Exporting & Importing Product info

[Duncan Rounding]

Too much info. Keep it simple:

Product Reference Short Description Price Shipping Data
1272 1001 Carpet Shampoo 450ml 267 0.531
....

[Duncan Rounding]

do i have to enter section details, as i have a complex tree for products. It is a food website so is in catagories and sections.
Or will actinic know were to update these products.
90% of my products i have inputed manualy after 2 months of hard work. This last 10% of Missing prices and shipping info i would like to just import to save alot of time.

No, not to update the prices. Your product refs are enough as they are unique.

[leehack]

Check to see if you have added some new products somewhere, if you don't use the exact same product reference, you can't expect it to update by guessing the correct one for you.

[Onestopfoodsuk]

Too much info. Keep it simple:

Product Reference Short Description Price Shipping Data
1272 1001 Carpet Shampoo 450ml 267 0.531
....

Ok got it, I turned off the Automatic Genarate product referance number. It has now uploaded all the products into a long list onto actinic.
But now in actinic, in the content tree, all my products are not in there sections and are in a new section called Products. They are all listed altogether there. But if i click on one of them, actinic just freezes and i have to shut it down.
How can i keep the products in there original tree?
All i want to do is Export my product file, change my prices then re -import it back onto my Actinic so all the products are in the same place.

What is the best way of doing this? as when i export there is a ton of information on the spread sheet.

[Duncan Rounding]

If the sections and products don't already exist then you will need to use the hierarchical import rather than flat file. I thought you were just updating existing products.

[Onestopfoodsuk]

If the sections and products don't already exist then you will need to use the hierarchical import rather than flat file. I thought you were just updating existing products.

Yes i am updating exsisting products, but when i imported the file, all my products were taken out of there sections and placed in a different folder (new folder) call Products. All my sections on actinic were then empty of products.
To put them back i had to import snapshot back up.

could i ask a huge favor and talk me step by step of what to do with the spread sheet from the moment i have exported it. Change a price or input a price were i have not yet entered one, then how to re-import it, so all the products are all in the same place and prices are updated.
this would be a huge help.

When i first export it it looks like this.

With Brochure pages etc and other info then

End Section
Section Biscuits Try one of our selections of tasty Biscuits, Sweet and Savory including Crackers 1 0
Section Breakfast Bars and Health Snacks A veriety of Breakfast and Healthy Snack Bars\n 1 0
Product 485 Go-Ahead Alm/Rais/Cran Chewy Go-Ahead Almond, Raisen and Cranberry Chewy Snack Bar\n 77 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\485.jpg 1
Product 471 Alpen Bar Blackberry And Apple 29g Alpen Bar Blackberry And Apple Bar 29g 74 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\471.jpg 1
Product 470 Alpen Bar Strawberry And Yogurt 29g Alpen Bar Strawberry And Yogurt 29g 74 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\470.jpg 1
Product 469 Alpen Bar Fruit and Nut 28g Alpen Bar Fruit and Nut Bar 28g 74 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\469.jpg 1
Product 1472 Ryvita Goodness Bars 6s Ryvita Goodness Bars 6s with Apple and Sultana 0 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\1472.jpg 1
End Section
Section Sweet Biscuits A great selection of your Most Favorate Sweet Biscuits 1 0
Product 496 Crawfords Teatime Varieties Pack Crawfords Teatime Varieties Pack 337 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\496.jpg 1
Product 495 Jammie Dodgers 150g Jammie Dodgers 150g\n 148 ProductPhotos\Biscuits\495.jpg 1
Product 494 Lifestyle Custard Creams 300g Lifestyle Custard Creams 300g 74 1


Just a small section of the first few columns for an eg>

[Onestopfoodsuk]

I have spent a whole day trieing to get this to work and it just wont update any changes
, i have tried to follow the instuctions on the Actinic Help but no succsess. what am i doing wrong?
Surely it is a simple task to update your prices from a spread sheet.What am i doing wrong|?

I think im going to throw my pc in the garden now......lol

[leehack]

You started this to save time initially, now it's just a challenge lol. Do them manually for the time being and pick up when with a fresh outlook some other day. Not really sure what you are doing, but it should be a case of export - change - import and if you get the column error, then add a dummy column on with 1 in it - or at least actinic would have you believe it's that easy .

