Industry: Building Materials | Headquarters: Auckland, New Zealand
Challenge: Keeping extrusion and hardware price books in line with SAP data that changes constantly, with pages assembled by hand | Solution: Pagination generates each price book in InDesign from a standard SAP export, with one template per division
Three Product Divisions, One Source of Truth in SAP
Altus NZ manufactures window and door extrusions, hardware and industrial components in New Zealand. Every part number, description, price and product hierarchy lives in SAP, which makes it the natural source for the price books its customers use every day.
The catch is that SAP stores data, not pages. Turning thousands of SAP records into a readable, branded price book is a publishing job, and until 2020 it was done by hand.
Why Manual Price Books Fell Behind
- Constant product changes: products are added, replaced and re-coded regularly, so every edition needed a full check against SAP.
- Complex layouts: the extrusion book uses a landscape format, an index built on the product hierarchy and colour tables at the end; the hardware book follows a different layout entirely.
- Large ranges: the hardware price book alone covers up to 20,000 SKUs — far too many to lay out and proofread manually.
- Multiple supporting files: colour reference charts, product images and hierarchy groupings all need to land in the right place, edition after edition.
The Solution: SAP Price Book Automation from a Standard Export
Altus NZ chose the simplest of the SAP to InDesign workflows: export, upload, generate. Nothing was installed in SAP, and no ERP project was required.
- A structured export: product data leaves SAP in a file sorted by product hierarchy code, which drives both the grouping of products on the page and the automatically generated index.
- One template per division: Pagination designed a dedicated InDesign template for the extrusion price book (landscape, with colour tables at the end) and another for the hardware price book (portrait, different table structure). Each template defines pricing tables, part number formatting, product group headers and colour chart placement.
- Self-service updates: several team members have their own login to the Pagination web app. When prices change in SAP or a product is added, the team re-exports, uploads the new file and regenerates the price book — no ticket to open, no wait.
How the SAP Export Becomes a Price Book
The workflow runs in three steps, every time:
- Export from SAP. The Altus NZ team extracts product data — part numbers, descriptions, pricing, hierarchy codes — into a structured file. The data is sorted by product hierarchy code, which is the backbone of the document structure.
- Upload to Pagination. The export file (and any supporting files, such as an updated colour chart) is uploaded through the Pagination web application. The platform validates the data and maps each field to the template: which column is the part number, which is the price, how products are grouped.
- Generate. Pagination applies the InDesign template and produces a fully paginated document: product groups in the correct order, pricing tables formatted, colour reference tables placed at the end, index generated from the hierarchy, page numbers set. The output is a native InDesign file plus a print-ready PDF, generated in minutes.
When the team spots an error in the data — a wrong price, a missing product — the fix happens in SAP. Then a new export, a new upload, a new generation. The layout stays the same; only the data changes.
How the Project Started
The first price book was generated from real SAP data during the implementation itself. The team uploaded their export — sorted by product hierarchy code — and Pagination built the template: landscape pages, pricing tables with part number borders, and colour reference tables at the end of the document. Over the following weeks, the output was refined: adjusting borders on specific part numbers, fixing colour table placement, and re-running the datasource after correcting errors in the export.
Once the extrusion workflow was running, the team started using it independently — uploading a new SAP export and regenerating the price book whenever data changed. That self-service model is what makes the workflow sustainable: the people closest to the data control the output, without waiting for an external team.
One Workflow, Three Price Books
The extrusion price book proved the workflow. Adding a second and then a third product division was a matter of designing a new InDesign template and mapping the SAP export — the generation engine was already in place.
Extrusion Price Book — the first document automated. Landscape layout, product hierarchy driving the index, pricing tables, and colour reference charts at the end. This is the document that proved the SAP-to-InDesign workflow could work for Altus NZ.
Hardware Price Book — a different page layout for a different product range, covering up to 20,000 SKUs. The team provided a mockup and the hardware datasource; Pagination designed a separate template. The data still comes from SAP and follows the same export-upload-generate process.
Industrial Price Book — the newest addition, similar in structure to the existing templates. When the team requested this third document, they noted that the first step was setting up a new SAP extract. The same pattern that worked for extrusions and hardware is being applied to the third product line.
Each document has its own template, but all three share the same platform and the same workflow. When pricing changes in SAP or products are added or replaced, the team re-exports and regenerates. No manual page layout, no copy-paste from SAP screens.
What Makes This SAP Integration Simple
- No changes to SAP. The integration point is a standard data export. No plug-ins to install, no connectors to configure, no IT project inside the ERP. The SAP instance stays exactly as it is.
- The product hierarchy does the work. SAP already groups products by hierarchy code. That same hierarchy drives the document structure, the product groupings on each page, and the automatically generated index. The hierarchy in SAP becomes the hierarchy on the page.
- Self-service from day one. Multiple team members have their own logins to the Pagination web application. They upload data and generate documents whenever something changes, without opening a ticket or scheduling a call.
- One template, unlimited editions. Each product division has a dedicated InDesign template. When pricing or product ranges change in SAP, the team regenerates with the updated data. The layout, formatting, and structure stay consistent across every edition.
- A workflow that scales. The same process that produced one extrusion price book now serves three product divisions. Adding a new document means a new template and a new SAP extract — the platform and the workflow are already there.
See It on Your Own Price Book
Share a recent price book PDF and an export of your SAP data. A short review shows which pages can be automated and how the first edition generated by Pagination Price Book Software would look.
Contact us with a sample SAP export and an example of the document you want to automate.
