section text and reference numbers

[Jan]

Originally posted by mbdevelopments

Or I might have go at a hierarchical one.
Ian

I've already done this for you - did you miss the message? The format of the hierarchical file is below

Header:Product,Product reference,Price
Product,"M4",4999
Product,"M5",5999
Product,"M6",6999

Dead simple, no section text just that extra word 'Product' at the beginning of each line and the extra line 'Header:Product,Product reference,Price ' at the top, the rest is just your product references and your prices. I've checked it out and it works beautifully.

[mbdevelopments]

So I've just got to insert the product column into the CSV and then add that top line and it will all jump into place no matter what section it was in?

If that is so then you have saved me a lot of time and should be working for Actinic!!

Ian

[Jan]

Yes, that is all you have to do.

Glad to be able to help.

[mbdevelopments]

Worked a treat. That's the section text sorted.
Now for the duplicate items in various sections.
Is there more info about your product?

Ian

[Jan]

There is more information available at

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/ReplicatedProducts.htm

[NormanRouxel]

I've written a program that completely builds an actinic site fro an external stock control program. You don't need to use Actinic for anything other that downloading orders. It also adds lots of additional features to Actinic including the ability to display a product in more than one section.

This currently works with the Top to Toe EPOS system but is modular enough to adapt to other databases. The idea here is that ALL your data is managed in your stock system so there's no duplication of effort. This works best if you have a field available within your stock system for the text description (T2T does).

I'd be willing to see if it's feasible to alter to work with Platinum.

Norman rouxel@attglobal.net

[mbdevelopments]

Thanks for your idea.
Platinum has an "extra notes" field for each stock item where you can store unlimited characters. The trouble is that it is difficult to get into them (it's a program evolved from Dos so it's all CTRL this and SHIFT that).

I am currently working on the principle of buliding the website in actinic then linking our part numbers to the actinic ones.

I am currently waiting to hear if I can easily import the actinic numbers into platinum. If not I shall be getting some work done by Jan of Mole end.

Ian

[mbdevelopments]

Yes, over one year on and I am about a week away from doing the big import into catalog and "stacking the shelves".

Have there been any improvements to catalog with regard to linking products where they are duplicated in more than one section?

Or am I still going to have to put them all in, let catalog generate the reference numbers then hack those numbers back into our accounts program so they can come back out again with the updated prices?

Ian

[cdicken]

A solution to duplicating products in v6 can be found in the Advanced User Guide on p10 - headed 'Inserting the Same Product Multiple Times'.

You can also bring your own product reference numbers into the store by un-ticking 'Auto-Generate Product References' in 'Business Settings | Options'.

[mbdevelopments]

If I go down that route does that mean that anything I change in the master will automatically change in the slave?

It looks a little long winded but I might give it a try.

ian

[cdicken]

It will sort of work the way you describe.

The price will always show correctly in the shopping cart for the 'slave' products, but you will need to update the actual 'Price' field in the 'slave' products to make sure the prices are shown correctly in the section pages.