ZenCart Easy Populate mod (Bulk lister import/export, Froogle file generation)

[regic]

In admin:

configuration: Configuration > Easy Populate
to use: Tools > Easy Populate

ZenCart forum support threads:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34970 (new)
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22180 (old)

Documentation for v1.2.5.4:

OVERVIEW
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Easy Populate allows you to add/update products from a tab delimited text file, which can be edited in M$ Excel, or better still (because you will overload Excel..) OpenOffice. Up to and including v2.75 it has been extremely dodgey to use. I think this version is fairly bug free, but use it at your own risk! BACKUP before using it!!! You have been warned!!!


USAGE
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** General **

Easy Populate will now warn you if you have any partially deleted products (data fragments) and provides you with the option to delete these. This will fix some unwanted behaviour that occurs from messed data. It only deletes product information related to products that do not exist in table "products". This situation results from previous buggy Easy Populate versions, as well as other upload tools, and possibly any product add/delete actions that do not go as they should.

Debug logging is now automatic for certain errors. You will be alerted of these unforeseen errors, and can use the debug file to assist in overcoming these.

** Downloading **

Once you have installed & configured Easy Populate, go to Tools -> "Easy Populate" in Zen Cart admin

There are 5 file types to choose to either download, or dump into your /temp/ folder on your website. All of the files will download data for all of your store's products. Depending on what you wish to update, choose the most appropriate file.

Download file types:
1) Complete - All product information, including Specials. Attributes are currently only available as separate download while I renovate the HTML area of Easy Populate. HINT: USE THIS FILE FOR YOUR TEMPLATE FOR ADDING NEW PRODUCTS - Download it and remove all but one product for your reference when adding new products

2) Model/Price/Qty - For updating pricing and/or Qty only, including Specials!

3) Model/Category - For updating/adding product categories

4) Froogle - for Froogle feeds

5) Model/Attributes - Just the attributes & options


** Uploading **

Either transfer your file to your /temp/ directory (best for large files), type in the name of the file and choose "Import from Temp Dir (temp/)"

or

Browse to your file on your harddrive and choose "Upload EP File"

Things you should know about uploads:
# Each time you update a product (any product in an upload) the last_updated field is set to now.
# When deleting products using v_status = 9, All products with the exact model number of the flagged product are deleted (no duplicate product model names in EP!)
# Changing the category of a product will create a linked product in the new category (same product, just a navigation link)
# NOTE: THE PRODUCT MODEL IS THE INDEX! All product updates are done using the products model as the index.
# Any fields left blank (NULL) will not always retain the current data in your store. Best to delete unneeded columns, and use original store data as updates template
# The categories are the category levels, and not multiple categories: Category1 -> Category2 (sub-cat) -> Category3 (sub-sub-cat) etc..
# Specials - To delete a special, make the price zero (0) in your upload file. To add, simply put a price in. All blank specials price fields are ignored by Easy Populate.

TIMEOUTS: You may experience timeouts when adding/updating large numbers of products. If you have a large file that times out, you can use the "Split EP File" option. This will create multiple files containing a maximum of 300 records (default - you can change this in Admin). Thus, 1000 products will produce 4 files. These files are created in your /temp/ folder, from where you can upload each in turn after they have been split. If 300 is too many or too few for your circumstances, adjust it in Admin -> Configuration -> "Easy Populate".


CONFIGURATION
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See Admin -> Configuration -> "Easy Populate".


SAMPLE OUTPUT FILES
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I have dumped all of the output files from the standard zencart install into the /temp/ folder


KNOWN ISSUES
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# Large numbers of Options & Attributes can cause column number to exceed display maximums in file editors (Excel etc.)
# CHMOD permissions on your temp folder of 700 may not work, depending on the config of your server. Make the permissions 777 if this is the case, and ensure that you have the index.html file in the directory if you wish to prevent browsing of your upload files.

** The temp folder has example downloaded files in it. You may wish to delete these before uploading.
** It is recommended that you download a file 1st and use this as a template for your uploads