data, so you don't have to start from scratch.
• Join the community, attend events, and become a member to access support and services for developing your own data and system using PromoStandards, without needing to be a developer or IT guru, and consider partnering with a current business partner to navigate the process.
• Start by scaling your process with a service provider, start simple with inventory and order status, have a plan for implementation, get involved in events for connections and knowledge, and attend monthly sessions for education.
• PromoStandards integrates with software like QuickBooks, and while there are currently no direct connections to Shopify, there are firms actively working on a Shopify to PromoStandards plugin.
• There is a need for a generic industry data back and forth, with over 200 suppliers currently using promo standards.

📝 52:28 Integrating with PromoStandards is not difficult and can be done with a small staff or outsourced, with the challenge being to get all suppliers onto a universal data model for kits, and the webinar discussed the complexity of converting data between rest and soap in promo standards and questioned whether rest or graphql is the better alternative for the future, with members of the technology committee and Promise Energy hiring a consulting company to determine the next iteration of the right technology and actively inviting industry participants to join and be involved in the process, while suppliers are offering more data and services in response to increased demand during the pandemic, and there are plans to solve proofing in order status 2.0, create a data dictionary/glossary for promo standards terminology, and the best practices committee is working on required and suggested fields, and there may be a possibility of creating a visual video walk-through of the data model with the help of a partner in the supply chain or the committee at sn love, and there was a discussion about joining a Slack channel, resolving integration issues with nil values, and determining the preferred approach for passing values that are not required.

• Integrating with PromoStandards is not difficult and can be done with a small staff or outsourced, and the challenge lies in getting all suppliers onto a universal data model for kits.
• The webinar discusses the complexity of converting data between rest and soap in promo standards and questions whether rest is the right answer for the future or if graphql is a better alternative.
• Members of the technology committee and Promise Energy are hiring a consulting company to determine the next iteration of the right technology, and they actively invite participants in the industry to join and be involved in the technology process, with more suppliers offering full suites of data and services in response to increased demand during the pandemic.
• Proofing will be solved in order status 2.0, most suppliers use the same set of credentials for all their endpoints, and a data dictionary/glossary will be created to explain promo standards terminology.
• The best practices committee is working on tackling required and suggested fields, and there may be a possibility of creating a visual video walk-through of the data model with the help of a partner in the supply chain or the committee at sn love.
• There was a discussion about joining a Slack channel, resolving integration issues with nil values, and determining the preferred approach for passing values that are not required.

👉 01:04:25 Email me if you have any questions, join as a member for easier access to education and events, and thank you for the questions and feedback.