Onix Pre-Flight Report

You can check your entire database of tiles for the quality of each products data, via the pre-flight tool. This accessed from the ONIX/Dest. Menu item.

The ONIX Pre-flight tool is designed to review the quality of the data in your title records. You can view this information in two ways:

1. All Titles on your system
2. Include in onix only - titles that have specifically been marked for onix.

You can find the ONIX traffic light in your main Book List. Access this article and scroll down to item 4: Adjusting the Status of a Title.

Whichever item is blue will dictate the report that is generated, as shown below:

The ONIX Pre-flight report is separated into three lists, partially based on Nielsen Book Data’s requirements. The headings for the three lists are:

• Mandatory - this rounds up all of the data that Nielsen requires for a complete title record.

• Non-mandatory - this rounds up items that indicate best practice in the industry; these are highly recommended in order to best present your titles to your markets. Please note that any issues here will not hinder a file being processed by Nielsen.

• Integrity Checks - this rounds up information on the system that isn't matching up according to expectations. If you have listed a title as Children's book, the system will automatically look to see if you've also added a CBMC category. This is just one example.

Beside each item listed is a number within brackets. If the number is 0, then all of your titles meet the required standard for this particular check. If the number is greater than 0, then you have titles that are either missing information, or their information does not appear to meet the standard requirements. The number equates to how many titles have issues.

Click on the blue arrow and a list of the flagged titles will be displayed, as shown below:

By clicking on an individual item, you will then be taken directly to the relevant area within the title's record. You can amend the data, click on Update and the item will be cleared from the Preflight report.

You may have titles that will permanently fail aspects of the Pre-flight report; they can be marked as excluded. As you can see in the screenshot above, the number of titles excluded from each check will be shown next to the check. When you select the blue arrow, you can see 'Excluded' in blue at the bottom of the list of titles (where relevant). Selecting this will bring up the list of excluded titles.

It is good practice to check this part of the system every month or indeed immediately after you add a new title to the system to make sure all is correct. It's much easier to correct mistakes as you go along rather than going back at the end of several months and having to update information for many titles at one time. 

N.B: To include a title in your Onix feed, it must pass all mandatory checks. In addition, it must have a pass rate greater than 85%. The pass rate can be found by accessing the Onix traffic light, or within the ISBN tab:

Further Detail

Below, we have provided some additional detail explaining what the checks in this report are looking for. We have provided this detail for those checks that may not be self-explanatory. If you need help in understanding any of the other checks, please email [e-mail]

Mandatory

Titles with not included in Onix but nearing publication date

These are titles that are nearing their publication date, but have not yet been set to be sent out in Onix. Typically, we would expect titles to be sent out in Onix feeds in advance of their publication, depending on who is receiving this feed. For example, we would expect you to send data about your title to your supplier ahead of publication.

Titles with not included in distributors feed but nearing publication date

These are titles that are nearing their publication date, but have not yet been set to be sent out in distributor feeds. We would typically expect title data to be sent to distributors ahead of publication. 

Titles with no onix adult audience rating for a ‘general/adult’ audience code

If you select an audience type (publisher tab) of General / Adult, you must also provide the Onix Adult Audience rating to clarify the type of adult content. This is a Nielsen requirement that they put in place within the last few years to clarify the type of adult content included - ie general adult rather than explicit adult content.

Titles with no expected ship date or expected ship date in the past 

This will only flag this on titles with a Publishing Status of ‘Forthcoming’.

Titles with expected ship date in the past

As compared to the check above, this will highlight all titles that have an expected ship date in the past

Titles with no status set

This is referring to publishing status

Titles with no running time set

This will only apply to audio formats

Titles with no price tax breakdown - price type 2 for GBP

The check will apply if your default currency is GBP. If that is the case, and you have not provided a GBP price type 2, your title will appear here. Whilst this is considered mandatory, if you do not have a GBP price (eg for a US edition), you can still include your title in your Onix feed.

Titles with no price in GBP

The currency checked here will depend on your default currency (established in Configuration).

Non-Mandatory

Titles with description with unwanted word special options pasted in

When you paste text in from Word, for example, there is often styling applied to this text. You can see this when you access the source code. This can affect how the text is received, and so removing this can improve the ease of reading / access of your descriptions.

Integrity Check

Titles with zero tax even they are digital and should attract tax

This is based on the UK tax system, which applies tax to most digital products.

Titles with zero taxable, but should have Taxable = RRP

If your have chosen a price type which includes tax (eg Price Type 02), but you have not specified the taxable amount, then your title will appear under this check.

Titles with IP with the publication date in the future

Your title has a publishing status of 'Active', but the publication date is in the future.

Titles with Alternative format with different title

This is highlighting that in a title record, in the related tab, an alternative product with a completely different title has been labelled as an 'Alternative format'. This can either be done manually, or more likely, we have ingested Onix data from elsewhere at your request, and the inaccuracy stems from that data.

Titles with IP title that has incompatible supplier availability (not available)

The publishing status for the title is Active, but the product availability is either not yet available, waiting for stock, or not available. We would not expect for these combinations of publishing status and product availability to be valid.

Titles with childrens audience code but not CBMC set

You can find our guidance on Children's Book Marketing Categories here.

Titles with world rights but has not for sale rights specified too. Use ROW instead?

If you have specified that you have 'not for sale' rights in a set of territories, you should not then say that you have world rights. Rather, it should be marked as Rest of World (ROW) instead. Below is an example where WORLD has been used, but ROW would be more accurrate:

Titles with very short descriptions

Titles with descriptions with less than 15 characters will be flagged here.

Titles with a supplier with no supplier regions set. Set via Organisation Admin.

The benefits of establishing your supplier regions can be found here.