Data Aging and Freshness Warnings

What is this?

Margin Master's pricing analysis is only as good as the data behind it. Two things age independently: your vendor catalog data (refreshed by cloud sync) and your point-of-sale data (refreshed by POS import). Margin Master watches both and warns you when either falls behind:

• A warning pill in the title bar of the main window — amber when vendor data is at or past its aging threshold, red (pulsing) when POS data is at or past its threshold or has never been imported.
• The Data Aging View dialog — the detail screen behind the pill, showing exactly what was last synced and imported, per file and per store.

Walk through it in the app: lesson 1017 — Your regular data routine. Margin Master can walk you through these steps live: turn on Training / Guide Mode from the Help menu, then type 1017 into the Lessons & Guides box — or ask Margin Master support to run it with you.

Opening / Accessing

• Click the warning pill in the title bar (when visible), or
• Data > Show Data Aging View from the main menu.
• The Show at Application Start? checkbox at the bottom of the dialog controls whether it opens automatically when Margin Master starts.

The Data Aging View is available for syncing vendors (Ace Hardware, Do-it Best, Emery Jensen).

The Data Aging View

Vendor Data (left panel)

• Catalog Available — the date of the newest catalog published to the cloud.
• Last Synced / Time — when this computer last ran a vendor data sync, followed by "Vendor data last synced N ... ago".
• An amber banner appears when vendor data is at or past its aging threshold: "Your vendor data is N days old" (or "Vendor data has never been synced"). For Do-it Best this reads business days, because DIB publishes Monday–Friday only — see the note under Configuring the thresholds.
• If the Last Synced date is newer than anything in the Sync History grid, a red note appears: "Margin Master could not confirm the result of the most recent sync — the last one it recorded was MM/DD/YY." Two things can cause that, and this screen cannot tell them apart: the sync really did fail to merge anything, or it merged everything and then could not write the result to its own history. Your catalog may well be up to date. Run Get Vendor Data again, and if the date still does not move, send a support request.
• Vendor Catalog Data grid — one row per catalog file with Cloud Date, Local Sync, and Status: a green ✓ when your local sync is current with the cloud, an orange ⚠ when the cloud has newer data than this computer.
• Ace Zone Pricing (Ace/Emery Jensen) — record counts and last update per pricing zone, including the national zone (99999).

Point-of-Sale Data (right panel)

• Last Import / Time — when POS data was last imported, followed by "POS data last imported N ... ago".
• If the Last Import date is newer than anything the import history recorded, the same kind of red note appears on this side: "Margin Master could not confirm the result of the most recent import." Import again; if the date does not move, send a support request.
• A red banner appears when POS data is at or past its aging threshold: "Your point-of-sale data is N days old". POS data always ages on calendar days, so for a Do-it Best store this number can be larger than the vendor one for the same date — the two panels count in different units, and each says which.
• If no point-of-sale records exist at all, a stronger red banner appears instead: "No point-of-sale data has been imported" — this is based on the actual record counts, so it shows even when an old import date exists but the tables are empty.
• Store Data / Import History grid — one row per store with its record count and last update. Stores with no records are not listed. A dash (—) in Last Update is normal for some point-of-sale systems: it means the imported records do not carry a per-row date. The record count is still real, and the Last Import date at the top of the panel is the date to go by.

Configuring the thresholds

Tools > Options > Miscellaneous > Data Aging (days before the title-bar warning appears):

Both accept 0–90 days.

Do-it Best note: DIB publishes catalog data Monday–Friday only, so weekend days never age vendor data. A Friday sync is still current on Monday. This is why the vendor side is worded "business days" while the point-of-sale side is worded "days" — for the same date the two counts will differ, and both are correct.

Tips

The dialog and the title-bar pill use the same thresholds and the same math — if the pill is red, the dialog will show you the matching red banner and exactly which side is behind.

POS data that has never been imported always shows the red alarm, regardless of the threshold.

Common Questions

Q: The dialog says "No point-of-sale data has been imported" but a Last Import date is shown. Which is right? A: The banner is. The date records when an import last ran; the banner checks whether any records actually exist. An import that brought in zero records (or data that was later cleared) leaves the date behind with nothing in the tables — import your POS data to resolve it.

Q: I synced this morning but the vendor banner still shows. A: The banner compares against your Vendor Data aging threshold. If the threshold is 0, any data older than today triggers it. Check Tools > Options > Miscellaneous.

Q: Every row in Store Data shows a dash under Last Update. Is something wrong? A: No. Not every point-of-sale export stamps each record with a date, so there is nothing for that column to show. Judge the age of your POS data by Last Import at the top of the panel, and the size of it by the record counts.

Q: Both banners appeared the first time I opened Margin Master in a couple of weeks. Do I have a problem? A: Usually not. The banners measure time since the last sync and the last import, and neither happens while Margin Master is closed. Run Get Vendor Data, then import your POS data, and both banners clear. If the red "could not confirm the result" note is still there after the sync, that one is worth a support request.