EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[2ndMouse]

Yes, you can do this...

What you would do is DUPLICATE the products spreadsheet entry, but only change the category.

Be sure to BACKUP YOUR DATABASE. And run a test with a single product. Test to see if you can have more than one link (you should be able to link as many times as you need, I just haven't tested this in recent memory).

-chadd

Thanks for getting back with this, have tried 1 item in 3 categories and it works absolutely fine. Now just have to write myself a little script to make the duplicates and insert the new cat's ... this should be excellent.

But another thing ... when I was using zen cart 1.3 and easy pop 1.2etc (last week) I always used to 'wipe the slate clean' with a mySQL patch (DELETE FROM Categories, etc from Dr Byte, I think) to clear all categories/records before uploading a 'new shop' from my database. How do I best do this now (and is it a good idea at all?). Once again, thanks for your help.

[Serious]

Hi Serious,

No, this is not built into EP4 at this time. I'll have to see if it can be added. I have a couple of requests for this now.

In the mean time you should be able to use Numinix's google merchant feeder and pull the url's from the xml data.

-chadd

Okay, I'm working on it.....
More stuff to learn.:)

[WebweaverD]

Hoping someone can help me. I'm using ZC 1.5 and EP 4.0.22 - Beta 6-10-2012. I have successfully imported the products (sort of) and categories were entered manually. I am now trying to bring across all attributes. To do this, I entered all my attributes options and values manually and then add them to some products. I then did a detailed attribute export using EP. I then learnt a lot more than I used to know about excel and managed to get all the data in the right columns for all my attributes.

Finally imported back into ZC expecting some problems but to my surprise and delight it reported back that the import was successful and 2000ish entries had been updated... trouble is it lied right to my face. Nothing has been changed, either in Zen Cart or the database.

So, I've been trawling through this thread trying to find an answer and it appears I have done several things wrong:

1) I'm using excel not open office. So I installed open office. Unfortunately it keeps crashing on my fancy 4GHz i7, ssd, 16gb ram setup?!? I have Libre Office running OK if that's any help.

2)I somehow have introduced some whitespace to some of my Model fields. I will fix this but they are exactly the same in the attributes file so I dont see how this is an issue.

3) I'm not sure but was I supposed to do a basic import first... because I didnt. If so this is going to be a pain to get all the option values into one cell... Do i have to do this, any tips on making this happen?

4) I noticed my import export csv files are not the same. my exports have double quotes around all fields and I cannot for the life of me work out how to make excel do this. Libre office has an option to enclose text fields in double quotes but I cant get it to do it around all values. I tried entering them in the actual fields but excel then decides it wants to turn that into three sets of double quotes

5)What should I be doing with the v_products_attributes_id field. I tried looking at the last entry an incrementing from there but no joy.

Now, I realise I am probably going to have to start again. but if someone could help me out with some clear pointers so that the next time is the last time I have to do this I would be forever in your debt

Your help is greatly appreciated. Please see attributes CSV here http://pastebin.com/gsN6LvWm

[chadderuski]

WebweaverD:

Looks like you jumped in with both feet before checking how cold the water was! LOL!

Yes, you MUST use the BASIC attribute import FIRST. This is how you CREATE the attachment of an attribute set to a product. If your product has multiple attribute set (color, size, etc) then you will have a line for that product for each attribute set.

If you are having problems with OpenOffice, try to update your Java. I heard other people having issue with OO.
IMPORTANT: You CAN work in Excel, but you need to use OO to export your CSV. Other forms MAY work, but I can offer no guarantees.

Yes, the error reporting side of the Attribute import code is not fully mature.

Your normal work flow to attach attributes is:

1) create your BASIC import (respect file naming conventions!): this will attach your attribute names/values to your product id.

2) after you import your BASIC attribute file, EXPORT your DETAILED attribute file. The DETAIL file is one-to-one record based. So you do not use the DETAILED report to create new attributes, just set the micro-data on how that attributes works.

3) import your DETAILED file to update those particular settings.

hope this clarifies some things.
-chadd

[WebweaverD]

Thanks for the tips and quick response Chad,

I'm gonna have another crack at this now. Is there a guide or wiki that I missed for this plugin? I found this http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate but it's referring to version 1.2.5.4 of EP and doesn't cover the advanced attributes import.

Thanks for the great plugin. All it needs now is a muppet proof guide.

[VideoStan]

Is there a guide or wiki that I missed for this plugin?

Not as extensive as you'd like, but it really is simple. In the main directive of the download, just follow the info in install.txt and readme.txt. Then come here for help.

