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Early Access

The Elastic integration is currently in a private pilot with a limited group of brands. Features and setup steps may change before general release. To learn more about joining, contact your Locally account team.

Locally's integration with Elastic brings your ShopSense Suggested Orders directly into the Elastic B2B ordering platform. Instead of exporting suggestions to a spreadsheet and re-keying them, your sales reps (and, if you choose, your dealers) can load a retailer's Suggested Orders into Elastic with one click and get a ready-to-review draft order. That draft already follows your brand's catalogs, pricing, and ordering rules.

This article explains how the integration works and what your team needs to provide to get set up.

How It Works

1. Locally identifies the need. Every day, ShopSense reviews each retailer's on-hand inventory and recent sales velocity at the store level. It then generates UPC-level reorder suggestions for items that have sold out or are likely to sell out in the next 28 days.
2. Elastic picks up the suggestions. Once a day, Elastic retrieves your latest Suggested Orders from Locally. Suggestions are matched to your Elastic customer accounts and locations using the customer and location numbers you provide (see Setup), and to your Elastic catalog by UPC.
3. Your team reviews and submits. In Elastic, a user selects a customer and clicks Locally Suggestions. Elastic creates a draft order. From there it works like any other order: your catalog rules, availability, sales programs, and pricing all apply. The user reviews and edits the draft, then submits it.

Suggested Orders are never submitted automatically. Every order is reviewed and submitted by a person in Elastic.

Before You Start

To use the integration, your brand needs:

• An active Elastic account for wholesale ordering
• ShopSense with Programmatic Access, which includes API access to your Suggested Orders report
• Retailers sharing inventory with Locally. Suggestions can only be generated for retail partners whose store inventory feeds into ShopSense.
• A signed data sharing authorization that allows Locally to share your Suggested Orders with Elastic. Your Locally account team will confirm what's needed for your agreement.

Not sure if you qualify? Contact your Locally account team.

Setup

Step 1: Add Your Elastic Customer Numbers

Elastic creates real orders on your customers' accounts, so every suggestion must be matched to the exact account in your system. To do this, Locally needs the customer number your brand uses for each retailer in Elastic. That's the same account number you use in your ERP.

Customer numbers are set at the retailer company level. For example, a retailer with three stores has one customer number. All three stores' suggestions are delivered under it, and Elastic lets you choose which locations to order for.

To add customer numbers in the Locally dashboard:

1. Log in to the Locally dashboard and go to Open StoreFront > External Customer IDs
2. Click Add to create a new entry
3. Brand: your brand is selected automatically
4. Retailer Company: search for and select the retailer. Only retailers on your dealer list are available.
5. Provider: select Elastic (EmeraldX)
6. External Customer ID: enter your Elastic customer number for that retailer, exactly as it appears in Elastic
7. Save, and repeat for each retailer you want included

Once saved, each customer number is also visible (read-only) next to the retailer in your dealer list.

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Have a lot of retailers?

Your Locally account team can send you a spreadsheet to fill out and we'll bulk-load them for you.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Only retailers with a customer number are included. Retailers without one won't receive suggestions in Elastic.
• Numbers must match Elastic exactly. Elastic can't export these numbers to Locally, so they need to come from your team. Double-check them against your Elastic or ERP records.
• Each brand's numbers are private. Your customer numbers are visible only to your brand.

Step 2: Add Your Elastic Location Numbers (Vendor IDs)

Elastic also needs to know which of the customer's locations each suggestion is for. To do this, every store you want included must have a vendor ID in your Locally dealer list that matches the location number your brand uses for that store in Elastic. That's the same location number you use in your ERP.

Vendor IDs are set at the store level. For example, a retailer with three stores has one customer number (Step 1) and three location numbers, one per store.

To add vendor IDs in the Locally dashboard:

1. Go to Retailers > Manage your Dealer List
2. Find the store and edit it
3. Enter your Elastic location number for that store in the Vendor ID field, exactly as it appears in Elastic
4. Save, and repeat for each store at each retailer from Step 1

See Manual Dealer List Maintenance for more on editing your dealer list. If your dealer list syncs automatically from your ERP (Dealer List Auto-Sync), make sure the vendor ID column in your file contains your location numbers.

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Vendor IDs are required

Elastic can only create a draft order for a store that has a matching location number. Suggestions for stores with a missing or mismatched vendor ID won't load into Elastic.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Use your own location numbers, not Locally's. Locally store IDs won't match anything in Elastic.
• Each brand's vendor IDs are separate. A store that carries several brands has a different vendor ID for each brand, and only your brand sees yours.
• Have a lot of stores? Your Locally account team can bulk-load vendor IDs for you along with your customer numbers.

Step 3: Locally Connects Your Account to Elastic

Once your customer and location numbers are loaded, Locally sets up your Suggested Orders connection and shares your credentials securely with Elastic. You don't need to take any action here. Your account team will confirm when it's done.

Step 4: Elastic Enables the Feature

Elastic tests your connection with your real data, walks your team through a demo, and works with you to decide on a rollout. For example, you can turn the feature on for all of your customers or start with a selected group of accounts.

Questions about your setup? Contact your Locally account team.