Use this workbook to turn “the PXM is our source of truth” into field-level operating decisions. It covers SKU identity, variant relationships, pack structure, product facts, channel transformations, validation and approval.
You will finish with: a register of authoritative fields, accountable roles, downstream destinations, acceptance rules and unresolved governance decisions. The CSV contains one hypothetical example plus blank rows. It contains no executable formulas and no customer data.
Prepare the review
Choose a bounded product family and list every system that creates, enriches, transforms or publishes its data. Include merchant portals and spreadsheets used for emergency changes. Invite the roles that own product facts, merchandising, marketplace operations, warehouse handling and compliance.
Do not begin by voting for one master application. A system can distribute a value without owning the business decision behind it.
Understand the columns
- Record type: SKU, variant relationship, pack, attribute, asset or lifecycle rule.
- Field or relationship: the exact governed element.
- Authoritative system: where the approved value is maintained.
- Accountable role: the role that approves meaning and changes.
- Proposer roles: who may request a change.
- Validation rule: a testable acceptance condition.
- Evidence required: documentation or observation needed for approval.
- Downstream destinations: systems or channels that consume the value.
- Transformation: direct, normalized, derived, channel-specific or unsupported.
- Approval status: not assessed, approved, rejected or blocked.
- Effective date: when the approved rule begins.
- Rollback or correction: how to restore or supersede a bad publication.
- Notes or decision: unresolved questions and final rationale.
Run the ownership workshop
Start with identifiers and variant structure. Decide who creates a SKU, whether it may change, how retired identities are preserved, and which rules determine new GTINs where applicable. Then cover pack quantities and units of measure. These fields affect receiving, reservation and fulfillment and should not be treated as marketing copy.
Move to product attributes and assets. Separate stable facts from channel presentation. For every derived or normalized field, write the rule in plain language and identify the version owner.
Use the SKU source-of-truth article for governance principles and the variant management article for hierarchy and packaging questions.
Validate the hypothetical example
The included example governs case_pack_quantity for a fictional DEMO-BOTTLE-750-BLUE SKU. “Catalog Operations” owns the source value, but “Warehouse Operations” must approve the handling evidence. The value publishes to an OMS, WMS and wholesale channel without a calculation.
Replace the example with your own test record after the team understands the format. Do not treat the fictional value as a recommendation.
Approve a change
For a proposed change, attach the required evidence and run the stated validation. Check current inventory, open orders and live listings when identifiers or pack relationships change. Record the approver and effective date.
Publish a bounded sample and verify the destination state. Approval is incomplete until the intended value reaches the required destinations without unintended changes.
Handle conflicts
If two systems contain different values, identify which owns the underlying decision and which event should have propagated. Do not choose the newest timestamp automatically; a recent portal edit may be an unsupported workaround.
Mark unresolved conflicts Blocked, name the decision owner and prevent unsafe publication where appropriate. Preserve the conflicting values as evidence.
Keep the register current
Review ownership when a channel, provider, product type or operating process changes. Track manual overrides and require them to be reconciled into the approved source or explicitly retired.
The workbook is a governance aid, not a replacement for destination validation. Pair it with product content acceptance checks and current channel documentation.
Next step
Complete the workbook for one commercially important family, resolve its blocking rows and run a source-to-destination trace. Then extend the proven method to the next family.
Download the catalog source-of-truth workbook or ask 1Commerce to review your catalog operating model.