Altus NZ: Automated Price Books from SAP Data

Altus NZ is a New Zealand manufacturer with three product divisions: window and door extrusions, hardware, and industrial components. Part numbers, descriptions, prices and product hierarchies for all of them are managed in SAP.

Since 2020, Altus NZ has used Pagination Price Book Software to turn its SAP data into print-ready InDesign price books, starting with the extrusion range and later adding hardware.

The Challenge: Keeping SAP Price Books Up to Date by Hand

Each Altus NZ division needs its own price book, with products grouped by hierarchy, detailed pricing tables and color reference charts. All the data lives in SAP, but SAP cannot produce branded, print-ready documents.

Before Pagination, the team exported data from SAP and assembled the pages by hand. The cycle had to be repeated every time prices or product ranges changed and, with products regularly added, replaced and re-coded, the price books were always at risk of being out of date.

The first two documents also had very different requirements:

• Extrusion price book: landscape layout, an index built on the product hierarchy and color tables at the end of the book.
• Hardware price book: a different layout for a range of up to 20,000 SKUs.

The Solution: From SAP Export to InDesign Price Book in Three Steps

Pagination automated the whole process with the simplest SAP to InDesign workflow: export, upload, generate. No connector had to be installed and nothing changed in SAP.

A Structured SAP Export Sorted by Product Hierarchy

The team exports product data from SAP into a structured file, sorted by product hierarchy code. The hierarchy drives how products are grouped in the book and how the index is built, so new or re-coded products land in the right section automatically.

A Dedicated InDesign Template for Each Price Book

Pagination designed an InDesign template for each document. On every upload, the template groups products by hierarchy, formats the pricing tables and places the color charts, then generates the finished price book. Details agreed with the team, such as borders around part numbers and color tables placed only at the end of the extrusion book, are applied in every edition.

Self-Service Updates for the Whole Team

Several team members have their own login to the Pagination web app. When prices or products change in SAP, they upload the new export and regenerate the price book themselves, without waiting for external support.

From One Price Book to a Multi-Division Workflow

Altus NZ started small: the project began in 2020 with the extrusion price book, after a two-page mockup showed how the product hierarchy would appear in the index.

• 2020: kickoff of the extrusion price book, built on SAP exports sorted by product hierarchy.
• 2021: a new product layout style added to the template.
• 2022: projects moved to the new Pagination web application with no disruption.
• 2024: the hardware price book goes into production, with its own layout on the same workflow.

The same SAP to Pagination process can be extended to other divisions by adding new templates, with no change to the way data leaves SAP.

Results: Price Book Automation Without Changing SAP

• Two price books in production (extrusion and hardware) from the same SAP export workflow
• No changes to the SAP instance: a standard data export is the only integration point
• Consistent output across editions: hierarchy groupings, pricing tables and color references are handled by the templates
• Self-service updates: the team regenerates documents on its own whenever data changes
• A long-term partnership that started in 2020 and keeps growing in scope

Key Takeaway: SAP Price Books Without an Integration Project

Altus NZ shows that automating price books from SAP does not require an integration project. A well-structured export and a template for each document are enough to replace manual layout, and the same workflow scales from one division to the next. For a short summary and the lessons for other manufacturers, read SAP price book automation at Altus NZ. For an API-based approach, see how FITT automates branded offers from SAP.

Ready to automate your price books from SAP?

Contact Pagination with a sample SAP export and an example of your current price book: we will show you how InDesign automation can generate it from your data.