This help note will guide you on how to export product(s), edit the exported file (in .CSV or .TXT) and import product(s) in VPCart administration.

1. From admin panel, go to Store > Product and click on 'Export' tab at the top of the page

2. Fill in the form :

• File Name: enter the filename you want, you can choose .txt or .csv for the extension. For example products.txt or products.csv.
  If you need to update the products inside the file and then import back to your site later, then we would recommend you to use with .csv format which allowing you to edit in Ms Office Excel.
• Directory: enter the folder name to store the export file eg export
• Delimiter: enter the delimiter to be used as separator for each fields/columns value. You can enter ; or TAB as delimiter.
• Header Required: to make it easy, we suggest to set this to 'Yes'.
  
  

3. Click 'Continue' to go to the next step

After clicking, you will be redirected to the next page to download the exported product so you can edit the record(s) locally.

B. Updating Products
After you have the exported file eg in .CSV or .TXT, please open the file in your local machine and try to update which product(s) you want that need updating.

For .CSV file you can open with Ms Office Excel.



Usually once you open the .CSV file in Ms Office Excel , you will see irregular columns like above screenshot.

You can make them more organized columns by clicking first Column A so it will select all text in Column A like screenshot below :


Then click "Data" tab at top and then click the "Text to Colums" icon.



You will see a popup and please choose the Delimited option as like screenshot below and then click Next:



In the next popup screen, please make sure the delimiters "Tab" and "Semicolon" checkboxes is ticked as like screenshot below and then click Finish:



You will see now your products columns / fields in the Ms Office Excel is more organized and easy for you to edit as like screenshot below:



You can start editing which products you need to update in the Excel sheet and save the file once done.

The catalogid column can be removed from excel sheet if you want as VPCart will not use this field as the Match Field. Instead we will use ccode field as the Match Field.

Make sure the "Hide" column/field always have value

When editing the products in Ms Excel, please make sure the "Hide" column always have value.
For site using Ms Access db, please set with value True or False. Set True if product will be hidden. Set False if product will be displayed.
For site using SQL db and MYSQL db, please set with value 1 or 0. Set 1 if product will be hidden. Set 0 if product will be displayed.



How to assign multiple category for a product when editing the excel sheet

To import multiple category for your product, please use the "ccategory" field for the main category, while the "level3" field is used to hold your other category.

If you have multiple category in your excel sheet, after you have done the import later, you will need to remember to run the page convertproducts.asp.

Example:
Http://www.domain.com/admin/convertproducts.asp

Please change domain.com with your VPCart site and please change the /admin/ with your actual admin folder.

How to save your edited Excel Sheet file

After you have finished editing the sheet in Excel, please go to File > Save As > And then in the dropdowns of file extension, please select "Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt)" and click Save.



C. Importing Products

Now assume that your previous sheet file is updated completely with very latest products information, you are ready now to import the file into your site.

Please follow the steps carefully:

1. From admin panel, go to Store > Products and click on 'Import' tab at the top of the page.



2. In the file name, click on 'browse' then locate the .TXT or .CSV you want to import.

3. Fill in the 'Directory' with the target directory eg import.



4. Click 'Upload' to upload the file to the site.
After the file uploaded, the system will automatically show the file name.

5. Make sure the 'Table Name' field, to select 'Product.
Match field: Fill with 'ccode'
ForDelimiter: Fill with delimiter that you're using on your imported file whether it is semicolon ; or TAB. In our example it is using TAB.
Display: Select 'Yes' so you can see the progress



6. Click 'Continue' to start importing the data.

If you see error like eg

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a0009'
Subscript out of range: 'index'

Most of the time, the error is related to the incorrect Delimiter value you enter in the form before.
To fix the issue, please open the .CSV or .TXT file that you want to import before, in a notepad or text editor, and see what is the exact separator or delimiter for each columns whether it is a semicolon ; or a space TAB.



In the example below, after we open the sheet file using notepad+, we can see the actual delimiter there is using TAB ;



Once confirm the correct delimiter, please click back button in your browser to load the previous import form and enter the correct value for the Delimiter and click Continue to start import again.