Need clarification on export/import

[KennyE]

Hi. Our new store isn't quite ready to go live, just yet. And we are still getting used to the features in 3D. Here's one that's got us a bit stumped. The export/import feature. The idea behind how it works is easy enough to understand: export products/fix whatever/import new csv. But that in itself brings up more questions.

Here's our current situation. I need to correct some special text in one Manufacturers products. Easy enough using Find/Replace. But what we don't know is what will happen to any edits made from within the admin from the time I export the csv, fix the fields and import.

Say I fix Garmin in the csv. In the meantime our two other remote locations are working on Paraclete and Blackhawk thru the Admin panel. What happens to their work when I import the csv where I corrected the Garmin products? Does it overwrite all their work? Or can I just import Garmin? Hope this describes our quandry.

Thanks, Ken.

[ScribeTime]

Not sure I understand correctly - but in that case I would just import the one product or group of products that you've updated and not deal with the remaining items.

[KennyE]

Are you saying I can remove the products I haven't edited from the csv and only import the manufacturer or products that I have edited? As in - I edit 100 items from Garmin. I can remove everything else from the csv and only import that 100 items?

[ScribeTime]

Originally Posted by KennyE

Are you saying I can remove the products I haven't edited from the csv and only import the manufacturer or products that I have edited? As in - I edit 100 items from Garmin. I can remove everything else from the csv and only import that 100 items?

Yes (I'm assuming Garmin is the name of a manufacturer). What I do is open up the csv file that I've just exported from 3dcart, do a sort of the manufacturer field and then copy and paste the products that I want to change along with the spreadsheet column headers (id, name, manufacturer, etc...) into a new file. I then make the necessary changes and DELETE the category id column. I don't think this can be included in an import file. Save the file as something like Garmin_todaysdate.csv and then import that file under Product Import.

Most times I only include the columns that I've changed. So for instance let's say I'm making some changes to items belonging to a certain manufacturer and I'm not ready for them to show up on the site yet. I may only import a file containing the product id and a column labeled "hide" with the number "1" to hide that product. All other product information that you're not changing and haven't included in the spreadsheet file should remain the same for the products you're working on.

[KennyE]

Well, that just made this one extremely easy to use feature! Thanks for the more indepth info. The idea of having to import the whole csv back to the site really had me perplexed. But seeing that now we only need to import those fields which have been edited makes the process a lot clearer. Thanks ST!

Ken

[ScribeTime]

No problem.