Updating Products With Import Tool

General General Questions
1

Greetings,



I am currently working on our new site still in beta, [url]http://www.harrisonmotorsports.com/demo/[/url].



I would like to update item descriptions in bulk using the product import tool, however I am not sure if it will overwrite other existing products or product data.



Is is possible to only update an items price or description through CS-Cart’s Administration>Import Data>Products tool?

2

I would also like to be able to update the images without changing other existing data.



I thought about about exporting all products and reimporting them with my changes, but I am afraid that we would loose our product options. I have read other post that say there are problems with importing options.



Please advise.

3

Export all products then when you re import after making changes, just import the columns you uhave changed. As long as you use the same product codes CS will just overwrite what you have changed, everything else will be left alone. Just delete the columns you don’t change, and remember the last column of your data shoul contain info… I use the active or inactive status column



John

4

Yes you can. Only use the fields that you want to update in your file.

5

[quote name=‘johnbol1’]Export all products then when you re import after making changes, just import the columns you uhave changed. As long as you use the same product codes CS will just overwrite what you have changed, everything else will be left alone. Just delete the columns you don’t change, and remember the last column of your data shoul contain info… I use the active or inactive status column



John[/QUOTE]



Thanks everyone. I updated all my product images using this method and did not have a problem.



However, when I attempted to update all my item categories CS-Cart created duplicate categories. So instead of just moving an item to a different category it created a duplicate category and then put the item there.



Here is my file [url]http://www.harrisonmotorsports.com/images/HarrisonPartsUpdateBharat.csv[/url]

6

Either export all data, inclluding everything.

then delete the data on site and then re import all data with the new catagories.

OR just go into admin and change where th categories are in categories section, this is probably as quick.



john

7

[quote name=‘johnbol1’]Either export all data, inclluding everything.

then delete the data on site and then re import all data with the new catagories.

OR just go into admin and change where th categories are in categories section, this is probably as quick.



john[/QUOTE]



Very interesting…



Option 1 Questions:



I have some application data for some products. I have read that this is not easily imported and exported using the built in import tool. Will this be lost in the export/erase/import? Secondly, will I loose empty categories? I have built out some categories that are waiting to be filled.



ex.

[url]http://www.harrisonmotorsports.com/demo/hawk-performance-blue.html[/url]



Option 2 “OR just go into admin and change where th categories are in categories section, this is probably as quick.”



Do you mean import my new data and then rearrange my categories and delete duplicates? This sounds like a huge task.





There must be an easier way to update the categories in which a product appears.



Advice is much appreciated.

8

[quote name=‘cory1970’]Very interesting…



Option 1 Questions:



I have some application data for some products. .[/QUOTE]



What do you mean? options? if so they are not a problem they will come in fine



John

9

Thanks John, you have been a big help. I am new to CS-Cart, so this is all a bit new.



If I delete all product and category data before I re-import, then I will loose any category descriptions and meta tags I have already set up.



I am looking to simply move existing products into existing categories without loosing any category or product data. I thought my file, [url]http://www.harrisonmotorsports.com/i...dateBharat.csv[/url], would do that, but it creates duplicate categories. The new categories it creates, do not have the same meta data and the hierarchy is incorrect. Many of the secondary categories are placed in the root when I re-import.



Any thoughts?

10

Cs will only overwrite categories if they already exist. If they dont exist then it creates them on the fly.

If I have a product called BMW brake shoes in a category called BMW BRAKES, and I want to move the shoes to BMW BRAKES PARTS then you simply have to alter your csv file cat column from



Product code=“code for product” CAtegory =“BMW BRAKES” csv looks like this

CAtegory" BMW BRAKES"



Then Change the csv to look like this



CAtegory “BMW BRAKES PARTS” and if you want it in a subcategory of it you would have



BMW BRAKES///BMW SMALL BRAKES///



I know this reads awfully confusing but I hope you understand.

Now if you are saying that you have a category balled BMW BRAKE PARTS and then CS creates another category called exactly the same name then that is a problem.

11

John,



Thanks for all your help. I got everything to import.



It turns out that I didn’t have the delimiters formated correctly.