Database Structuring

[Any Web PCs]

Hi All,

We are in the process of adding our product database to our first Actinic driven store but have come to a small stumbling block.

The store has been designed to sell nearly 1000 Inkjet Printer Cartridges, so editing the database will take some time :-(

Using Excel, we set out our columns of information to best suit our needs:

Manufacturer
Code
Description
Colour
Printer Compatibility
A I Code
Cost
Selling Price
Selling Price 2+
Selling Price 4+

Upon locating how to input the .csv file into Actinic Developer, we have found that most of our content does not match the Actinic listing.

Is there someway of adding your own descriptions?

or are we looking at this the wrong way (namely to restructure the .csv file to a more compatable method based on the listing)?

Cheers in advance

AWP
www.networkmagic.org

[I-CC]

A flat file csv file will only import the standard information and not information that is populated from custom properties.

You can using the flat file import include all of the normal product and section details of short descriptions, long descriptions, extended descriptions, all of the image paths and lots more.

If you look within the Actinic folder on your computer and within the CD you will find a flat file CSV example.

For full import of all features including custom properties requires a more robust and non flat file solution (i.e. not single line) which is called a Hierarchical Import, which again the installation and CD contains an example of.

Hope this helpss....

[cdicken]

To do your import in exactly the way you want, you need a mixture of custom properties and quantity-dependent pricing (the latter is only available in Actinic Business).

Custom properties are basically user-definable fields. To create custom properties, go to 'Advanced | Custom Properties' and add a row to the grid. You can then assign values in the 'Properties' tab of a product. To do quantity-dependent pricing, you just need to create extra rows in the 'Prices' tab of a product, and supply a new price and 'Min' value for each quantity-break row.

Once you have a product set up how you want it, you can do a 'File | Export' to see how Actinic structures this data within a hierarchical import file.

The alternative is to use a CONCATENATE command in Excel to bring some of the 'colour' and 'compatability' information all into the 'Full Description' field. Use '\n' to put line breaks into the field.

[Any Web PCs]

A New SPreadsheet, but having a problem

Hi Chris,

Cheers for the response..

I've converted the spreadsheet as much as I can into a Hieractial form. Although, i'm now encountering a problem with trying to import the file.

Basically, it reports an invalid record name in the first header row. I've checked this with someone in the know, and they say its fine.

Any suggestions would be excellent... :-)

Cheers

Jamie

[cdicken]

You've done a good job so far, but actually it has to look something like the attached...

I have only defined custom property values for the british films, but hopefully this will give you the idea.