It is very common for dealerships to have more than one data source. Example 1: Used cars from a data collection company and New cars from the Dealer Management System (DMS). Example 2: Inventory from the DMS and prices from a third party vendor.
When these situations occur rules need to be applied to make sure that everything syncs up as expected. Below you will get an idea of how we treat feeds
Single Feed
- All data gets added.
Multiple Feeds (description below is for two feeds, but we can handle more if necessary (more than two is not recommended))
Primary vs. Secondary
When there are two feeds one feed becomes the 'primary' and the other feed is the 'secondary'. When data populates VMS it initially fills in the fields with the 'primary' data source, and then ANY field that did not populate from 'primary' will be populated by 'secondary' (if it exists). Note: ONLY one feed can be 'primary'.
| Feed1 | Price1 | Price1 |
| Feed2 | Price2 | Price2 |
| Primary? | Feed1 | Feed2 |
| Result | Price1 | Price2 |
Additive vs. Complimentary
Depending on which feed is 'primary' will determine which vehicles show up, based on how the 'secondary' feed is merged. The two choices are 'Additive' and 'Complimentary'.
- Additive - adds data from BOTH feeds.
- Complimentary - adds data if the vehicle exists in a existing feed.
For the table below vehicle 'X' is in the following data feeds, and 'A' is 'additive', 'C' is complimentary.
| Feed 1 | X | X | X | X | ||
| Feed 2 | X | X | X | X | ||
| Mode | A | C | A | C | A | C |
| Result | X | X | X | X | X |
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