Attributes, properties and searching

[CymraegKev]

Hello everybody,

I'm using Actinic Developer 7.0 and I'm trying to achieve something that I've not tried to do before (appologies if this has been covered - but I have tried looking).

Effectively I have a set of products with "attributes", for example sake, lets say mmusic albums. The current data is in Excel and is structured as such:

Album Artist Publisher - each value in a different cell.

Now, I can import OK, but what I want is for the extra details (artist and publisher) in this case to be a form of attribute, so my standard product will have default layout for Album, artist and publisher etc. I don't want to have ALL of the information in the main content of the product, I want to set up these attributes prior to the import and THEN.......... I want to be able to search then.

So, ultimately I want somebody to come to the site and be able to search ONLY across publisher for XXX or ONLY across artist for XXX etc.

Does that make sense? And is it possible?....

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Kevin

[Nadeem]

Hi Kevin

So, ultimately I want somebody to come to the site and be able to search ONLY across publisher for XXX or ONLY across artist for XXX etc.

What version of Actinic are you running Catalog, Business or Developer. If it is Business or Developer, then you can have Custom Search properties. If you have Catalog, then you cannot do this I'm afraid.

Kind Regards

[CymraegKev]

Hi Nadeem,

Thanks for the reply. I am running Developer 7.0. I've now figured out how to do custom search properties but my MAJOR issue (and if this is not possible, then it will stop my client proceeding) is that I have the 17,000+ records, each split up with their properties in the spreadsheet. I need to be able to set up my custom properties in Actinic and then map those properties to the relevant info in the import routine. If this cannot be achieved then the client will not use Actinic (or me because :-( ) because he is not going to type in the attributes of 17k+ records.

Any ideas?

Many Thanks

KEvin

[Nadeem]

Hi Kevin

You should be able to use an Hierarchical File to import Searchable Properties. I would suggest in licence a new site, and just have one custom search properties. Now go to "File | Export" and only select "Catalog". If you export that file, you will have a working example of an hierarchical import file which includes a custom search.

Kind Regards

[CymraegKev]

Brilliant - I shall try that.

Many Thanks

Kevin