Product Catalog Audit: New SKUs Go Live Only When Specs and Margins Hold Up

Forty-eight new SKUs and spec sheets that keep changing

A seasonal range arrives as draft rows in the product master. Before anything goes live, each SKU is checked against the catalog standards, R1 to R7: the title matches the supplier's spec sheet, dimensions and weight are filled, electrical items carry a safety certificate, the category is right, the image set is complete, and so on. Later, once merchants have priced the range, a margin audit checks landed cost against the floor for each category.

The draft rows live in Airtable and the spec sheets sit in supplier folders in Dropbox. The standards are a Google Drive document that merchandising revises each season, and suppliers write in through Gmail. When a supplier reissues a batch of sheets or revises its prices, someone re-checks rows by hand, and the held list in the closeout often comes from memory rather than from the base.

Who works in the room

The catalog team opens one room per range. Messages that name no agent go to Myco, the default, so a question about whether a SKU passes reaches it directly. Margin questions go to Nova because it owns that stage, and anything a supplier sends or will read goes to Ryan. When Myco finishes re-checking a batch, it mentions Nova in the thread with the SKUs that need a fresh margin check, so the handoff carries its own brief.

How the audit runs

The first pass is the heavy one, so Myco splits the spec sheets across parallel helpers and gets one result back. After that, each stage keeps to its own scope. The margin rule only applies once the margin stage opens, so the first pass never holds a SKU for margin.

Reissued sheets and revised prices

Suppliers rarely send changes in a tidy form. One emails that its spec sheets for Kitchen Appliances and Power Tools have been reissued with corrected wattage and new certificate numbers. Ryan reads the email and mentions Myco with the two categories it names. Myco re-checks only those SKUs against the new Dropbox files and notes on each row which sheet version it used. Ryan drafts a single reply on the supplier's thread confirming what was received, and the supplier coordinator sends it.

A supplier price revision touches margin, not content. Nova re-runs the margin check for the revised SKUs and leaves the rest alone. When a merchant asks to reinstate SKU-111 because its missing certificate has arrived, Myco and Nova walk it through every rule again rather than flipping its status, and the catalog manager decides.

What the checks catch

• A SKU held for margin during the first pass, before the margin stage has opened
• QA flags set on rows the QA team never looked at, which makes the sample look bigger than it was
• SKUs outside the two affected categories re-checked against reissued sheets that do not apply to them
• A closeout held list counted from earlier messages instead of read again from Airtable
• A spec sheet in Dropbox that is newer than the version the Airtable row was checked against

What stays with people

• Approving every pass, hold and publish status before Airtable changes
• Deciding margin exceptions for SKUs below the floor
• Sending every supplier email, which Ryan prepares as a Gmail draft
• Signing the closeout document

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not a product information system and it does not replace one. It works across the base, the folders and the inbox the catalog team already has, and keeps the audit in one place.

• Airtable
• Dropbox
• Gmail
• Google Docs
• Google Drive
• Slack

• Airtable is the product master with draft SKUs, statuses, QA flags and the held list
• Dropbox holds supplier spec sheets and certificates, one folder per supplier
• Google Drive keeps the catalog standards R1 to R7 and the margin floors by category
• Gmail carries supplier threads, answered through drafts a person sends
• Google Docs is where Ryan writes the closeout for the catalog manager to sign
• Slack is where merchants and QA post quick decisions during the audit

Where to start

Start with one range and one supplier folder. Connect the Airtable base that holds your drafts, point the room at the Dropbox folder for spec sheets, and write one rule into the room guidelines: agents propose a status for every SKU with the rule behind it, and the catalog manager approves before any status changes in Airtable.

“The held list comes from the base every time, so the closeout matches what the site will show.”

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.