Catalog Maintenance Automation

[compnet32]

Hello,

I have been working for about three months on an opened ended module that takes on the task of automating catalog maintenance.

Current Set of Features

Allows for creation of profiles for different distributors
- Specify data feeds (CSV, XML)
- Option for secure FTP
- Specify remote image directory for copying images during product creation
- Create just one cron job for automation and the system will (in a resource friendly manner) trigger each profile

Based on information provided from feed, it will:
- Create new products based on categories defined from feed
- Update pre-existing products (quantity, cost, price, list, etc.)
-> Configurable pricing options for creating markups
-> Supports auction attributes module for defining UPC, ISBN, etc.
-> Supports MAP/MSRP module
-> Deactivate products if not updated
-> Supports cost module, so you can run a report and see margins on sold products
-> Will update all available products during first run and will then use defined rules to update products there after (based on quantity, cost, etc whatever rule you want)
- If you have xsell installed and the data is provided in the feed, it will perform the cross-linking

Interface
- It was built for automation (cron jobs) but has backend interface to manually run and upload the files
- View reports of runs, view margins, change in cost, price, etc.

This is actually a short list of what it can do. In a nut shell, it will create new products, update products, and do cross linking 100% on its own. You receive an email when its done with a summary of what happened, plus new products added and products deactivated for PPC updating purposes.

At this point, it would require some work to make it ready for the public. I was wanting to know, is there a demand for something like this? The closest thing I could find was easypopulate which only does about 15% of what this does.
Free? Cost? Value?

Let me know! I am looking forward to some ideas and feedback.

[yellow1912]

Sound real nice. How far is it from being complete?

[compnet32]

It is done and in daily use.

I was wondering if there was any demand for this or if people are getting by with easypopulate and manual crosslinking/product updating.

Before I spend the hours documenting and finalizing, I want to be sure people are going to want it and at what level I am going to have to support it.

[yellow1912]

@compnet32: the mod sounds very promising. Post it on download section or somewhere, I can help with documenting and supporting.

Regards

[fyzer]

I'm very interested in this mod please post a link!

[lextechs]

is there a link to this mod download page i have been looking for something like this, at least the auto cross sell function. Me feeds are auto uploaded by inventorysource but would be nice to update some of the descriptions and a do a cross sell linkage

[customgiftsshoppe]

I take it this mod never happened?