The new SAM system is coming soon, and we need your help to ensure a smooth transition.

Download Data Plan Checklist

Why does the data need to be cleaned?

Compatibility
Clean art centre data in your SAM account will enure a smoother transition. Some data fields in current SAM are not compatible with new SAM. And is some cases, current SAM has historically not required a field to be filled in, for example, the gender field of an artist profile.
However, the new SAM will require that data to be filled before migrating it to the new database. If not, there will be critical errors that will not allow you to use your new SAM account.

Accuracy
The accuracy of your data is important for several reasons including;

• Accurate reporting for your organisation
• Accurate reporting at regional and national level
• Accuracy of inventory for your insurnce purposes

Fresh Start
Historically for some art centres, maintenance of SAM data has not been consistent or accurate. This tends to happen over time with mutiple changes in management and staff.
The release of new SAM brings an opportunity for those (if not all) art centres to start fresh in new SAM with a foundation of clean and accurate data.

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• Category Mapping
• Artist Date of Birth & Gender
• Duplicate Artists
• Duplicate Customers
• Artist Savings
• Overdue Invoices & Lay-bys
• Overdue Consignments

In the new SAM, we are providing Parent Categories. Your current SAM Categories will be mapped to new SAM as ‘sub-categories’ of ‘Parent’ categories. The new Parent Categories are organised into Artworks, Editions, Products or Others. This allows you to organise your ‘sub-categories’ at an art centre level.

Review your Categories spreadsheet in your art centre folder.

Are you happy with how your categories are mapped?

Why is it important to clean Gender and Date of birth data?

• Missing data will affect the new system's performance.
• Complete data improves reporting accuracy.
• Ensures that the provenance of artworks is accurately documented.

What do you need to do?

1. Check your artist records: Use the SAM report found in Reports > Artists List - Check Information for Bio to identify artists without gender or date of birth.
2. Update missing information: Correct the details directly in SAM by editing the artist profile.

Don’t worry if you miss something. We'll automatically fill in missing data (gender: Other, DOB: 1/1/1920) when we migrate to the new system.
However, accurate information from you will improve overall data quality.

*Any generic data that we have put in to your SAM records will be provided to you when your art centre moves to the new SAM so that you can update this artist information at a later date.

Why is it important to clean Duplicate Artists data?

• Duplicate artist profiles create errors in sales and reporting.
• Ensures a clear Money Story for artists, with sales accurately reflected.

1. Open the link to your art centre folder
2. Check which artists are duplicate artists in your current SAM
3. Next, you'll need to inspect those profiles and determine which is the duplicate that needs to be merged and which is the main profile.
4. Now navigate to Admin > Merge Artists
5. To insert the first artist profile that you don't need, click Merge Artist 1
6. Start typing the name of the redundant artist and select from the dropdown.
7. Click Into Artist 2
8. Start typing the name of the main artist that you want to keep and select from the dropdown.
9. Click Save. *Carefully read the notes on the page to ensure you are inputting the artists in the correct place
10. Click Yes

Where Skin, Language or Medium are the same on both profiles, the merge will not work.

To fix this, go back into artist profile and remove duplicate Skin, Language or Medium on the redundant profile. Save and then complete the merge.

Download How-to PDF

Watch How-to Video

Why is it important to clean duplicate customer data?

• Duplicate customer profiles create errors in sales and reporting 
• Art centre staff can more confidently complete sales and orders
• Better customer service, allowing SAM features like Preview and Wishlist to work accurately.

How-to Merge Duplucate Customers

1. Check which customers are duplicate customers in your current SAM
2. Next, you'll need to inspect those profiles and determine which is the duplicate that needs to be merged and which is the master profile that will remain.
   If the customer names are exactly the same, it will be difficult in the next steps to identify which is which – so you will need to mark the redundant Customer.
3. Edit the name of the redundant customer Eg, John Smith X or John Smith DELETE Save and do this to all of the redundant profiles.
4. Now navigate to Admin > Merge Customers
5. To insert the first customer profile that you don't need, click Merge Customer 1
6. Start typing the name of the redundant customer and select from the dropdown. Eg; John Smith X
7. Click into Customer 2
8. Start typing the name of the main Customer that you want to keep and select from the dropdown. Eg; John Smith
   Carefully read the notes on the page to ensure you are inputting the customers in the correct place.
9. Click Save
10. Click Yes

Download How-to PDF

Christmas savings/Savings accounts and other savings accounts

1. If you see an excel with 'savings account' in the title – please open
2. In the excel if you see a list of savings accounts FYI these will not be brought forward into new SAM. Their account balance is $0. No action required.*
3. Art centres with accounts highlighted in yellow require further action, please contact us if you haven't been already contacted.

Unpaid invoices and outstanding lay-bys need to be consolidated before the move to the new SAM. For stronger financial governance and stronger business, every transaction in the new SAM will need to be accounted for - You might need to work with your accountant to determine if sales have been paid.

Invoices and lay-bys that have been paid should then be processed and marked as paid in SAM.

To view and easily pay sales, use the report called "Sales and Transactions - Summary - Unpaid (Pay)".
This report will show you all outstanding payments on invoices and lay-bys. It also includes a link to each sale within SAM to easily find and pay for that sale.

**Please note that your artist account balances will be directly impacted, and you may need to balance out the commission payments credited into artist accounts.

Overdue consignments also need to be accounted for in the new SAM.

• Use the report called "Consignments: All overdue, by customer" for a list of all overdue works on consignment.
  
• If artworks have sold - add them to a sale and process/pay that sale.
• If artworks have been returned or found in stock at the art centre - return items off the consignment.
• If artworks are still legitimately on consignment - edit the consignment and extend the due date.
  **Note: by default, consignment due dates are set only 3 months in advance from the creatioin date of the consignment.