For migrating your existing customers and their subscriptions in your interworks.cloud BSS, we have implemented an import tool that is used for importing your Google Workspace customers in BSS. This is particularly handy during the initialization of the system. |
To access the Google Workspace Customers' Importer Tool, navigate to BSS Setup > Administration > System Options > Applications Setup > Google Workspace SM > Settings (button) and select the "Go To Importer" button.
Inside the Google Workspace Importer tool, you are provided with the tools necessary to start immediately the import of your Google Workspace instance's customers. You are provided with a list(1), that will be populated with your customers' Google Workspace data, a drop-down menu(2) to filter the customers according to their import status and lastly, you are provided with two buttons; one for collecting(3) your Google Workspace customers' list under the importer's list and another one for the initialization of the import process(4).
Furthermore, you will find two main navigation tabs on the left-middle part of the screen (inside the collapsible menu), namely the "Current State" tab and the "Results" tab.
Tab | Explanation |
---|---|
The first tab is where the import matching and initiation takes place for your Google Workspace customers towards our BSS. | |
The second tab is where you can examine the import results. |
In the following analysis, we shall examine first the Current State tab along with all its functionalities, and then the Results tab examination will follow.
Inside the "Current State" tab you will find a matrix list with which you will manage your customer imports. Each time you wish to insert your Google Workspace customers to BSS, the tool acquires your existing customers and their corresponding subscriptions via the Get/Update List button, which essentially begins a "communication" (API call) with Google to collect everything relative to the instance that you are currently in. Then the results from this "communication" are depicted on the tool's list to be imported. Apart from customers, we will also depict their imported status as well as the status of their imported subscriptions.
Νext to the Get/Update List button, there is an indicator named "Last Update:" in which the date and time are displayed. For BSS users who have never run the importer tool before, there will be no information for the "Last Update:", as depicted in the image above.
In case you want to run the importer tool without refreshing "Get/Update List", then the information displayed will be those from the "Last Update" from both the BSS platform (BSS) and Google Workspace. That means that new customers or subscriptions could have been created but without re-running the "Get/Update List" process, the importer tool will not be aligned with both BSS and Google Workspace data. |
As a best practice, after you have finished all the imports, it is recommended to re-run the Get/Update List process one last time to make sure that all customers are imported and their imports are error-free. |
After opening the importers' tool from the corresponding instance and subsequently clicking the Get/Update List button, the tool retrieves all the instance's customers and displays them on the following matrix list under the main columns; "BSS", "Google Workspace", and "Subscriptions" which are further divided into ten distinct columns which are:
Status States: | Status States' Explanation: |
---|---|
The customer is not yet synced with our BSS. It is the initial status before import. | |
The import is added to the queue. | |
The customer import failed and cannot be synced with our BSS. |
Successful Sync & Completion of Import When an import is successful and synced with our BSS platform, its row will completely disappear from the list of customers. You will never see a status that indicates the completion, nor the row that contained the information of that customer. This is normal! |
The columns' information will be:
Type | Status | Matching | Info |
---|---|---|---|
Account | Unmatched Matched | Account | Account |
Account's Name in BSS | BSS account that matches the Google Workspace account (if matched). | Comments concerning whether the Account is matched with a pre-existing one in our BSS or whether it will be created. | |
Subscription | Subscription | Subscription | |
Subscription's Name in Google Workspace | BSS SKU matches the Google Workspace's subscription SKU (if matched). | Comments concerning the Subscription Quantity, the Add-ons, the SKU Description, the Plan, and the Seats/Users. | |
Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | |
Add-on's Name in Google Workspace | BSS SKU matches the Google Workspace's add-on SKU (if matched). | Comments concerning the Add-on Quantity, or the Add-on in general. |
The import process will not start if the Subscription or the Add-on Status is "Unmatched". |
During the "Get/Update List" process of the importer tool, we can recognize, any existing add-ons (based on their license) within any of the Flexible Basic subscriptions that are prepared for import and therefore we can assign the corresponding add-on(s) to the Basic Flexible subscription created at BSS. For example, if a customer's Flexible Basic subscription has a "Google Drive storage 1 TB" add-on, then this add-on along with its quantity will be created in our BSS and assigned under that imported subscription. For more information on the Basic Flexible Add-ons' Management please continue to the "Defining Google Workspace Products" page.
