PromoPilot - Blog #Data

Why Promo Distributors Need a BI Platform (and Why Zoho Analytics is a Smart Pick)

Wed, 28 May 2025 17:20:31 -0600

Let’s be honest – most distributors in print and promo aren’t hurting for data. It’s all over the place: commonsku, CRM, spreadsheets, Google Analytics, QuickBooks... you get the idea. The real problem is making sense of it all. That’s where a Business Intelligence (BI) platform steps in and savvy distributors are picking Zoho Analytics as their BI platform of choice.

What is BI?

BI is just a fancy way of saying: “Let’s take all that scattered data and turn it into something useful.” With a good BI tool, you don’t have to guess how your business is doing – you can actually see it. BI platforms connect to your many systems, combine your data, and give you visual dashboards and reports that make it easy to spot what’s working, what’s not, and what’s coming next.

Think of it like your car’s dashboard. You wouldn’t drive around without knowing your speed or gas level. BI gives you that kind of visibility into your business.

Why BI Matters for Print and Promo Distributors

Our industry moves fast. There’s a ton of moving parts: product catalogs, client campaigns, seasonal spikes, supplier delays. It’s easy to get stuck reacting to problems instead of planning ahead. The time spent simply searching for data is a time vampire. BI helps flip the script.

Here’s how:

See everything in one place. Sales, customer activity, website data, financials – you can bring it all together. No more bouncing between apps or stitching together reports in Excel.
Spot trends and plan ahead. Forecasting tools help you see where things are heading – so you can stock up before a rush or adjust before a slump.
Custom dashboards for your team and even your clients. Everyone from sales to ops can get a real-time view tailored to their job. When it comes to your customers, dashboards provide an incredible value add to savvy buyers who desire measurable success.

Why We Like Zoho Analytics

There are plenty of BI platforms out there, but Zoho Analytics hits the sweet spot: it’s powerful, but still approachable for non-tech folks. Here’s what makes it stand out:

1. Data Blending Without the Headache

Zoho Analytics comes loaded with connectors for a huge range of tools you’re probably already using. That includes CRMs like Zoho CRM and HubSpot, finance tools like QuickBooks and Xero, e-commerce platforms like Shopify, email tools like Mailchimp, and cloud storage like Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox. It also connects with SQL databases, Google Analytics, and dozens more – out of the box.

You can pull in data from just about anywhere – Zoho apps, spreadsheets, third-party tools – and it doesn’t just dump it all in one place. It actually helps you connect the dots. That means you can, for example, see how ad spend is affecting sales or track customer support issues alongside revenue.

2. Dashboards That Make Sense

The drag-and-drop builder is simple enough for anyone to use. You can set up charts, filters, and custom views without needing IT. And everything stays up to date automatically. You can even throw it on a TV screen for a live KPI wall.

Dashboards aren’t just helpful internally – they can also be a value-add for your clients. Say you’re running a gift redemption site: you could build a custom dashboard for the client that shows real-time data like how many people have redeemed their gift, how many have opted out, the status of shipments, and even a heat map of where those gifts are going. That kind of transparency builds trust.

Distributors all pull from the same supply chain. What sets you apart is how you help clients see the impact of their spend. A clean, branded dashboard makes your work visible. It shows clients their merch campaign is actually doing something – and gives them the numbers to prove it.

3. Forecasting That’s Actually Useful

You don’t have to be a data scientist to use the forecasting features. Click a button, and Zoho will project future sales or inventory needs based on your past data. It’s great for planning and avoids surprises.

But the real value of forecasting is in how it lets you stay proactive instead of reactive. Say you’re tracking sales of seasonal promo kits – Zoho can show you when demand is likely to spike based on previous years, helping you prep inventory and staffing ahead of time. Or maybe you run a print-on-demand program and want to anticipate order volume by client segment – forecasting helps you see which customers might need outreach or support before a downturn hits.

