v6.0.2.1.0.0.CNNA Business Spreadsheet link

[webyourbusiness]

I have a site that was supposed to be live 10 days ago - the spreadsheet linking doesn't work - has anyone else had this problem?

The spreadsheet is erroring on the smallest spreadsheet, with one product row, I've cut it back to product reference, short desc and price - the problem is the price column - if I take it out, linking works. Put it back in, and it errors.

The column for price is a general formatted cell with the formula =int(PRICECOL*100) which puts the value 100 for a $1.00 price - I've even tried putting a value of 100 in there (no formula, just the value 100) - and it errors when I open the catalog.

On erroring, the unassigned products can NOT be moved to categories, they are stuck in the unallocated products category.

This is now driving me, and the client whose site is supposed to be live, totally CRAZY.

Due to the volatile nature of the product pricing, they need live linking of products to an external data-source - imports simply won't work as well.
regards

Web Your Business Inc.

[Jan]

I think that this might be a bug with Actinic or Excel whereby the price field is pretending to be a text field - right click on it in the properties and see what comes up.

I think that the workaround was to delete the field and recreate it specifying that it is numeric. You said that it was a formula field so you might need to link another field to it to force it to be a number.

Sorry to not be more specific but this is just a vague memory.

Regards,

[cdicken]

This is my recollection as well. I have added some stuff about this in the help guide for 6.1:

Note 3: If you are linking to Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access then you need to make sure that any fields/columns you want to link to that contain numerical data (e.g. Price, Estimated Stock In Hand, Warn If Below, Suspend Orders If Below etc.) are set to being 'Number' data. This should be done before any data is entered into them. Also, the number of decimal places for these fields should be set to zero.

[webyourbusiness]

I've reworked the calculated fields, the numerics columns are now numeric, DP=0 and then I put the formula into it and saved.

Next, I entered Actinic and I get no errors about linked products - so far so good - but the product won't drag to their categories - they sit firmly in the unallocated products section, springing back when I drag and drop them into another section.

In an attempt to make the software re-read the file, I browse the spreadsheet again and link the fields (I have price as the only numeric field), and I get the same problem - ie, the products won't move from unallocated to a section of my choosing.

This means we have a very nice looking catalog with ZERO products.... help!!!

[Jan]

Check that your product reference field is formatted as a string. Other than that I'm stumped, send me a copy (or subset) of the spreadsheet and I'll have a look at it here.

Regards.

[webyourbusiness]

Jan,

the reference field is a "general" formatted field - if I make it "Text", then formulas won't work, and it's a field built from various other fields. Example products can be found here:

http://test.webyourbusiness.com/4red/

The spreadsheet is called redline1.xls and it contains about 30 products, and is about 56 - 57kb (pretty small).

regards

Greg

[Jan]

You have underscores (_) in your product references and this is not allowed, I cannot drag in MB_45055 but can drag in dodgeviper10. If you change them to dashes (-) it will work.

Regards

[webyourbusiness]

Thank Jan!

$&**!£!£!@£! Product References!

ps - why is an underscore invalid Chris D?

[NormanRouxel]

An underscore is used by the cart script to prefix the product reference and attributes that are passed to ShoppingCart.pl. So if you had a product containing underscores it could (possibly) act like a request to put a different product or set of choices into the catalog.

Norman

[JonG]

Ah ha!

I had just about finished composing an incredibly long email to Jan regarding the problem I've been having getting Product Replication to work, when on a whim I searched the forum. I believe this is the exact problem I've been having with the linked database.

I keep getting the following error:
"Warning: price fields are linked in the lowest unit of currency. The linked price fields must not contain any decimal points.
Actinic Ecommerce currency being US Dollars, 1200 represents $12.00."

So I'm off to alter the excel file. Let's see if that solves it.

(Jan, I'll keep you updated!)

Jon

[Jan]

Actinic will not let you enter them so they are probably in the linked table you create in the product replication access database . When I get back to working on the new improved version I will make sure that you cannot enter them.

Regards,