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Learn · Designers and builders · Lesson 5 of 24

Bring in a supplier’s catalogue

You willA supplier’s range with its codes and prices: its finishes on your surfaces, its products at their sizes, its codes in every schedule.
Time7 min
Why it mattersYou specify the actual product, and schedules, estimates and quote requests name it by its code, so nobody orders the wrong one.

Try it in Plotlay → Opens an example project with this lesson beside it. Nothing to install.

Steps

  1. Ask the supplier for their catalogue as a file: an Excel or CSV price list, a BMEcat XML, a Google Merchant (Shopping) feed, or IFC product objects. A .zip with the photos beside it is best. No file? Template (Excel) gives a sheet to fill in.
  2. Open the command menu (Ctrl or Cmd + K) and choose Supplier catalogues, or + Add to Library, Supplier catalogues in the Library. Choose Bring in a catalogue….
  3. Tick that you have the right to use its data, then drop the file. Give it a supplier name and version if the file doesn’t.
  4. Check the review. Each item says what it is in Plotlay (a finish, a Library product, door hardware or schedule only) and how sure that is. To check lists the doubtful ones first: change one in its row, or tick several and Set them together. Then Save.
  5. Search the catalogue by words, a code or a GTIN. Place it puts a product on the plan at its own size; Add to My finishes makes a tile, board, wallpaper or paint a finish to paint with; Put on every door gives the doors that lever or knob.
  6. Already drew a generic vanity or tap? Select it and choose Swap for a product from my catalogue in the inspector: it keeps its place and wall and takes the product’s size and code.

Tips

  • Searching the Library by a word or a product code shows your catalogues’ products above its own, with a supplier filter.
  • A new price list from the supplier: New version… on the catalogue lists what is new, gone and dearer or cheaper before you save. Items gone from the range stay, marked discontinued, as they may be in your schedules.
  • A mapping you set by hand stays through later versions of the catalogue.
  • Suppliers can send Plotlay their catalogue, and it is then kept up to date for everyone. If you deal with a supplier, point them to getplotlay.com/for/suppliers, or choose Ask for updates on their catalogue: we ask suppliers in order of how many customers want them.
  • The items, door and finish schedules, the room pack, estimates and quote requests show the supplier, code and price, and their CSV and Excel downloads include them.
  • An AI agent with the Plotlay connector can do the same: import_catalogue (try it with dry_run first), search_catalogue, place_catalogue_item, swap_catalogue_item and use_catalogue_finish.

Common mistakes

  • Items come in as schedule only: the file’s names and categories didn’t say what they are. Fix them in the review, or add a Plotlay type column (vanity, tap, tiles, paint...).
  • Photos are missing: name the photos in the file’s image column, or name each photo by its product code (VAN-900-OAK.jpg) and put them in the .zip. Photos on the supplier’s website often can’t be copied by the browser.
  • Revit families and PDF catalogues can’t be read: ask for Excel, CSV, BMEcat, a product feed or IFC.
Check yourself

The supplier sends a new price list. What happens to an item that is no longer in it but is already in your schedule?

Words in this lesson

Library
Real-sized things to place, by category and subcategory: kitchen, bathroom, furniture, lighting, power, heating, stairs, outdoor, site, commercial, vehicles, plants. Search in your own words (GPO, countertop), filter, and star favourites.
Room pack
A PDF about chosen rooms: each plan at scale, every wall, views inside and the finish and fit-out schedules. Can show before and after side by side.
Schedule
A table drawn from the plan: rooms and finishes, doors, windows, plants or materials. It updates as the plan changes and downloads as CSV.
Template (your own rules)
A rule pack you make yourself, such as an estate’s design guidelines or a builder’s standards, with your own limits and tolerances. Save it to your library to use again.

Related lessons

Use your own tiles and finishes from a photoPhotograph a tile, board or sample, give it its real size and laying, and put it on a floor, a wall band or a benchtop.6 minChoose finishes and add fit-out to a roomSet a room’s floor tile and paint, and place a fitting such as a towel rail against a wall to the millimetre.5 minRead and download the schedulesGet the room, finish, door and window schedules on screen, fill in finishes, and download them as CSV.3 minAdd your own objects to the LibraryCopy a Library item and change it, build one from parts that resize by its parameters, or bring in a maker’s 3D model.6 min

Steps checked in the app on 2 November 2026.