You can also run multiple scenarios: what happens if you increase email campaigns by 20%? What if your top three clients each place 15% fewer orders next quarter? Zoho’s forecasting and what-if analysis features help you model the impact of those possibilities so you can prepare with confidence.

These tools let you ask better questions, spot patterns earlier, and take action faster. For distributors juggling lots of variables, that's a serious advantage.

4. Clean Data, Less Manual Work

Zoho DataPrep (which works hand-in-hand with Zoho Analytics) helps you clean up messy data before it hits your dashboards. That means less time fixing spreadsheets and more time making decisions.

You can automatically detect and fix inconsistencies – like duplicates, formatting mismatches, or missing values – before they cause problems in your reports. It’s especially handy when you’re pulling data from different systems that don’t always speak the same language.

For example, say you're importing customer lists from three different sources and each one records state names differently – some use abbreviations, some use full names. DataPrep can flag those inconsistencies and help you standardize everything with just a few clicks.

You can also schedule recurring clean-up routines, so your data stays accurate day after day without manual effort. For promo distributors juggling lots of vendors, product SKUs, and campaign reports, this automation saves serious time and headaches. If you're interested in learning how to connect promo industry apps like Liftoff to Zoho DataPrep, check out this tutorial!

5. AI That Doesn’t Feel Gimmicky

Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant, lets you ask questions in plain English like, “What were our top-selling products last month?” and get instant answers – charts included. It’s genuinely helpful, especially for folks who don’t want to mess with filters or formulas.

Zia can also surface trends you didn’t even think to look for. For example, it might flag that a certain category of products is trending up in a specific region. Or it might point out that your average order value dipped last week, prompting a deeper look.

You can even set alerts – Zia will ping you when a key metric, like margin, jumps or drops. It’s like having a data analyst watching your business 24/7, minus the payroll.

BI isn’t just for big companies or data nerds. For distributors, it’s a practical way to get more from the systems you’re already using. It helps you make smarter decisions, move faster, and stay ahead of the chaos.

If you’re looking for a BI tool that fits the way you work, Zoho Analytics deserves a look. It’s affordable, it plays well with others, and it helps you turn your data into real, usable insight. If it's not right for you, check out Sisence, Power BI, or Tableau.

Breaking Down Data Silos: Unlock the Full Potential of Your Promotional Products Business

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 14:18:04 -0600

Every day, distributors and suppliers in the promotional products industry generate massive amounts of data. From customer orders and e-commerce transactions to inventory tracking and fulfillment operations, data holds the key to improving efficiency and driving more sales. But there’s one big problem: that data is often scattered across different systems, departments, and platforms, making it difficult to access and use effectively. This challenge is known as a data silo.

What Are Data Silos, and Why Do They Matter?

A data silo happens when information is stored in one place but isn’t easily accessible to the rest of the organization. Imagine a distributor where the sales team manages customer quotes and purchase history in one system, marketing tracks email campaigns in another, and fulfillment relies on separate software for order processing. If these systems don’t talk to each other, employees waste valuable time hunting down information instead of using it to serve customers and grow revenue.

😬 Data silos cost employees over 9 hours of productivity per week. 😬

A McKinsey report found that employees spend an average of 1.8 hours per day—or 9.3 hours per week—searching for and gathering information. That’s over a full workday each week lost to inefficiency. Worse, when employees rely on incomplete or outdated data, mistakes can happen, leading to costly errors and frustrated customers.

The Importance of Breaking Down Data Silos

Without access to the right data at the right time, businesses struggle to operate efficiently. Data silos can lead to:

Poor decision-making – If teams rely on incomplete information, they might not see the full picture when forecasting demand, pricing products, or managing inventory.
Wasted time and resources – Employees spend too much time tracking down data instead of focusing on serving customers and closing deals.
Inconsistent reporting – Different teams might work with different sets of data, leading to discrepancies in order records, financials, and customer communications.

