Apsona ShopAdmin - a free tool for import/mass update/reporting

[apsona]

Mike_Dean - I am unable to reproduce this problem. With a clean brand new install of EasyPHP 5.3.2i (the latest) on my Windows 7 box, and a clean fresh install of ZenCart 1.3.9b on top, I see ShopAdmin working fine.

In any case, I will send you a PM with some alternatives to try.

Thanks.

Apsona
http://apsona.com

[DivaVocals]

All I needed to see to know this is worth my time investigating is here:

Customer testimonials

"All in all an excellent offering. I really like it, and I think it could be quite useful to Zen Cart vendors." – Scott Wilson, That Software Guy


"I am very impressed with ShopAdmin. As a developer, I wish it came with Zen Cart because it would make my job so much easier! Comparing it to Easypopulate? No contest, this wins hands down. I will be glad to recommend it to customers."
— Delia Lunsford, Web Consultant, Delia Wilson Design

That plus the constructive comments (vague unsupported comments do not help the community) I've seen posted in this thread are good enough for me to investigate and test this app out for myself.. I only have one question for the community:
Is any one using this with one of the working SEO mods (Ceon's URI or SSU)

[delia]

it can be used with anything I think as it doesn't touch the core files at all.

I don't know about using it with mods that change the default database tables like products, etc.

I had a chance to work with apsona myself this past week and it's definitely easier to use than easy populate as it looked at my first glance.

One of the best things is that the Apsona team is interested in improving it - so any suggestions one makes to them is listened to. They are eager to please and have the facility to do it. They didn't just do something for free and throw it out there like most modules. (I speak from personal experience - it's really difficult for me to make changes to mods I've done unless someone volunteers for the development time.)

[DivaVocals]

And this is what I need to know.. I asked not from the perspective of it (Apsona) touching core files but the fact that it updates product tables, etc. It is my understanding that EZ Populate messes up (removes) the stored URIs generated by the Ceon URI module. (This is and other issues with EP is why I've stayed FAR away from EP)

I'm happy to test this myself (and I will do just that). I just wanted to know if the community had any experience with this app and SEO mods..

it can be used with anything I think as it doesn't touch the core files at all.

I don't know about using it with mods that change the default database tables like products, etc.

I had a chance to work with apsona myself this past week and it's definitely easier to use than easy populate as it looked at my first glance.

One of the best things is that the Apsona team is interested in improving it - so any suggestions one makes to them is listened to. They are eager to please and have the facility to do it. They didn't just do something for free and throw it out there like most modules. (I speak from personal experience - it's really difficult for me to make changes to mods I've done unless someone volunteers for the development time.)

[delia]

I just used the ceon mod recently - does it store the uri's in the product tables? I dont' recall.....

[Shaunus]

A further update...

We've had Apsona installed for a couple of weeks now.

It's been great for updating existing products, but we've still not got it to import new products properly.

Main issues:

There seems to be a number of required fields for a new product, which I can't really see the relevance of. These aren't required when updating existing products.

I can't upload a a new product unless I leave the Product Type field blank. Entering 'Product - General' will not work.

The 'date available' needs to be set to yesterday's date else any products added only appear in the 'Products Expected' area.

The supporting documentation is a bit vague. For example in the sample csv file it shows the 'Enabled' column as having data values of either '1' or '0'. I found out that it won't work unless you enter 'yes' or 'no'.

Any products uploaded using Apsona cannot be edited or deleted in Zen Admin. This has stopped us for the time being because we use FCK Editor for our tabbed product descriptions, but anything new cannot be edited!

All in all, there's the bones of a really good programme here, but it still needs refinement, it kinda 80% does what we need it to.

My suggestions:

From the fields currently setup in Apsona, allow users a setting to customise what the required fields are for new uploads and updates. That way each business can use Apsona how they want to and not have to bother with fields irrelevant to them. For example, we only want to upload Model, Name, Manufacturer Name, Price, Quantity, Enabled, Date available, as this is what we get on our supplier sheets.

Possibly include some kind of CK Editor within Apsona, making it a true one-stop interface for product uploading and editing...this would really speed things up!

Lastly, allow Apsona to recognise Manufacturer Name for new products. Having to type in the manufacturer ID makes it difficult because it means more manual input onto a supplier sheet. The supplier will always provide the manufacturer name, so Apsona really should recognise it in an upload, without the user having to add a column to their csv file then lookup all the manufacturer IDs.


Apsona have responded well to my e-mail queries, and they have received feedback well. I just hope they can develop Apsona some more and make it a 100% useful program.

[DivaVocals]

I just used the ceon mod recently - does it store the uri's in the product tables? I dont' recall.....

I believe it does.. From what I understand EZ Populate doesn't play nice with this.. As I said, i will test all this myself this weekend.. Just wanted to get some feedback from the community..

[delia]

good points and good information!

[apsona]

Hello folks,

Just a couple of points to add to Shaunus:

• For the "required" fields, generally we have tried to conform to the "non-null" field specifications in the Zen Cart database. We will re-examine these and fix as needed.
• If you don't specify a product type when importing, or leave it blank, it will leave the product type field empty in the database. So there will not be a type handler PHP page within Zen Cart for that product. Net effect, the product cannot be edited nor deleted from within Zen Admin. I do believe that ShopAdmin checks that any value specified matches an existing picklist value for product type, but I will verify that.
• The manufacturer name lookup is to be done. The problem is that the manufacturer name does not uniquely identify the manufacturer, so ShopAdmin insists on the manufacturer id instead. And that is perhaps not the best thing from a usability perspective. ShopAdmin definitely needs work here.
• The 'Enabled' column should allow either '1' or 'yes' or 'y'. But again I will verify that.

Having said all that: Apsona ShopAdmin is still a work in progress, and we're delighted to get the amount of positive feedback we have been getting. Please continue to let us know any issues you find, and we will gladly fix them.

Thanks for letting us be a part of this wonderful community.

Apsona
http://apsona.com

[Shaunus]

Having read the last post by Apsona, I can now see why I can't delete or edit newly added products within the Zen Admin area...basically because I'm leaving the 'Product Type' field blank.

If I enter ' Product - General' in the appropriate field in my csv file, the upload fails - with an error being flagged up for the 'Product Type' column. If I put in 'Product - Free Shipping' it WILL allow the upload, but then it includes an image next to all our products saying 'Free Shipping' - which I don't want.

All our products are 'Product - General'. And we do offer free shipping, but we set this in Zen Admin on the edit product pages, where we can set 'Always Free Shipping' to 'Yes'.

I really can't work out why Apsona won't accept 'Product - General' from our csv files?