Exporting Inventory from Connected Data Systems (CDS)

Same as for any POS: map your products to Orchid's Master Catalog (~230K normalized firearms products), bring your taxonomy in line with ours, fill in missing UPCs/manufacturer part numbers, and carry your pricing, cost, and quantity forward.

Published May 25, 2026 Updated Jun 04, 2026 2 views

Connected Data Systems (CDS)

Note: This system does not publish a public help center. The steps below are based on typical patterns for similar systems. Your Orchid implementation consultant will confirm the exact menu paths for your version.

CDS is a cloud-based firearms-industry POS, sometimes branded 'Flight Deck.' All exports run against the live tenant. Vendor support phone: 1-800-944-2998.

What Orchid Does With This File

Same as for any POS: map your products to Orchid's Master Catalog (~230K normalized firearms products), bring your taxonomy in line with ours, fill in missing UPCs/manufacturer part numbers, and carry your pricing, cost, and quantity forward.

Before You Start

CDS does not publish a public help center, so the menu paths below are based on the typical pattern for cloud POS systems. Your Orchid consultant has confirmed the exact path with CDS support on prior migrations; if anything looks different in your tenant, contact your consultant.
Allow 10-20 minutes; cloud exports of large catalogs can be slow.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Sign in to Flight Deck (your CDS tenant URL).
Navigate to the Reports area (typically Reports > Inventory).
Locate an Inventory report that includes ALL products (not a filtered view). Common report names include 'Full Inventory,' 'Inventory On Hand,' or 'Product Master.'
Run the report.
From the report results page, use the Export option to save as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV. .xlsx is preferred to protect UPC formatting.
If you can't find a full-inventory export option, call CDS support at 1-800-944-2998 and ask for the 'product master export' file - they can typically generate one for you within a business day.

Expected File Format

Excel (.xlsx) or CSV - prefer .xlsx

Expected Columns

TODO: confirm the exact column list with CDS at export time. Expected fields based on typical firearms-POS exports: SKU/Item Number, Description, Department/Category, UPC, Manufacturer, Model, Vendor, Vendor Item Number, Cost, Retail, Quantity On Hand, Serial Number (where applicable).

Watch Out For

TODO/CONFIRM: exact menu path. CDS does not publish a public KB. If you don't see the export option described above, contact CDS support directly.
Because CDS is cloud-only, you have no local backup if your tenant goes inactive. Pull your exports BEFORE giving CDS notice of cancellation, not after.
Distributor inventory (RSR, Sports South, Lipsey's, Zanders) is integrated via API in CDS, so your 'vendor list' for those distributors is the integration itself, not local vendor records. Orchid will preconfigure those integrations on your new POS.
For bound book / A&D data: FastBound documents the CDS FFL Office export path as Dashboard > List button > select all log book types > choose "On Hand" status > scroll to bottom > click Export. Your Orchid consultant can confirm this for your tenant.

UPC Warning: Critical: do not let Excel destroy your UPCs. If your exported file is a CSV, do NOT open it in Excel and save it. Excel will silently strip leading zeros from 12- or 13-digit UPCs (turning 012345678901 into 12345678901) and may convert long numbers to scientific notation (1.23457E+11). If you must inspect the file, open it in a plain text editor like Notepad or VS Code, or open the CSV in Excel using Data > From Text/CSV and set the UPC column type to Text before importing. The cleanest path is to export directly to .xlsx where the column types are preserved.

This file may contain sensitive information (customer addresses, pricing, costs). Send it to Orchid using the secure upload link your consultant provided. Do not email exports as unencrypted attachments.

Questions about this export? Reach out to your Orchid implementation consultant, or email implementations@joinorchid.com with the subject line "[Migration] [Your Store Name] - [Legacy System] [File Type] export."

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