How to Overcome Data Silos

The good news is that distributors can break down data silos and unlock the full potential of their information. Here are some practical steps to get started:

1. Centralize Your Data

One of the most effective ways to eliminate silos is to store all business data in a centralized location. This could mean using a cloud-based system where sales, marketing, and fulfillment teams can access the same real-time data, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

However, unless you're using a full-fledged enterprise ERP, your team likely relies on multiple applications for different tasks. That means data may still be scattered across platforms. If that's the case, integrating your systems to sync data across applications is the next best step. See our next recommendation for how to do this effectively.

2. Use Business Intelligence (BI) Tools

BI tools help integrate, analyze, and visualize data from different sources in one place. Solutions like Zoho Analytics allow distributors and suppliers to pull data from multiple systems, organize it into meaningful reports, and create dashboards that provide insights at a glance. This reduces the time employees spend searching for data and ensures everyone works with the same, up-to-date information to make smarter business decisions.

Zoho Analytics is a robust BI application that connects to your apps.

You can even use Zoho Analytics to blend your data, create custom reports, and develop client-facing dashboards – a huge value add service.

3. Foster a Data-Sharing Culture

Technology alone won’t solve the problem—companies must also encourage a culture where data is shared across departments. This means:

Encouraging sales, marketing, and fulfillment teams to document and share data openly.
Implementing policies that promote collaboration between distributors and suppliers.
Making sure leadership supports transparency and cross-team communication.

4. Automate Data Integration

Manually updating and transferring data between systems is time-consuming and error-prone. Automation tools can help streamline this process by syncing data across platforms. For example, workflow automation tools can connect e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, and order fulfillment software so that data flows seamlessly without human intervention.

The Bottom Line

Data is one of the most valuable and proprietary assets a promotional products business has—but only if it’s accessible, accurate, and easy to use. Breaking down data silos can lead to better decision-making, greater efficiency, and a more unified approach to business strategy. By centralizing data, using BI tools like Zoho Analytics, fostering a data-sharing culture, and automating processes, businesses can spend less time hunting for information and more time serving customers and growing revenue.

Are data silos holding your business back? Start implementing these strategies today and unlock the full power of your data.

Optimizing Inventory for Company Stores: Balancing Cost, Demand, and Storage

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 14:28:41 -0600

For promo distributors, managing inventory in online company stores is a balancing act. While it’s tempting to let clients buy large quantities upfront to secure lower unit prices, this approach can lead to costly pitfalls like dead stock and high storage fees. On the other hand, ordering too frequently can increase inbound shipping and receiving costs, eroding the savings from bulk purchases. This article will provide some ideas on how to optimize inventory management for company stores, ensuring that your clients benefit from cost-effective, efficient operations without unnecessary risks.

We put together a free Google Sheets tool designed to help you optimize your inventory. Find it at the end of this article.

The Temptation of Bulk Buying and the Reality of Inventory Costs

A common scenario in company store programs is the client’s desire to purchase large quantities of merchandise to secure lower unit prices. Economies of scale often mean that the more you buy, the less you pay per item. For clients, this can be an attractive proposition—after all, who doesn’t want to get more bang for their buck? On the distributor side, who doesn't like big sales and commissions?

However, this strategy comes with some risk. Overbuying can lead to dead stock—products that sit in the warehouse, unsold, incurring storage fees and tying up client budget that could be used elsewhere. This is particularly problematic if the products are time-sensitive. Moreover, in some cases, the savings gained from bulk purchasing are offset by the costs of storing and managing excess inventory.

When Equalized Pricing Levels the Playing Field

In some cases, distributors can offer clients equalized pricing (EQP), which provides lower unit prices without the need for bulk purchasing. EQP can can change the game, allowing clients to order lower quantities, closer to when they need it, without worrying about losing out on bulk discounts. This pricing structure reduces the pressure to overcommit to large orders, making it easier to maintain optimal inventory levels.

