Getting started
How records arrive in Biosphere
Files, emails and Shopify downloads all land in the Inbox first. Your catalog, contacts, inventory and orders change only after a mapping says what the rows mean and a person approves the changes.
Follow an arrival from start to finish
- Something arrives: you upload a file, an email reaches your business address, or a Shopify store syncs. Each arrival becomes one source in Inbox.
- Biosphere checks each file for safety and keeps the original exactly as it arrived. You can download it at any time.
- Biosphere reads it. CSV files and spreadsheets are read row by row. PDFs, images and documents are read page by page for supplier and product details.
- You choose who issued the records, such as your supplier Alder Supply. This is the record’s source.
- You map the rows: what each row is (a catalog variant, a contact, a purchase order line) and which column fills each field. Biosphere saves the mapping for the next file with the same columns from the same source.
- You review the changes. Biosphere lists every record it would create or update, with current and proposed values side by side. Nothing has changed yet.
- You approve. Biosphere saves the changes. The original, the mapping and every decision stay with the source.
Choose where records come in
- Files: drop files under the Inbox list, or open Configure → Sources → Files. See Upload files.
- Email: forward email to the address shown in Configure → Sources → Email. See Receive records by email.
- Shopify: connect a store in Configure → Sources → Shopify. See Connect a Shopify store.
All three end up in the same Inbox and follow the same mapping, review and approval steps.
Let later arrivals apply on their own
When you save a mapping, set Future application to Automatic after validation. Later arrivals from the same source with the same columns are then applied without a separate review, as long as they pass the same checks.
Anything that needs a decision still waits in Inbox: new columns, blocking issues, a name another item already uses, or a field a person changed by hand. See Map a source.
What to know
- Saving a mapping never changes records. Approval is always a separate step.
- Nothing is thrown away. Dismissing a review, replaying a source or reading a document again keeps the original and every earlier result.
- Scout can read your Inbox and propose record matches. A person approves imports and matches.
- Inbox is the one place to follow every arrival. The Files, Email and Shopify pages link back to it with Open in Inbox.