EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[Kevin205]

I don't see a reply to this thread, but I have been spinning my wheels with the same issue. Some of us newbies are way over our heads with a lot of ZC; so even "simple" instructions often need to be broken down into smaller pieces. In my case, I have a small wine shop, so my products are wines from a large number of producers, and I want categories of about a dozen regions, a few price ranges, and a few colors. Not that complicated. After loading several sample products and categories, I downloaded the product file and found that each product was listed several times, once for each subcategory, and that seemed wrong.

However, I don't know how to make use of this statement: "To achieve this, each v_categories_names_1, v_categories_names_2 correspond to a language installed in your system, and individual category names are separated by the Carat "^" symbol. For Example: Bar Supplies^Glass Washers^Brushes" A sample file illustrating this would be extremely helpful, along with some details about how the sample file accomplishes this. Not to mention, I have NO idea what the term "language" means in this context...!

Then the question after that would be, okay, what are the rules for naming and uploading my data file? I see the download file has a name like "FullEPYearDayTime.csv," so no help there.

Btw, my site (under construction) is www.artisanwineclub.com...

All help appreciated, thanks.

This is how I would do it:
First create Region categories (top category, ie: California, Italy, French, ...)


Second create Color categories per region (subcategory, ie: Reds, Whites, Roses, ...)


Third create Wine bottle for specific region and Color (Products. ie: Wine Red A, Wine Red B, ...)


When you export from EP4, Complete Products (with Metatags) You should get a csv file similar to the following (The Horizontal record 1,2 & 3 and NOT rows 5 through 37, I transposed it, for you to see all cells!)


As for the language, I only use English, so I guess it's for carts that offer multilingual carts?

I hope it helps.

[Kevin205]

I found a mistake myself, v_products_model should not be similar.

[tenashi]

Yo Kevin205, Thanks for taking the time, much appreciated, and much food for thought. Still hard to operationalize with the aging brain, though.

So do categories have to be related linearly, as in your example: wines(products)= subset of colors = subset of regions. Is it possible to have wines=products, but with category1=regions, category2=subregions, category3=price group, etc., where each wine/product belongs to several categories of the same level? Where does v_categories_name2, etc. fit in? If all my products are wines (most are, but not all), does that mean all the wines would have to be under the same parent category (in this case, "region")?

Thanks!

Btw, some years ago I explored ZC for another site of mine, and found it too complicated. Lately I explored WPEC and found it too complicated, so came back to ZC. That decision was based on the observation that ZC is way more of a community, and even though a lot of this is a stretch for me, I really appreciate the fact that people here actually read and respond to these pleas for help. In today's world, that's a rare and beautiful thing. So thanks again.

[chadderuski]

Yo Kevin205, Thanks for taking the time, much appreciated, and much food for thought. Still hard to operationalize with the aging brain, though.

So do categories have to be related linearly, as in your example: wines(products)= subset of colors = subset of regions. Is it possible to have wines=products, but with category1=regions, category2=subregions, category3=price group, etc., where each wine/product belongs to several categories of the same level? Where does v_categories_name2, etc. fit in? If all my products are wines (most are, but not all), does that mean all the wines would have to be under the same parent category (in this case, "region")?

Thanks!

Btw, some years ago I explored ZC for another site of mine, and found it too complicated. Lately I explored WPEC and found it too complicated, so came back to ZC. That decision was based on the observation that ZC is way more of a community, and even though a lot of this is a stretch for me, I really appreciate the fact that people here actually read and respond to these pleas for help. In today's world, that's a rare and beautiful thing. So thanks again.

Please note that unless you have more than one language, you will only have an _1 for your name, descriptions, categories, etc.

Please review the documentation or the first couple pages of this thread where this was discussed in detail...

[Kevin205]

So do categories have to be related linearly, as in your example: wines(products)= subset of colors = subset of regions. Is it possible to have wines=products, but with category1=regions, category2=subregions, category3=price group, etc., where each wine/product belongs to several categories of the same level? Where does v_categories_name2, etc. fit in? If all my products are wines (most are, but not all), does that mean all the wines would have to be under the same parent category (in this case, "region")?

However you wish to categorize and subcategories, ending at a product. I always think of as a tree, by drawing a flowchart from top down.

[tenashi]

Still having trouble, probably something simple. Link to sample file I am trying to upload below. The categories are already in place. Not sure what the protocols are for "model" field. I can enter products manually, and those products appear and download appropriately. But when I upload I see the .csv file (using OO and utf-8) listed but products do not appear in the catalog. What's up?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6FE...it?usp=sharing

Thanks!

[tenashi]

Still having trouble, probably something simple. Link to sample file I am trying to upload below. The categories are already in place. Not sure what the protocols are for "model" field. I can enter products manually, and those products appear and download appropriately. But when I upload I see the .csv file (using OO and utf-8) listed but products do not appear in the catalog. What's up?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6FE...it?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Okay, got it sorted out; info was in forum, just reading it wrong...doh!

[chadderuski]

Hey Tenashi,

Sorry, was down all week end. Glad you found solution though.

-chadd

[tenashi]

Not to worry I seem to have at least one baffling new problem a day! Today's may or may not be related to EP4. The situation is that after I upload several test products, the "What's New" box on my main page lists them all twice. If I remove all products, the box is empty. When I reload the four products with EP4, each appears twice in the box. I also have been using Copy Categories and exploring different ways of setting up category structure. So maybe something to do with that, or with cached data...? Ideas?

View site

Thanks!

[chadderuski]

Not to worry I seem to have at least one baffling new problem a day! Today's may or may not be related to EP4. The situation is that after I upload several test products, the "What's New" box on my main page lists them all twice. If I remove all products, the box is empty. When I reload the four products with EP4, each appears twice in the box. I also have been using Copy Categories and exploring different ways of setting up category structure. So maybe something to do with that, or with cached data...? Ideas?

View site

Thanks!

It may be that linked products (the same product in multiple categories) is why your seeing it listed more than once. I'd ask this question in the general forum. EP4 does not affect how new products are listed.