Creating csv for hierarchical import

[ki450751]

What is your advice on setting up a csv file to import several thousands of products, each with different colours and sizes.

Having viewed the sample hierarchical file from the trial Catalog system the layout differs from the excel spreadsheets provided by my suppliers. The latter contains a list where each row comprises product name, description, colour, size and price.

The sample Actinic file differs in that it wants to break this information down into choices and attributes, creating many more lines. How do you suggest I avoid having to amend the information provided by my supplier manually, recognising the number of products to be imported?

How would you manage this task?

Thanks

[NormanRouxel]

Actinic V8 now includes a Flatfile to Hierarchical converter. It's mentioned in http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=25586

I've never used it so don't know if it will be of any use for your requirements.

[pinbrook]

Some people find it useful to create a couple of products within actinic and then export it, this often helps to understand what field goes where

[NormanRouxel]

I also found this post http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=12084 where Jan (post #8) mentions that she's written a few flat file to hierarchical conversion programs. If you can't find anything else it might be worth asking her for a quote.