combine categories

[wayneh]

Greets,
I am running 1.3.8 with the tool easy populate. I have discovered that I did not setup the categories correctly , and now, I have a couple of categories that are only a single letter different and really need to be combined into one. Is there a way to do this through the Admin, or will I need to go to tables?
I don't want to loose the data, but since I have not gone live as of yet, that would not be a great lost.


Thanks,
Wayne

[wayneh]

Thanks to all who may have read...I believe that I have found my solution.
Move under categories...may take sometime, but it can be done.

Thanks,
Wayne

[schoolboy]

If its only a few products, you should use the MOVE PRODUCT button:-

admin>>>catalog>>>Categories/Products...

... navigate to the product that is in the wrong category and click the little blue circle icon with "M" in it. Move to desired category.

When "faulty" category is empty, delete it.

If there are a LOT of products...

1. Make a COPY your original Easy Populate spreadsheet (the one with the category name errors). Call it anything you like, as long as you know it's the copy of the original.

2. From the copied spreadsheet, delete (remove from spreadsheet) ALL products that are OKAY. So you are left only with the products with faulty category names.

3. In the column "v_status", set the value to 9 for all the faulty products.

4. Save this spreadsheet as a Tab-delimited TXT file and run it through EasyPopulate.

5. This will DELETE all the products in the faulty categories, so (if you did it correctly) those faulty categories will now be empty.

6. Now... on the same COPY of the spreadsheet (the one with the faulty categories), fix up all the category names so that they reference the categories you wanted in the first place.

7. In the column "v_status", set the value to 1 for all the products.

8. Save the file as tab delimited txt and run that file through Easy Populate.

9. The products will be re-added to the site - this time in their correct locations.

10. The "faulty" categories can be deleted from your shop admin panel.

NB: There are reports that "v_status = 9" may delete the products from the database AND remove their images from the images folder - so you may want to create a backup of your images folder.

It's also a good idea, when you're finished with this, to run some of the "update" functions in admin>>>tools>>>store manager. And to run the "Optimize Database" function as well (also on store manager screen.)

[Ajeh]

You could also go to the Category list of products that you want to move and click Copy on one of the products then the Multiple Categories Link Manager ...

At the bottom you can:

Copy ALL Products in a Category as LINKED Products to another Category ...
Example: Using 8 and 22 would Link ALL Products in Category 8 to Category 22

Then there is a Remove:

Remove ALL Products in a Category that are LINKED Products to another Category ...
Example: Using 8 and 22 would Unlink ALL Products in Category 8 from Category 22

Backup first before using this ...

[schoolboy]

I would actually advocate Linda's method over my method... EasyPopulate can be very fussy, and using the multiple copy and delete functions are more robust as they are part of the core functionality.

Nevertheless, backup as has been suggested, regardless of the method you use.