Quote Originally Posted by wizer View Post
Interesting SB. I tried Apsona relatively recently and was underwhelmed. Perhaps I'll try it again.

After recently adding 3000 products to my store, I know what a task this is. I'd love to know the processes you took and the formulae. Any chance of an explanation?
Well... each person's needs are unique, largely because the data one works with tends to be uniquely compiled in a spreadsheet.

So I cannot give a "one-size-fits-all" tutorial on this.

The key to our solving the issue was to FIRST understand how APSONA handles data imports... and then to work BACKWARDS, getting OUR spreadsheets to comply with Apsona's format.

We watched all Apsona's video tutorials, and quite quickly determined how their system operates.

Then it was a case of getting our data into the same formats.

This does require a fairly good knowledge of Excel formulae, and how to create "pivot" tables to show the data's internal relationships.

Our supplier's spreadsheet listed EVERY product, replicated for each possible option value;

eg:

51400 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 2000mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51401 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1800mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51402 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1600mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51403 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1400mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51404 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 2000mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51405 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1800mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51406 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1600mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51407 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1400mmX1000mmX900mm - - Bevelled Edge
51408 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 2000mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51409 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1800mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51410 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1600mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51411 - - Diningroom Table - - Beech - - 1400mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51412 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 2000mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51413 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1800mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51414 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1600mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge
51415 - - Diningroom Table - - Oak - - 1400mmX1000mmX900mm - - Round Edge


(and it went on for a total of about 100,000 lines, across 20 datasheets)

So, using PIVOTS, we could establish just how many attributes needed to be set up (Pivoting will achieve this).

Then, we created a set of DUPLICATE sheets. One set was used to build the product info. The other was used to build the attribute info.

Ironically, while there is no mechanism in ZC to list attributes by product CODE, the fact that the supplier had given each product variation a code actually helped us - as it ensured that after we SPLIT the work (attribute sheets / product sheets), we still had a unique identifier in both sheets.

Later, we will have to lose the suppliers codes - but they were very helpful to start with.