Having selected one or more customer(s) to import, by clicking the Start Import button, a pop-up window appears containing the Import Options (in the event of a new customer import) which consist of the Ordering Options as well as the Price List Options (on next page) that need to be configured for the chosen customers, who are about to be imported.
Set Ordering Options, as well as Price List Options, do not get saved, so in case you select to import a new customer, the default options are displaying.
After the configuration of the above-mentioned options, you can either proceed with the import process by clicking the Queue Import button or exit the pop-up windows by clicking the Close button and return to the customers' list.
After defining the above steps and once you have clicked the Queue Import button, the actual import process begins its execution.
OR
Immediately afterward, the pop-up windows close and the import process begins. The customers' rows, that were chosen for import, will have their status changed to "Pending". Also, the "View details" button will disappear.
Please note that the import process is asynchronous and as a result, you can leave it as is and continue with your other tasks. It doesn't need any monitoring by you since it is built with various mechanisms that enforce the overall completion of the import. The flow of import statuses that you will witness, after the import initiation, begins with the status Pending and then if the import is Completed successfully the row vanishes and it is not depicted inside the list anymore (may require to refresh with F5) or it changes to Fail to import (orange color). The below diagram is a representation of that flow: |
In case a customer import has been partially imported with errors or not imported at all, the entry will become red-colored and its status will be "Fail to import", as exemplified below.
If a customer's import has failed with Status "Failed to import", you can re-run the import process to try and complete the import without errors.
To check what is causing the error and even correct it, you can navigate to the Results page via its corresponding tab.
During the import process of the Google Workspace customers' Accounts to BSS, the importer tool automatically creates Contacts under those related BSS Accounts in order for the customers to be able to login to the Storefront with their credentials. No further actions or configurations are required from you. Over this automatic creation process and upon the successful creation of the Contacts, activation emails are dispatched to the customers containing the activation link that, when clicked, redirects them to the Storefront where they can activate their Storefront accounts and create their passwords.
The field-values that are required from BSS in order for a Contact to be automatically created are the following four, namely the first name, the last name, the email, and the phone number.
As a result, the following matching of fields between the BSS platform and the Google Workspace system takes place during the automatic Contact creation.
BSS Fields | Google Workspace Fields |
---|---|
BSS Contact: LastName | Google Workspace: PostalAddress → ContactName |
BSS Contact: FirstName | Google Workspace: PostalAddress → ContactName |
BSS Contact: Email | Google Workspace: AlternateEmail |
BSS Contact: Phone | Google Workspace: PhoneNumber |
If the automatic creation of a Contact fails, then the Customer's import also fails with Status "Failed to import". To check the reason for failure, you can navigate to the Results page via the corresponding tab, where a message exists stating that there was a failure during the Contact creation as well as the exact issue. As explained in the failure case above, you may be able to correct the issue and re-run the import process to try and complete the Customer's import along with the automatic Contact creation without errors.
During or after the import, you can reach the Results page by clicking on the corresponding tab to view the import process of your customers as well as the import results in terms of the status and the time frame. Additionally, inside the Results page, you will find comments on errors that may occur during an import. In the following analysis, we examine the content provided on this page.
For each import of one or more customers, the list adds a new row for each customer inside the Results page.
When viewing the Results page, you will find the import results logs distributed into three main columns; "BSS", "Google Workspace" and "Status" that are further divided into ten distinct columns which are:
The first step in understanding and correcting the errors of the Importer tool is to proceed to the "Results Page" and from there navigate to a customer's row that the import has failed. By clicking the "Failure details" button a pop-up window appears, having the error information log that explains (usually in user-friendly comments) what the error was in details.
For example, in the image below, this error occurs because there is a server communication error during the import.
Furthermore, inside the following note, you can find possible solutions to errors but if everything else fails, you might have to contact our support team, by raising a ticket.
Errors Occurring from Either BSS or Google Workspace During an Import Errors:
Solutions:
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