Akeneo Supplier Data Manager (SDM) is a platform that helps retailers and distributors collect, normalize, and enrich product data received from their suppliers. It provides a scalable, collaborative way to gather product information from all your suppliers in a single digital space — eliminating manual spreadsheet exchanges and reducing the effort required to turn raw supplier files into clean, ready-to-use product records.

The screenshot above shows the Supplier Data Manager interface, illustrating the central dashboard where workflows and supplier submissions are managed.

What Supplier Data Manager does

Supplier Data Manager (SDM) replaces fragmented, email-based data collection with a structured, end-to-end process. With SDM, you can:

• Collect product files from suppliers in their own format (Excel, CSV, XML, or JSON) through a dedicated supplier portal or by email.
• Process incoming data automatically through configurable workflow steps — extracting values, mapping columns, normalizing formats, and classifying products.
• Push clean, enriched product data to Akeneo PIM or other external systems using the built-in connector or REST API.

SDM is designed for product operations and data management teams who need to onboard product data from multiple external sources reliably and at scale.

How Supplier Data Manager works

Supplier Data Manager (SDM) uses a modular approach. Each workflow in SDM is built from independent, compatible modules that you choose and combine based on your business requirements. You can mix and match modules to apply exactly the transformations and validations your data needs — without being locked into a fixed pipeline.

The available modules are:

• Extraction -- Pulls values from free-text fields, product descriptions, or other unstructured content and populates the correct attributes.
• Mapping -- Maps source columns from a supplier file to the target attributes expected by your system.
• Normalization -- Validates and corrects format errors (for example, date formats, measurement units, or text patterns).
• Classification -- Assigns products to the correct categories or families.
• Value Mapping -- Matches supplier-specific option values to the canonical values used in your system.
• Comparison -- Compares incoming supplier data against existing product records to identify what has changed.
• Variants -- Handles product variant structures from supplier files.
• Match History -- Tracks previously validated matches to speed up future processing and reduce repeated manual work.

Each module functions independently, so you can build workflows that reflect exactly how your business operates, introduce additional modules as your needs grow, and automate flows that trigger based on specific actions.

The screenshot above shows the modular structure of Supplier Data Manager, with independent modules that can be combined into a single processing workflow.

AI capabilities in Supplier Data Manager

Supplier Data Manager (SDM) includes built-in AI capabilities to reduce manual effort and speed up data processing:

• AI Classification Agent -- Uses pre-trained language models to classify products automatically (Classification module) and extract attribute values (Extraction module). No model training is required; the AI works out-of-the-box using the labels, descriptions, and attributes already present in your input files. You can also write custom prompts to tailor AI behavior to your specific catalog.
• AI-powered mapping suggestions -- In the Mapping module, SDM can generate suggestions to match source columns to unmapped target attributes, complete with confidence scores, so you can validate faster instead of mapping from scratch.

Supplier Access in Supplier Data Manager

Supplier Data Manager (SDM) includes Supplier Access (previously called Portals), a dedicated portal that allows your suppliers to connect with you and upload their product files directly. Through Supplier Access, suppliers can:

• Upload product files via a web interface without needing a technical background.
• Submit new jobs by emailing a CSV or Excel file to a dedicated portal email address — SDM imports the first valid attachment automatically and uses the email subject as the job name.
• Track the status of their submissions.

Supplier Access centralizes all supplier interactions in one auditable place, eliminates manual file transfers, and lets you define specific steps and requirements that suppliers must follow before their data moves forward in the workflow.

Who uses Supplier Data Manager

Supplier Data Manager (SDM) serves two audiences:

• Retailers and distributors (SDM operators) who configure workflows, review processed data, and push clean product information to Akeneo PIM or other destination systems.
• Suppliers who are invited to submit product data through a Supplier Access portal.

SDM connects to Akeneo PIM via the Akeneo PIM Connector and can push data to other external systems via its REST API. The platform is available in English and French.

Related

• What is the difference between a workflow and an organization?
• What is Supplier Access?
• Accepted product file formats
• AI agent