I use flat file imports 99% of the time, less hassle. My spreadsheets always have at least 6 columns:

1. Prod Ref
2. Short Description
3. Full Description
4. Price
5. Image Filename
6. Section Text

I've never once had a problem that way, unless i had been a pratt (often) and messed something up.

[Onestopfoodsuk]

You started this to save time initially, now it's just a challenge lol. Do them manually for the time being and pick up when with a fresh outlook some other day. Not really sure what you are doing, but it should be a case of export - change - import and if you get the column error, then add a dummy column on with 1 in it - or at least actinic would have you believe it's that easy .

I use flat file imports 99% of the time, less hassle. My spreadsheets always have at least 6 columns:

1. Prod Ref
2. Short Description
3. Full Description
4. Price
5. Image Filename
6. Section Text

I've never once had a problem that way, unless i had been a pratt (often) and messed something up.

HI.
Thanks for your help on this
, is it possable you could input a screen print of what yours looks like to give me an idea, as im sure im doing something wrong on the sheet.

[pinbrook]

Yes i am updating exsisting products, but when i imported the file, all my products were taken out of there sections and placed in a different folder (new folder) call Products. All my sections on actinic were then empty of products.

thats becasue the first column of the sample data has the word product in it and you are telling actinic that is the section name - so its done what you told it. - have you exported as hierarcical and imported as flatfile?

you can add section name and drill to sub sections by using the pipe character eg

section|subsection|subsection

is it possable you could input a screen print of what yours looks like to give me an idea, as im sure im doing something wrong on the sheet.

isn't there a sample flat file in site1 or similar and duncan has given you this in post 16

[Duncan Rounding]

The flat file samples are here:
C:\Program Files\Actinic vX\Original\Common

[Jan]

The easiest way to do this is to use my Profit and Pricing Tool, it has a 30 day trial so if you only want to do this once, it will be in effect free.

You can download it from here :

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Profit_and_Price.html

When it's installed you can click on a button to export all of the prices (they will be 0 if you haven't entered them yet, then you can update them in excel and use the product to reimport them.

Regards,

[Onestopfoodsuk]

The flat file samples are here:
C:\Program Files\Actinic vX\Original\Common

thats great thank you for that, that helps and understand what you mean.
Last thing now, i dont seem to have a colomn for sections. My product are in Sections and sub section ie,
(Section-Tinned foods - Sub Section Tiinned Fruits Or Tinned Meats)
When i sort / data to bring all my products into line all the section info is at the bottom of the spread sheet. of which i have now deleted to just give a list of my products.
Do i have to create a new colomn (as in your eg) labled (Section) then re imput all the section names so the inport knows what section to put the product back?. I now have it looking like this.

Product Reference Short Description Full Description Report Description Price Section Here?
1272 1001 Carpet Shampoo 450ml 1001 Carpet Shampoo 450ml\n 267
1527 1001 Spruce & Clean Floor Cleaner 1001 Spruce & Clean Floor Cleaner 0
1265 1001 Laminate/Wood Cleaner 500ml 1001 Laminate/Wood Cleaner 500ml 343
1266 1001 Trouble Shooter 500ml 1001 Trouble Shooter 500ml\n 332
1258 Vanish Carpet Shampoo Vanish Carpet Shampoo \n3 in 1 365
1247 Vanish Oxi Act Carpet & Uphol Cleaner Vanish Oxi Act Carpet & Uphol Cleaner 453
1528 Febreze Classic Fabric Refresher Febreze Classic Fabric Refresher 0
1271 Jeyes Fluid 300ml Jeyes Fluid 300ml\n 404
1270 Goddards Brass & Copper 125ml Goddards Brass & Copper 125ml 303

I just now get a message when i goto import of>
(You must link on field from your import file to the actinic field selectio text) ??
I think this is what im doing wrong. How do i do this on the spread sheet with out messing up the sections already created on Actinic?

[Onestopfoodsuk]

Too much info. Keep it simple:

Product Reference Short Description Price Shipping Data
1272 1001 Carpet Shampoo 450ml 267 0.531
....

When you said Keep it simple i didnt realise you ment like really simple.
I got it. After a whole day.
I just used the Product referace number and the price, and it worked

I did the same for the shipping

Thank you to every one for putting up with me all day and helping me out.
Thanks so much
I am now very happy

[pinbrook]

Simple is `best....