Stan

[WebweaverD]

Me again, Still having trouble.

So, I have trimmed all the model fields and started again. Once again products are all in the system just fine. I have then tried a basic attributes import. Again it has reported success but nothing has changed. This time I used open office (I updated Java as suggested - seems OK now. Thanks Chad) Text csv as export with comma delimiter and double quotes around text fileds (is this correct?)

issue 1) v_products_options_type is different in my advanced attribute export to my basic export. In the basic they are all set to 5, In advanced they are set to 5,3 or 2 - i have tried both ways and neither works.

issue2) Not sure if I'm supposed to have entered the attribute/name values prior to the basic import.

issue3) I had one v_products_options_values_name_1 of "Form, Colour, Patterns" and thought this may be an issue due to the comma separation of values so I changed this to "Form Colour Patterns" but still no joy.

I haven't tried the advanced attributes import yet since I cannot see any changes after the basic import, further more, when I look at mysql logs after the basic import, all I can see are select queries - no updates or inserts.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here. I'm starting to think SQL may be the way to go. Here is my basic attribute import csv http://pastebin.com/rjZF1VtM. I know this is a big dataset so I tried with the first 4 rows only and once again it reports success but nothing is changing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[WebweaverD]

Please all ignore the above - My problem was not naming the files correctly, e.g. the files you import have to be called Attrib-Basic-EP_whateveryouwant.csv. This is clearly written in the readme. So we can put this one down to user error. 10 mins reading the readme or several hours guessing. I'll choose the first option in future. Thanks all for your help.

[chadderuski]

Please all ignore the above - My problem was not naming the files correctly, e.g. the files you import have to be called Attrib-Basic-EP_whateveryouwant.csv. This is clearly written in the readme. So we can put this one down to user error. 10 mins reading the readme or several hours guessing. I'll choose the first option in future. Thanks all for your help.

WebweavreD,

Yup. Gotta name the file correctly. So, what you were seeing was the core import code processing your attribute file as if it were standard import. Since NONE of the other columns other than the product id are read, it would say it processed the file basically doing nothing.

In my next patch, I'll put something ON SCREEN about this, or some kind on help. We'll see.

Also, do not put SPACES between your attribute options/names: "red,blue,green" is okay but: "red, blue, green" is not. I do not remember if I did a trim on those - I may not have going for performance.

Best to test and see.

Also, for your one's sanity, best to run your first import with a single line to verify your have everything done correctly. You DO NOT have to first create your attribute name/options.

ONE THING TO NOTE (also in the read me): Zencart will let you create to different attributes: COLOR and COLOR which will have different ID's, you CANNOT do this with EP4, each attribute name needs to be unique within it's defined set:

OFFSET_COLORS {cyan,magenta,yellow,black}
RGB_COLORS {red,green,blue}

One last thing: there is no delete function for attributes. If you need to delete a color option from a product, you have to do it from within the admin.

-chadd

[Kevin205]

Using Zen Cart 1.5.1 with "easy_populate_csv_for_zencart_v1.5.x_v1.2.5.7c"

I saved my csv files using Excel. The whole database got corrupted. I will download Open Office to try, to see if it works.

First row (titles) in "Full-EP2013Jan21-1111.csv" as follow:

v_products_model,v_products_image,v_products_name_1,v_products_description_1,v_products_url_1,v_specials_price,v_specials_last_modified,v_specials_expires_date,v_products_price,v_products_weight,v_last_modified,v_date_added,v_products_quantity,v_manufacturers_name,v_categories_name_1,v_categories_name_2,v_categories_name_3,v_categories_name_4,v_categories_name_5,v_categories_name_6,v_categories_name_7,v_tax_class_title,v_status,v_metatags_products_name_status,v_metatags_title_status,v_metatags_model_status,v_metatags_price_status,v_metatags_title_tagline_status,v_metatags_title_1,v_metatags_keywords_1,v_metatags_description_1

Second row (data) in "Full-EP2013Jan21-1111.csv" as follow:

P_001,"Item 1.jpg","Item 1","Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.",,,,,105,0,"2013-01-21 11:24:16","2012-12-27 13:57:00",99,"Barnes and Noble",CAT1,,,,,,,--none--,1,0,0,0,0,0,,,

When data was uploaded, it added "Barnes and Noble" as "Manufactured by", in products without any name in "Manufactured by" field.

Questions:
1- To revert back, can I just re-install the database files, or do I have to re-install the entire site?
2- Also I am not getting "Easy Populate" under "Configuration", It is under the "Tools". How can get that to show?