Best Practices? Import Features Per Product Via Csv

We are a manufacturer and so we create all product data ourselves as new products are developed.

All product data is created in Excel. From where it is imported into our ERP system and into CSC via CSV.



But the import of features-per-product into CSC is not yet done. Due to the complexity how CSC handles this. And I’m looking for how others have done this.



Background info

CSC export/import engine puts all features-related-info into 1 CSV field. Rather than separating it into separate CSV fields which would make data-translation to/from other computer systems a lot easier. Please see the example enclosed what I mean



My questions:

  1. Where to do the data-translation? Modify the CSC export/import engine? Or create VBA code in Excel? Or…?
  2. If we would use API instead of CSV, would the data-translation be more simple?



    Any tips or suggestions are more than welcome!

    Thank you in advance

    Olof

    Features import export structure.jpg

I did a few years ago with direct update to the database. But far from easy and involves matching IDs. I supose if you have a dev system you could look at that.

[quote name='kickoff3pm' timestamp='1426864685' post='208572']

I did a few years ago with direct update to the database. But far from easy and involves matching IDs. I supose if you have a dev system you could look at that.

[/quote]

Thanks for replying. Could you perhaps give a bit more details on how you did the direct updates to the database?

Sorry it's been too long to remember. I suggest you do a few products complete and then look to see which tables in the database were changed.

Kickoff3pm; ok, I will look around.



Anyone else who can share some experiences and/or tips?

tx

[bump]

Is there anybody (please… :-) ) who is importing features into CSC (semi)automatically? If so, I would love to hear from you!



At the moment we manually combine (concatenate function in Excel) many data columns into the single & infamous CSC Features field in order to be able to import it into CSC. Very time-consuming and error-prone. We want to move towards automated workflow and I guess we will hire some VBA guru to get it done…

I have a similar set up. Our data comes from suppliers with specs, separated in individual cells. I see you are already using concatenate, so do we but we have 1 master sheet for the features with all concatenate functions set in sheet 2 to read whatever we drop in sheet 1 columns.

We also use the combine function amongst others in kutools, try kutools and use the text features, I like it :)

Hi Johnbol1,

Thanks for reacting. May I ask how you get your supplier's specs into sheet 1? Just old-fashioned copy-paste or …?

And I will look into kutools, thanks. FYI, I use several Excel add-ins from this company [url=“Data related Microsoft Excel add-ins”]https://www.add-ins.com/data_add-ins.htm[/url]

Good link, thx



Yes usually copy and paste but for our five main suppliers, we have 5 spreadsheets ready formatted relating to those suppliers formats, thus knowing which columns are which, which isnt tooooooo bad.

[quote name='johnbol1' timestamp='1431527041' post='214273']

Good link, thx



Yes usually copy and paste but for our five main suppliers, we have 5 spreadsheets ready formatted relating to those suppliers formats, thus knowing which columns are which, which isnt tooooooo bad.

[/quote]



Ok, thanks for confirmation and tips

For anyone working on this and having trouble: http://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/42149-how-to-import-product-features-using-csv-including-grouped-features/