Parts & Vendors Conversion

Many of our customers previously used Trilogy Design’s Parts & Vendors™ (P&V) PC-based software. Aligni offers many advantages over P&V, but we understand that your existing data is very important. To ease your migration to Aligni, we have created a database conversion tool and can perform your conversion free of charge once you’re subscribed.

In January 2014, Trilogy Design announced the end of their technical support, thus ending twenty solid years as a stalwart package meeting the needs of small engineering departments worldwide. We’ve long helped P&V users grow to the next level by offering migration from their existing database to Aligni and look forward to continuing this service.

Conversion Details

Due to the differences in how Aligni and P&V store data, there are some things you should be aware of before the conversion is done. These differences are highlighted below. We are constantly trying to improve the accuracy of the converter, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know.

Note that conversion tool is provided as a courtesy and the results are not guaranteed. But you will have the opportunity to browse your data and check it out!

Manufacturers and Vendors

Aligni requires that every part be associated with a manufacturer and that every quote be associated with a vendor. P&V does not have these requirements. Therefore:

  • A generic manufacturer “P&V Unknown Manufacturer” is created. Parts that are not associated with a manufacturer fall under the umbrella of this manufacturer.
  • A generic vendor “P&V Unknown Vendor” is created. Quotes that are not associated with a vendor fall under the umbrella of this vendor.
  • When multiple parts are associated with the same manufacturer’s part number, only one part will be created in the Aligni database.
  • Linecard translation is fully supported.

Parts

Aligni requires that all manufacturer part numbers be unique within the scope of a particular manufacturer.

  • When multiple parts are associated with the same manufacturer’s part number, the additional parts will include an incrementing suffix. For example if several parts have the same MPN “ABCD”, parts will be created as ABCD, ABCD-001, ABCD-002, ABCD-003.
  • Quotes are converted.
  • Vendor part numbers are converted.

Part Lists

Part lists are converted.

Notes

Notes are converted.

Contacts

Contacts are imported and associated with the corresponding manufacturer and/or vendor.

Aligni provides a richer context for contacts. For example, contacts get their own address, phone numbers, and email addresses within Aligni and each contact can be associated with one vendor (an account manager, for example) and one or more manufacturers (sales reps). Because of all this new data, you’ll probably want to review imported contacts.

Units of Measure

Units of Measure are converted.

Inventory

Inventory is converted to a generic inventory location.

Purchase Orders

Purchase orders are converted. Please note the following:

  • An imported PO is closed if POM#POMDateClosed is set.
  • Creation and commit dates are set using POM#POMDatePrinted.
  • Aligni Buyer Notes are added for purchase items and store the recorded job number as “P&V Job #:…”

Items Not Translated

The following data is not currently translated. If you need something from this list, please contact us.

  • Files
  • Jobs
  • ECOs
  • Currencies
  • History

How to Migrate Your Data

  1. Sign up for Aligni. You need to be subscribed (not on trial) to perform the conversion.
  2. From your administrator account, visit the site settings (click your avatar) and select “Parts & Vendors Migration”.
  3. Upload your P&V database (the Microsoft Access .mdb file).
  4. Allow approximately 24-48 hours for us to complete the migration.
  5. You’ll receive an email when the migration is complete. The email will have a complete log of the migration attached, including any errors. You should review this log thoroughly to make any necessary changes in your new data.

Finally, after your data is in Aligni, you might want to tidy things up a bit. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Rename the P&V Inventory location and sublocations to your site names.
  • Decide how to handle parts under the manufacturer “P&V Unknown Manufacturer”. In many cases, this manufacturer is just you. So you might just rename this to your company name.
  • Review any parts that were not added because they had conflicting part numbers.