Understanding Inventory Velocity and Stock-to-Sales Ratio

A critical component of inventory management is understanding inventory velocity, often measured by the stock-to-sales ratio. This ratio compares your current inventory levels to your average monthly sales, giving you a clear picture of how quickly your stock is moving. A balanced stock-to-sales ratio ensures that inventory is fresh, relevant, and aligns with actual demand, reducing the risk of holding too much or too little stock.

In a B2B2X context—where "X" could be employees, intracompany departments, or franchisees—demand patterns can vary significantly. For instance, orders from intracompany departments might be more predictable, while franchisees may order sporadically based on local needs. Tailoring your inventory velocity expectations to these specific demand patterns is crucial. A well-calibrated stock-to-sales ratio helps ensure that you are not overcommitting to inventory for slower-moving items while maintaining sufficient stock for high-demand products.

Leveraging Data for Better Inventory Decisions

The key to optimizing inventory is data. By analyzing historical sales data, distributors can forecast demand more accurately, ensuring that they hold just enough stock to meet anticipated needs without overbuying.

For B2B2X models, it’s important to segment demand based on the different types of end customers. For example, employee orders might follow a more consistent, predictable pattern, while franchisee orders could be more variable, influenced by factors such as local events or promotions. Understanding these nuances allows for more precise inventory planning.

This is where business intelligence platforms like Zoho Analytics come into play. These platforms centralize sales and inventory data, providing a comprehensive view of past performance and current stock levels. With tools like Zoho Analytics, distributors can generate detailed reports and visualizations that make it easier to forecast future needs and identify trends. By leveraging such technology, you can make informed decisions that balance inventory costs with demand, ultimately improving your inventory velocity.

Regular inventory audits are another essential practice. These audits help ensure that stock levels are aligned with actual sales trends, allowing for timely adjustments to avoid overstocking or stockouts.

Balancing Storage Costs with Supplier Pricing

When it comes to ordering inventory, one of the biggest challenges is balancing the savings from larger orders with the costs associated with storage and inbound logistics. While it might be cheaper to order large quantities, the resulting storage costs—and the risk of overstocking—can quickly erode those savings.

For clients benefiting from EQP pricing, more frequent, smaller orders might be the better approach. This strategy reduces storage costs while still taking advantage of the lower unit prices, especially when the savings from bulk purchasing are minimal or nonexistent. Be sure, however, to factor in the increase of inbound logistics and order processing costs. Ordering too frequently should be avoided as well.

Be mindful of turnaround times when opting to keep smaller quantities on hand. Even with reduced stock levels, knowing the lead times for replenishing your inventory is essential to avoid delays that could disrupt order fulfillment. Additionally, keep track of your larger, end-buyer orders for specific items. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you’re unable to ship items due to unforeseen delays in restocking or a large order being placed by an end-buyer.

Setting Realistic Client Expectations

Transparent communication with clients is essential. Distributors should explain the trade-offs between lower unit pricing and the potential risks of holding too much inventory. Clients need to understand that while bulk purchasing might seem advantageous, it can lead to significant costs down the line if the inventory doesn’t move as expected.

A collaborative approach to demand forecasting can also help. By working closely with clients to forecast demand based on past performance and upcoming campaigns, distributors can help set realistic expectations for sales and inventory levels. This collaboration ensures that clients are not caught off guard by the costs associated with overbuying.

Conclusion: Tailoring Inventory Strategies for Success

In conclusion, the optimal inventory strategy depends on understanding your inventory velocity, tailoring your stock-to-sales ratio to match demand patterns, and balancing costs with strategic ordering. By focusing on inventory velocity and leveraging data-driven insights, distributors can help clients maintain lean and responsive inventory levels, ensuring their company stores remain efficient and cost-effective.

We put together a free Google Sheets tool designed to help you optimize your inventory. This tool is specifically set up to work with a Liftoff Product Usage report, allowing you to analyze inventory metrics like stock-to-sales ratio and inventory velocity with ease. Not using Liftoff? As long as you paste similar data into the green columns in the Data tab, the formulas will work. I hope you find it useful!

