Disabling external linking

[Widdy]

I have been using my Actinic 8 stores with external linking to a mysql database, and now want to disable it, but when disabling the external linking all of the stock levels change (and possibly other values), how can I stop this happening, I have about 3000 products accross several sites so it is not really practical to change each product, especially if the price could change as well.


many thanks
Ian

[Jan]

You could try exporting a catalog file, then switching off external linking, then importing the file, that should in theory restore the values.

Regards,

[Widdy]

Thanks Jan, but that doesn't work, it appears the external linking overides the stock(and probably prices etc) in the actinic store but actinic keeps the original stock level in its database and resorts to them whenever external linking is disabled.

Ian

[Jan]

If you use File / Export ... to create a hierarchical import file, the prices, stock levels etc will be written out to that file (and that uses the externally linked values), then when you import it back in the prices should be fine.

Regards,

[Widdy]

That is what I did first time, I did it again and this time selected replace catalog instead of update catalog when importing it but it still doesn't work.
I am using Actinic 8.5, not sure if its relevant. I also use odbc 3.51.13.

Ian

[Widdy]

Hi,

I have just converted my mysql database to a microsoft access database and externally linked to that with actinic and retried the above to see if it is a problem with mysql but it still changed the values.

??

[Bruce]

I would suggest taking this up with support please. You can raise a ticket here, or if you have a cover contract give support a call.

We will need a snapshot.

Kind regards,

[Jan]

So it sounds as if the export catalog doesn't use the external data (can't set one up to test here ATM sorry).

The froogle export feed does use external data, so you could get your prices and descriptions from there, that feed doesn't include the stock levels though - can you export a simple file from your external system and then import that into Actinic.

Regards,

[Widdy]

Thanks for your help Jan,
I am new to Microsoft Access but I am sure I will be able to use it to overwrite the actinic values for price and stocklevel with the ones in the external database, I will be using your cost price profit addon so I will have to merge the cost prices from my external database into the actinic one anyway, so it is not a great problem, I was just surprised that when I disabled external linking the stock levels changed.

thankyou
Ian