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Overview

Seminode separates the data you share with partners (public) from the internal identifiers you keep to yourself (private). This lets you distribute exactly what a partner needs to quote — and nothing more — while still keeping your own reference and organizational data attached for matching and analysis. The distinction applies wherever you publish data: posting from Upload Tools, creating listings from reference data, and sending RFQs.

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Public fields

These are the tradeable details partners see on a listing or quote:
  • Material No (manufacturer part number)
  • Manufacturer
  • Quantity
  • Unit Price
  • Lead Time and Date Code (when provided)
Public fields are the common language of the network — enough for a partner to price and respond.

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Private fields

These stay internal and are never included in anything distributed to partners:
  • Internal No (your internal part number)
  • Site Code
  • Program, Region, and Commodity
Private fields let you link a public listing back to the correct internal record, group and route activity, and match against your own cost or reference data — without exposing any of it externally.
Privacy is controlled per column, and any column can be marked private — the lists above are the typical split, not a fixed rule. When creating listings from reference data, Internal No and Site Code are private by default (Material No always stays public, since partners need it to quote). In Upload Tools, the starting set comes from your team’s Default Private Columns setting (Settings → Listings), which is empty until you configure it.

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How to control it

  • In Upload Tools — use the lock toggle on any column header to mark it private before posting. Private columns are cleansed and retained with your data but excluded from what partners receive. See Upload Tools → Private Columns.
  • When creating listings from reference data — choose which fields to keep private in the create flow. Internal identifiers are used to match and link the new listing to your reference records while remaining hidden from partners. See Reference Data.
  • Save your selection as the default — after marking columns private during an upload, choose Save as default private columns and Seminode applies the same set to every future upload automatically, so the choice only has to be made once.
If you mark a column private that your reference data uses for matching, Seminode warns you before you post — private columns aren’t distributed, so matching against them on the partner side isn’t possible.

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Why it matters

Sharing only public fields keeps sensitive commercial and organizational data — internal part numbers, sites, programs, cost bases — inside your company, while still giving partners a clean, standardized listing to quote against.