How to Use the Tool:

Access the Tool:Click here to clone the tool to your own Google Drive. This will open a new Google Sheets document in your account.
Paste Your Data:

Open the Data sheet.
Paste your Liftoff Product Usage report (or similar data) into this sheet, replacing any placeholder data.

Copy Down Rows in the Analysis Sheet:

Go to the Analysis sheet.
Copy down the formulas in the rows to match the amount of data you’ve pasted in the Data sheet. The formulas will automatically calculate key inventory metrics for you.

Leverage ASI’s Ad Impressions Study Insights for Sales and Marketing

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:25:11 -0600

Tailoring Product Recommendations

The study breaks down data by product category, demographics, and geographic regions. This means you can tailor your recommendations to fit the specific needs and preferences of your client’s target audience. Whether it’s apparel that resonates well in urban areas or tech gadgets that appeal to millennials, you’ve got the data to back up your suggestions.

Building Trust and Credibility

Leveraging a reputable source like ASI adds credibility to your pitch. Clients are more likely to trust your expertise when they see you’re not just making claims but are backed by industry-leading research. It shows you’re invested in their success and are providing well-researched solutions.

Enhancing ROI Discussions

Budget is always a concern. By utilizing ASI’s data, you can effectively demonstrate the ROI of promotional products. Highlighting how cost-effective these items are in comparison to other advertising mediums can help sway budget discussions in your favor. For example, the cost per impression for a branded hat is incredibly low compared to traditional advertising.

Educating Clients on Trends

ASI’s study offers insights into trending products and emerging categories. This knowledge allows you to keep your clients ahead of the curve by recommending the latest and most impactful promotional items. It’s a great way to show that you’re proactive and innovative in your approach.

Justifying Premium Products

Sometimes clients are hesitant to invest in premium promotional items. The study’s findings can help justify these choices by showing that higher-quality items often have a longer retention rate and higher impression count. Explaining that a premium branded backpack can be a walking billboard for years can make a compelling case.

Implementing Data Into Your Sales and Marketing Process

Leveraging the insights from ASI’s Ad Impressions Study can transform your sales and marketing strategies, making them more effective and impactful. Here are some practical ways to incorporate this valuable data:

Regular Conversations with Clients

Make it a habit to share relevant data during your regular check-ins with clients. Highlighting key statistics, such as the average number of impressions for specific promotional items, can help illustrate the long-term value of their investments. This not only informs but also reinforces your role as a knowledgeable advisor. ASI produces some fantastic infographics that you can share.

Enhance Your Presentations and Look Books

Including research data in your presentations and look books adds a layer of credibility and professionalism. Use charts, graphs, and infographics from the ASI study to visually demonstrate the effectiveness of promotional products. This can make your proposals more compelling and easier for clients to understand.

Incorporate Data into Quotes

When sending quotes, include relevant data points that underscore the value of the products you're quoting. For instance, if a branded mug generates a high number of impressions over its lifespan, include this information in the quote. This helps clients feel more confident about their purchasing decisions and provides them with data to justify their choices to stakeholders.

Social Media Content

Share snippets of ASI data on your social media platforms to attract and educate a broader audience. Use eye-catching graphics and concise messages to convey key points. This not only enhances your online presence but also drives engagement and interest in your offerings.

Training and Development

Ensure that your sales team is well-versed in the insights from the ASI study. Regular training sessions can help them understand how to use this data effectively in their client interactions. Consider incorporating this data into your LMS. This will make your team more confident and persuasive in their sales efforts.

Use in Email Marketing Campaigns

Integrating ASI data into your email newsletters can keep your clients informed and engaged. Highlight a different statistic or trend in each newsletter to educate your audience continually. For example, you can share insights about the most effective promotional items for different industries or seasons. This not only adds value but also positions you as an expert in the field.

Zoho Campaigns' Bookmarks feature is a powerful tool for streamlining your email marketing efforts. With Bookmarks, you can create and save content blocks that feature data from ASI's Ad Impressions Study, making it easy to reuse these blocks in future campaigns.

