PXM Field Guide · Published 2026-09-15 · AI-assisted · Practitioner review pending
Inventory sources and assign owners
List the ERP, PLM, spreadsheets, current PIM, asset library, and channel-specific files involved. For each, record the fields it owns, identifiers it uses, export method, and responsible person. Resolve competing sources before migration. A newer timestamp does not by itself make a value authoritative.
Define identifiers and relationships
Choose stable keys for products, variants, families, accessories, bundles, and linked assets. Preserve a mapping between old and new identifiers. Document how the destination represents relationships, inherited values, and local overrides. Take a difficult product family through this mapping before committing to a full import.
Decide what to move, repair, or retire
Classify current records as active, archived, duplicate, or unresolved. Keep an approved record of exclusions. Normalize units and controlled values with business-owner review. Preserve a recoverable source export before transformations. Do not silently fill missing facts with AI-generated guesses; missing data should remain visible to its owner.
Rehearse with a representative sample
Include unusual variants, multiple locales, missing fields, linked documents, and rejected records. Check field values and relationships after import, not only the number of records. Have business users search for products, edit them, and approve them. Then export to a real test destination and compare the result with the expected channel output.
Plan changes made during the move
Decide when edits stop, which changes must be captured after the first export, and who can approve exceptions. Rehearse importing those later changes without overwriting newer approved work. Record how long each step takes, which failures require intervention, and how the team will know that source and destination are reconciled.
Write a rollback decision before cutover
Name the person who can stop the release, the deadline for that decision, and the conditions that trigger it. Define how the team would restore the previous operation and preserve any changes made after launch. Verify access to the required exports and recovery procedure. A backup that no one has tested is an assumption in the plan.
Set evidence-based release gates
Your checklist should include approved mappings, reconciled counts, verified values, intact relationships, tested permissions, successful channel output, trained owners, and a rehearsed support process. Assign an owner and evidence link to each gate. Leave unresolved gates open until someone accepts or fixes them; the calendar alone does not make a migration ready.
Check again after launch
Sample the first live updates from each upstream system and destination. Watch the error queue and compare results with the approved source. Keep the old-system retirement decision separate from the initial launch. Confirm retention needs and the ability to retrieve historical records before removing access to the previous system.
Sources and scope
Official sources checked 2026-09-15. Vendor statements establish documented scope, not completed testing. The evaluation tasks are PXM Field Guide’s proposed approach.