Skwirrel & Techlink — the Belgian data-pool route

Techlink is the federation and data portal for the Belgian installation sector. Through the Techlink portal, manufacturers and suppliers make validated product information available to the whole installation chain — article data, product data, sustainability information, documents, assets and BIM data. For the Belgian market it plays a role comparable to 2BA in the Netherlands.

2BA is the data pool for the Dutch technical wholesale market; Techlink is the data portal for the Belgian installation sector. They share the underlying standards (ETIM, GTIN/GLN) but each has its own delivery and formats. Skwirrel supports both from the same product data — if you sell in both NL and BE, you publish to both without duplicate work.

The Techlink portal works with three formats:

• Techlink Data Format (TDF) — a sector-specific Excel template with 116 data fields (20 mandatory, 5 strongly recommended, 91 optional).
• BMEcat — the international standard for maximum interoperability.
• ETIM xChange — the internationally standardised exchange format.

Skwirrel generates these formats automatically from your central product data, so you never fill in templates by hand.

You maintain your product data once in Skwirrel — with full ETIM classification, features, prices, attachments and sustainability data. Skwirrel converts that data into the required Techlink format (TDF, BMEcat or ETIM xChange) and delivers it. Validation and data quality show up in your dashboard, just like with 2BA.

Yes — participation in the Techlink portal runs through your own relationship with Techlink. Skwirrel handles the technical delivery on your behalf; you remain the owner of your portal account and your product data.

Techlink rewards data quality with annual Data Quality Awards. Because Skwirrel continuously surfaces and helps improve your classification and feature completeness, you structurally work towards high data quality — exactly what those awards reward.