This not only saves you and your team valuable time but also ensures consistency in your messaging. By setting these saved content blocks for future use, you can effortlessly make insightful data a regular part of your email marketing strategy.

This approach not only enhances the value of your emails but also positions you as a knowledgeable and resourceful partner to your clients. If you're not using Zoho Campaigns, check with your email provider to see if they offer a similar feature to Bookmarks.

Conclusion

Incorporating ASI’s Ad Impressions Study data into your sales and marketing strategies can significantly boost your effectiveness and client satisfaction. By consistently providing valuable insights during client interactions, enhancing presentations, and streamlining your email campaigns with tools like Zoho Campaigns' Bookmarks feature, you position yourself as a knowledgeable and trustworthy partner. This not only builds stronger client relationships but also drives better business outcomes. Start leveraging this powerful data today and watch your promotional product business thrive.

Download the Free Ad Impressions Study

How to Import Liftoff Commerce Data into Zoho DataPrep

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 09:55:32 -0600

Zoho DataPrep is an intuitive data preparation tool designed to simplify the process of cleaning, transforming, and enriching data. For print and promo product distributors, DataPrep can import your data from various sources like CRMs, spreadsheets, databases, and even APIs – making data management much easier.

You can quickly remove duplicates, correct errors and handle missing values, saving time and ensuring data accuracy. For instance, distributors could use Zoho DataPrep to consolidate customer data from multiple platforms into a single clean data set, making it easier to track customer activity and trends across sales channels.

You can also transform and combine data to generate insightful reports or prepare imports into other platforms. By streamlining these processes, distributors can focus on growing their businesses rather than getting bogged down by data issues.

Zoho DataPrep has a free plan that you can use to get started with, and later upgrade if you need more power. If you'd like to try it, please use the button at the end of this article. It will support what we're doing at PromoPilot and you'll also get a $100 credit from Zoho that can be used for any of their apps.

Connecting Liftoff to Zoho DataPrep

As you begin to kick the tires on DataPrep, you can easily create datasets from any spreadsheets you have or by using any of their 50+ native connections. But DataPrep has a powerful feature worth exploring. With its URL connector, you can bring in data from any of your SaaS tools that have an API. To demonstrate this, let's review the process for getting Liftoff Commerce order data into DataPrep.

Note: In this brief tutorial you'll encounter some concepts related to APIs that we won't go in depth on. My goal is to get you seeing Liftoff data in DataPrep as quickly as possible. I'll show you where to click and what to put into each field to get started, but I highly recommend that you explore topics like JSON, API basics like call methods, parameters, and headers. Working with APIs does not require coding knowledge but it will elevate your no-code work tremendously!

When you first log into DataPrep, you're going to be asked to create a workspace. Workspaces hold the various datasets and rulesets imported into Zoho DataPrep.

Give your new workspace a name and then choose a data source – for connecting to the Liftoff Commerce API, we'll choose URL.

Configure the Dataset

On the connection configuration screen you are asked to provide the dataset with a name. Call it what you please – but because any Liftoff API connection is tied to a specific account (store) I recommend naming it something like "ACCOUNT_NAME Liftoff Orders" using your own account name.

Next, define your method as GET and, for Liftoff orders, we use the endpoint at https://odata.liftoff.shop/odata/v1/Order. For more information on the Liftoff Commerce API and this endpoint, visit the Liftoff Commerce developer documentation site.

Click on the Pagination. Pagination in APIs refers to the process of dividing a large set of data into discrete pages to be retrieved sequentially or based on specific criteria, improving efficiency and manageability. The Liftoff API has a maximum limit of 100 items that it can respond to your API call with. So if you have 300 orders, you would need to make 3 requests. There are a few ways different APIs can handle pagination. For Liftoff we need to configure this screen like so:

Paginate using: Offset and limit
Offset parameter: $skip
Limit parameter: $top
Initial value: 0
Limit value: 100
Number of requests: 1

We'll only make 1 request for now, retrieving up to 100 orders. Your Pagination configuration page should now look like this:

The last step to configure our connection is to provide authorization details. Accessing an API is just like accessing any of your applications. For that reason we need something like a username and password. Like pagination, APIs can use a number of methods for authorization.

