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.

Parent categories in new SAM – what are they for?

•      As there are currently thousands of categories in SAM and there has been no system of organisation across Art Centres, the new Parent categories are there to provide some structure.

•      This will also greatly improve reporting around sales, as Art Centres will be able to generate reports based on categories to see what has been selling.

•      You will only see the Parent Categories when cataloguing, and in your SAM set up.

•      Otherwise, they are used more for system organisation in the ‘backend’, or the engine of SAM.

•      In new SAM, there are three ‘levels’ to the Categories:

Ø  Inventory Type

Ø  Parent Category

Ø  Subcategory (your current SAM categories)

Your current SAM categories will be sorted by Inventory type (Artwork, Edition, Product and Other), then assigned a Parent Category.

Watch this video for the information

Categories powerpoint - recording.mp4

Review your categories

In you Art Centre Folder (provided to your onboarding to new SAM key contact you will find an excel with the current Mapping. 

How to read your Categories spreadsheet

We will use T-shirts as an example.

·      The first four columns are the Inventory Types.
 If the column has a 1, that means that your SAM category has been mapped to that Inventory Type.
For example, T-shirt has been mapped to Product, as Product has a 1.  

Please check that the Inventory types are correct, based on how the item is set up in your current SAM.

 ·      The Parent Category is what the SAM team has mapped your current SAM category onto.

The Description (Category) column is your current SAM category. Here, the current SAM category T-shirt has been mapped on to the Parent category Clothing.
Please review the Parent category and let us know if you would like us to change it to an alternative Parent category.

 ·      The GSTFree column tells you if the category has GST applied or not.

If GST is applied, like for our T-shirt, it will say FALSE, as this is category is not GST Free

If GST is not applied, for example on a Donation category, it will say TRUE, as this category is GST Free.

Please review the GSTFree column against your categories in your spreadsheet.

If a Category on your spreadsheet says TRUE under GSTFree, please make sure that this is a GST free Category such as Donations or Licencing.

What you need to do:

• Click on your art centre folder and open and review that your art centre categories are aligned with the correct inventory type and parent category. (Do not make changes on the excel- but email the SAM Team any changes that you would like to make!)
• Your art centre might want to merge a category, please email support@sam.org.au.
• Your art centre might want to change a category to a different parent category, please email clients@sam.org.au.
• Review the GSTFree column for each category

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.
• For Products - update qty if some are returned
• If a consignment is completed - please check the 'complete' box
• 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.