Inventory Express Table

To access the Inventory Express table, you must be assigned permission 680 (Inventory Express). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

Libraries that have acquired the Inventory Express product can use the Inventory Express table to set up vendor links. You can use these links to search vendors' inventories during the ordering process.

The Inventory Express table is configured with pre-installed links for specific vendors. By default, the table has an entry for each of these vendors, which includes the vendor name and relevant URL information. Your library can determine which vendor links to enable by completing the link information in the table. For more information about this table, see the Data Elements section below.

In addition to pre-installed links, your library can use a generic linking setup to install Inventory Express links to any vendor capable of supporting Innovative's data format.

You can access the Inventory Express table via the following menu path:

Admin | Parameters | Acquisitions | Inventory Express

For information on modifying this table, see Maintaining System Parameter Tables.

Functionality Information

Contacting your vendors: Before you can set up the links in this table, you will need to contact each vendor.; For pre-installed vendor links, set up a username and password with that vendor.; For all other vendors, you must obtain the vendor's URL to their web services definition file (WSDL), in addition to setting up a username and password. If the vendor has not set up a WSDL, the vendor can contact Innovative for the specifications necessary to interact with the Inventory Express product.
Pre-Installed Vendor Links: Innovative recommends you do not change the data for the pre-installed vendor links unless advised to do so by the vendor. Any changes to the data might result in the link being disabled.
Enabling, Disabling, and Deleting Vendor Links: You can enable an existing link by checking the box in the left-hand column of the table for the vendor link you want to enable. To disable a link, uncheck this box.; You can also delete a vendor link by clicking in one of the fields of the row and choosing Delete. Once you delete an entry from the table, however, the information cannot be retrieved. Innovative recommends disabling the link instead of deleting it from the Inventory Express table.

Data Elements

Entries in the Inventory Express table consist of the following elements. The elements supplied by Innovative for pre-installed vendor links are noted below.

VENDOR: Name of the vendor that the system displays when offering the Inventory Express option. For pre-installed links, the library can edit the default name supplied by Innovative.
USERNAME: The username for your account with the vendor. Contact your vendor to setup a username.
PASSWORD: The password for your account with the vendor. Contact your vendor to setup a password.
VENDOR CODE: Not currently used by the system.
TYPE: Specifies the Java class name for the vendor's web service. This value is used by the system while connecting to the vendor's web service. Sierra offers a drop-down list of vendor names to facilitate choosing the correct value for pre-installed vendors.; For the generic linking setup, choose Generic.
WSDL: The URL to the web services definition file. Innovative supplies this data element for pre-installed vendor links. For generic linking setup, contact the vendor for this information.
WS2BIB: Specifies an internal file used by Sierra to convert the incoming data into bibliographic records. Sierra offers a drop-down list of ws2bib options to facilitate choosing the correct value for pre-installed vendors.; For the generic linking setup, choose gen.