Click on Authorization and choose Basic Auth as your authorization method. Provide your connection with a name – again, I like to note the account, app, and what kind of data I am retrieving. Connections are saved by DataPrep and can be used again when configuring new data sources.

For the Username, you will use your Liftoff account code for the store you wish to receive order data from. Your password will be your admin user's API key. Both of these can be found in the Liftoff Commerce admin interface. Note: The API key for the admin user must have the right permissions to retrieve the desired data from the account you are retrieving from.

Your Authorization screen should look like the image below. Click the blue Import button to retrieve your data.

Transforming Your Data

You should now have a table of data. Nice! But – it doesn't look very useful. However, if we look at the data in the second column, we can see bits of order data. We need to transform this data into something that looks more like an order report.

On the right side of each column header, there is a small down arrow. If you click this arrow, you'll be provided with a menu of the many transforms that you can perform in DataPrep. All of our order data is here in this one column on this one row – we need to first get each order's data onto its own row. Click the arrow in the value column header and choose Extract from List.

When you choose Extract from List, on the right sidebar, you'll be asked to convert the list items to columns or rows. Select Rows, and give the new column a name like 'Data.' You'll notice on the left side of the screen that DataPrep shows you a preview of your transform and it's beginning to look more like what we expected! Each order's data on its own row. But that Data column still looks weird. The data we want is there, we just need it on their own columns.

Navigate again to the transform menu of our new Data column and choose Extract from Map. In the right sidebar you are asked to select the keys to move into columns. In our Data column you may have noticed text like "Status":"Shipped". Status is the key and Shipped is the value. All of the properties for each order are in the Data column like this. To extract them, in the Key column of the sidebar, you can click into the text field and DataPrep will provide you with a list of available keys to choose from. Once you select one, you can give the resulting new column a name, click the + icon and continue selecting keys this way. As you work, your screen will look like this:

It's worth pointing out that in order to extract the billing information for the order, we need to take an extra step when defining the keys for that data. This is because the billing values are nested in the data. If we were to look at the raw data for an order, it would look like this:

Notice that for the billing information we have keys like Name, Address1, Address2, etc. under Billing. As a result, if we want columns for that billing information, when selecting the keys for that billing data we will first choose Billing from the drop down. DataPrep automatically recognizes that there are additional keys under billing and so you can now choose which key, nested under Billing, you'd like to create a column for.

After you've selected all your keys and have the preview looking how you want it, click the blue Apply button.

From here there is any number of additional transforms you could perform like find and replace, changing date formats, etc. Many of the transforms you'll find are similar to what you would do in Excel.

Saving, Exporting, and Importing Rulesets

Now, we just did a bunch of work to get this Liftoff order data looking how we want it. The prospect of having to do this every time we want to bring in new order data is daunting. Fortunately DataPrep kept track of what we were doing all along as we built out our ruleset. This ruleset can be saved as a template, and even exported from one DataPrep account into another. This makes performing the same transforms on data that is imported in the same format fast and easy. In fact, I've exported my own ruleset for Liftoff orders and you can download it here.

Conclusion

I hope that I've introduced you to a new tool that is helpful for the work you're doing at your print and promo company, and provided you with a jumpstart on how to get data into Zoho DataPrep so that you can explore all that it has to offer. If you don't use Liftoff Commerce, the same principals apply to any SaaS app with an API. Or, you can bring in Excel documents from other reports that you might have, and begin to do some of the same transforms and see what DataPrep is really capable of.

If you decide to give DataPrep a try, please click the link below. It helps support content like this, and you'll get a $100 credit with Zoho should you decide to buy.

Get Started with Zoho DataPrep