EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[SilverHD]

Hello:

Does anyone know of any step-by-step instruction manual available for EP4? Especially when it comes to converting a wholesalers .csv file to EP's version? I found some instructions on Youtube but that video is so small, it just as well not be there!! A youtube video converter would be nice. If there is a video available for this, it would be great, again, as long as you can see it.

Thanks for your help,

Silver

[fairestcape]

Whatever the original source of your data, it must be arranged to meet the structure of the zencart database.

If you open one of the SAMPLE FILES from easypopulate v4, you will see the names of the column headers. These names cannot change.

So what you need to do is arrange the data from your supplier's spreadsheet, so that the content can be listed under relevant Easypopulate column headers.

Your supplier may have a column called PRODUCT INFORMATION. Now there is no column called "PRODUCT INFORMATION" in Easy Populate - but there is a column called "v_products_description_1".

So it is probable that all you need do is get the product information from your supplier, an make sure the column header is v_products_description_1, and not PRODUCT INFORMATION.

The same principle applies to all the data and column headings.

However, sometimes a supplier may have product information is SEVERAL DIFFERENT COLUMNS - in which case you may need to use spreadsheet FORUMLAS to merge the content of one column with the content of others.

In MS EXCEL for example, the =CONCATENATE(parameters here) formula will join the contents of specified cells. A knowledge of how your spreadsheet operates is very valuable, as this can save you huge amounts of time and effort.

[SilverHD]

fairescape;

Thank you for the information. I will look into it. Everything you said seems relatively simple except for the last part on product information. Couil you tell me how you place attributes, such as sizes, colors, etc? BTW, I'm guessing by your byline that you must know Schoolboy?

Silver

[fairestcape]

fairescape;

Thank you for the information. I will look into it. Everything you said seems relatively simple except for the last part on product information. Couil you tell me how you place attributes, such as sizes, colors, etc? BTW, I'm guessing by your byline that you must know Schoolboy?

Silver

Yes, I am based in Cape Town, South Africa - but spend about half the year in the UK doing presentations on online trading. Schoolboy and I work on joint projects. I have been assisting with the latest venture in engraving services.

Easypopulate does not handle attributes (yet) but if you send a PM to chadderuski (the module's author) he may have updates on this.

We have found that APSONA SHOPADMIN is a more intuitive interface for importing data - including attributes.

[SilverHD]

Thanks for the tip. I will PM him. Schoolboy helped me quite a bit when I didn't know very much about Zen. He is very knowledgeable. Looks like he has a tiger by the tail now!

Take care,

Silver

[mc12345678]

Yes, I am based in Cape Town, South Africa - but spend about half the year in the UK doing presentations on online trading. Schoolboy and I work on joint projects. I have been assisting with the latest venture in engraving services.

Easypopulate does not handle attributes (yet) but if you send a PM to chadderuski (the module's author) he may have updates on this.

We have found that APSONA SHOPADMIN is a more intuitive interface for importing data - including attributes.

While I haven't used apsona shopadmin, I would like to offer a correction to the above post, EP4 does handle attributes, in fact I had added partial functionality for stock by attributes available through github off of chadderuski's version.

As for other instructions on use, there have been posts in the last several pages about general usage of this plugin including sequencing of imports and exports and building the database for a product.

[SilverHD]

mc12345678:

Thanks for the advise. I looked into apsona shopadmin. From just a perusal, it seems rather easy, but I would have to look into it more. I'm down ill, can't sleep, probably call the doctor.

Silver

[mc12345678]

mc12345678:

Thanks for the advise. I looked into apsona shopadmin. From just a perusal, it seems rather easy, but I would have to look into it more. I'm down ill, can't sleep, probably call the doctor.

Silver

One of the things missing from this plugin is a consolidated list of "instructions". In my opinion (and it is just my own opinion) EP4 isn't difficult to use. The operator must only understand the sequence of actions necessary to fully build a product, the importance of the prefix to a file being uploaded, the character(s) necessary to properly import, and the actions that may be necessary to save a properly formatted CSV file. The second and third parts can be figured out by exporting multiple files potentially on different dates/times. The fourth part is described in this forum on page 1. The first part, well, think about how you build a product using the admin panel, and basically you follow the same sequence, but without timeouts and with the potential of multiple products being updated at once.

Again, I do not have a comparison to go by, but the above has been the majority of questions related to EP4.

[Kevin205]

While I haven't used apsona shopadmin, I would like to offer a correction to the above post, EP4 does handle attributes, in fact I had added partial functionality for stock by attributes available through github off of chadderuski's version.

As for other instructions on use, there have been posts in the last several pages about general usage of this plugin including sequencing of imports and exports and building the database for a product.

Would you please provide the link to "partial functionality for stock by attributes".

Is this functionality for kuroi's version of stock by attribute, recently updated by potteryhouse?

[mc12345678]

Would you please provide the link to "partial functionality for stock by attributes".

Is this functionality for kuroi's version of stock by attribute, recently updated by potteryhouse?

https://github com/mc12345678/EasyPopulate-4.0/archive/master.zip will download the file, otherwise if you are familiar with github, then remove archive/master.zip and you can navigate through github about the file.

The functionality that was developed was a detailed import/export of SBA data from a SBA table that was designed like what I have installed. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure which version e installed because I installed it really early on in my work with ZC about 2 years ago, but I do believe it was kuroi's that became robophungs. I know that I had separated the drop down functionality from the product so that I could use SBA in all situations as desired for the site I was working on. If the table is not setup the same as what I had (table name, numberof columns, and column names) then a SBA detailed export option will not appear in the user panel.

I had begun working on the basic import and export, but haven't worked on it since late last year. Partially because I was advised that an update would be coming that would almost completely revise the way things were coded, so I didn't want to introduce multiple differences from what was to become considered a ZC approved package. If too much is/was added in, then it would have to be reworked to fit in the new version, and would rather one product exist that has multiple functionality than to have multiple products that for the most part do the same thing with a little extra. As usual, use at your own risk and make backups before modifying your data/admin/store files.