Exporting Book Sales Data to Nielsen BookScan

Exporting Book Sales Data to Nielsen BookScan

Retailer has the ability to export your book sales to Nielsen via BookScan, giving you access to Nielsen's sales reporting. Sales are sent through as part of your End of Shift process, and are based on the supplier that the stock was arrived under - you will need to select which of you book suppliers should have their sales recorded. This means that your stock must have been arrived into the system via invoice arrivals for it to be eligible for the sales to go through to Nielsen.
Notes
This feature requires you to have an account with Nielsen.

Getting Started

Firstly, you will need to see if BookScan has been enabled on your account with Tower. To do this, from the main menu of Retailer, go up the top to Help → Register. Look amongst the tickboxes for 'BookScan' - if it is ticked, you are good to go. If it is not ticked, contact Tower Support and request that the BookScan Module is enabled on your account.

Secondly, you will need to make sure you have the correct SAN to identify your store. This would have been allocated/registered to the business from a third party.
The SAN can be found under Setup -> System. If its blank, be sure to fill it in and click Save.

Thirdly, you will need to get your FTP details from Nielsen. The information required from them is:
  1. Server Name (This will most likely be ftp.nielsenbookscan.co.uk)
  2. Username
  3. Password
  4. Port (This will most likely be 21)

Setting up the Export

Server

  1. On your server/MAIN computer, up the top in the main menu of Retailer go to Setup → EDI.
  2. In the top left, click the First Record ⭰ button.
  3. Click the Right arrow ⭢ button  (no line) until the BOOKSCAN EDI System appears.
  4. In the Directories tab, change the following setting:
    Outbound File Extension: SAL=.csv
  5. Click the 'File Transfer' tab. Change the following settings:
    Files are to be sent and received by: Tower FTP
    Send Sales Frequency: End of Shift
    Send Sales Data for this EDI System: Ticked
    EDI Abbreviation: BSN
    Send Sales Data for: All Titles
  6. Click Save.
  7. Click the 'Utilities' tab and make sure Enable this EDI System is ticked
  8. Click the 'Remote Server Settings' tab. Here, enter the Server Name, Username, Password and Port provided by Nielsen. In 'Server Type', select FTP Server.
    Leave Server Out Dir and Server In Dir as blank
    Tick 'Display a List of Uploaded Files'
  9. Click Save.
At this stage, you can click the 'Check Comms' button to see if the FTP details you entered are working. 

POS Terminals

The following steps only need to be completed on terminals other than the server that you perform End of Shift on. If you only run End of Shift on your server, skip this section.

If it has not already been done, you will need to set up Server Mapping. See HERE for how to set up drive mapping.
Idea
Server mapping is a requirement for XchangeIT as well - if you use XchangeIT, this step should already be done
Once drive mapping has been setup, on the POS go to go to Setup → EDI, then use the arrows to find BOOKSCAN. In What Drive are the EDI files on, select your mapped drive (usually N:\) from the drop-down list and hit Save.

Setting up Suppliers

  1. From the main menu of Retailer, go to Stock Maintenance → Suppliers and Departments, then click on the 'Suppliers' tab.
  2. Use the magnifying glass button to select one of your book suppliers
  3. Click the 'EDI' tab, then click the 'EDI Systems' button
  4. Find and tick BOOKSCAN in the list, then click OK.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for all other book suppliers
The sales for any stock arrived under one of the suppliers chosen this way should now be sent through to Nielsen at the end of each End of Shift process.