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(Txt file format?) Import & Export products with Variations (aka Choices)?
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cdakz
#1 Posted : Friday, August 3, 2007 2:12:53 PM(UTC)
cdakz

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
I've looked through the forum on this and can't find a clear answer.



I will need to import & export products that have Variations ("Choices" in BVC2004 nomenclature). For example, assume there's a "Widget" product with a SKU of WIDGET001. It comes in sizes Small, Medium, & Large (variations).



Is there ANY way to import/export the widget AND its Variations using the Import/Export tool? (I don't see any fields in the spreadsheet that would support variations, so I'm assuming not - plus it seems like those variations would need to be in a separate spreadsheet because they're database "children" of the Widget product).



If this can't be done with the Import/Export tool, what about<b> using the one of the "Connector for QuickBooks" add-ons</B>? Do they support Variations?



Really need a definitive answer, so that I can either quit spinning my wheels and tell my client flat out "no, it's not possible", or investigate the right tool.



Many thanks in advance!
Dan Alustiza
#2 Posted : Friday, August 3, 2007 3:58:42 PM(UTC)
Dan Alustiza

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/6/2004(UTC)
Posts: 225
I hope this answers your question, but not sure it will.

With BV5, each variation of an item should have it's own unique sku, once you have set up everything, which takes a great deal of time. For instance a white small t shirt will have one sku, and that same item only in medium will have its own unique sku. In BV2004, this was not true, which was one of the reasons why an order could not be edited in BV2004. With this in mind, importing an exporting should not be a problem, as with any accounting system, each item has its own sku.
scott.mech
#3 Posted : Friday, August 3, 2007 4:23:10 PM(UTC)
scott.mech

Rank: Member

Joined: 4/4/2004(UTC)
Posts: 670
Originally Posted by: "Dan Alustiza" Go to Quoted Post


I hope this answers your question, but not sure it will.

With BV5, each variation of an item should have it's own unique sku, once you have set up everything, which takes a great deal of time. For instance a white small t shirt will have one sku, and that same item only in medium will have its own unique sku. In BV2004, this was not true, which was one of the reasons why an order could not be edited in BV2004. With this in mind, importing an exporting should not be a problem, as with any accounting system, each item has its own sku.



Dan,

While I understand many merchants have had difficulties with inventory control with BVC2004, I am going to have to strongly disagree with your statement. You can have separate skus inside BVc2004 for each choice. In fact, we have setup automated choice level inventory updating into BVC2004 from external systems. We have also created both order entry and order edit for BVC2004 that supports choices.

We have been having problems with doing similar in BVC5, with the way the data for choice combinations appears to be destroyed and the choice combinations are recreated during edit.

Scott Mech
[email protected]
Dan Alustiza
#4 Posted : Friday, August 3, 2007 4:36:47 PM(UTC)
Dan Alustiza

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/6/2004(UTC)
Posts: 225
Scott,
If what you say is true about BV2004, where is the SKU entry point for the items with choices in the interface? I just went back and looked at one of my BV2004 sites, just in case I missed something over the last three years, and I did not see an entry for a unique SKU for an item that has choices. For instance I have an item called a top hat, that has an item number of 415, with three colors being available and five sizes. No where do I see an area to enter a unique sku for each variation of that item. BV5 does have the sku entry for each vairation of a particular item. Am I missing something here?
cdakz
#5 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 7:14:44 PM(UTC)
cdakz

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
Well, I thought I'd figured it out, but there's still a missing piece.



I noticed that the ParentID field should contain the Bvin value from the parent. So I pasted the WIDGET001'S bvin into a new a new column to create a new variation, but that didn't work either.



Can somebody please document how to import variations?
cdakz
#6 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 7:14:48 PM(UTC)
cdakz

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
Problem is that when you export, only the main product is exported, not its variations (even if you've turned on Inventory Tracking to force that Variations to have their own SKUs).



As a test, I created a Widget with a SKU of WIDGET001, then created Red, White, &amp; Blue variations, and then turned on Inventory Tracking, which caused the Variations to have SKUs of WIDGET001A, WIDGET001B, &amp; WIDGET001C respectively.



However, when I did an export, the resulting text file only contrained the WIDGET001 main product - not the variations.



So what format should the text file be in order to not only import the WIDGET001A, WIDGET001B, &amp; WIDGET001C variations and associate also associate them with the WIDGET001 product?
cdakz
#7 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 7:14:52 PM(UTC)
cdakz

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Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
I think you have to turn on inventory tracking in order for the Variations/Choices to have individual "sub-SKUs" assigned.
cdakz
#8 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 7:15:41 PM(UTC)
cdakz

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
So, knowing that we need to use individual SKUs for each Variation, what's the format for importing them?



I created a Widget with a SKU of WIDGET001. Then I created color Variations of Red, White, &amp; Blue, and turned on Inventory Tracking to force them to have individual SKUs of WIDGET001A, WIDGET001B, &amp; WIDGET001C.



I've attached a PrintScreen (WidgetVariationsInventory.GIF) from the Inventory part of the admin, to show those variations with their SKUs.



So I did an export of them, to see what the text file looks like. Unfortunately, it only lists WIDGET01, not WIDGET001A, WIDGET001B, &amp; WIDGET001C. (After looking through the forums, I see that's known behavior).



I've also attached the exported text file as (Variations-AndInventoryTracking.txt).



So, how should the txt file be set up in order to import WIDGET001A, WIDGET001B, &amp; WIDGET001C?
cdakz attached the following image(s):
WidgetVariationsInventory.GIF (46kb) downloaded 124 time(s).

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scott.mech
#9 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 7:15:46 PM(UTC)
scott.mech

Rank: Member

Joined: 4/4/2004(UTC)
Posts: 670
Hello Dan,
In BVC2004, see: bvadmin/products_products_edit_inventory.aspx?
I am able to enter and edit skus for each unique product variation/choice from this screen. For some sites, we actually set this field to readonly and have a custom unique sku generator running that populates this information.

Scott Mech
[email protected]
Dan Alustiza
#10 Posted : Sunday, August 5, 2007 10:01:43 PM(UTC)
Dan Alustiza

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/6/2004(UTC)
Posts: 225
Scott,

I never had inventory tracking set as active, so I'm thinking that sku field never showed up in my BV2004 site. In BV5, the SKU field shows up even with inventory tracking not enabled, which is why I thought there was no individual skus in BV2004. It sounds like all of the data was there in BV2004 to be able to edit the items on an order, and to be able to export to a third party application.
cdakz
#11 Posted : Monday, August 6, 2007 10:08:53 PM(UTC)
cdakz

Rank: Member

Joined: 5/2/2005(UTC)
Posts: 259
Hey Scott &amp; Dan, although related, it seems like you guys are discussing something a little off-topic :)



What about my original question (I'm sure other inquiring minds will need this info too):


How do we import Product "Variations" using the Export-Import tool? Specifically, what should the format of the .txt file be?
scott.mech
#12 Posted : Wednesday, August 8, 2007 1:10:12 PM(UTC)
scott.mech

Rank: Member

Joined: 4/4/2004(UTC)
Posts: 670
WHOISJohnGalt,
Yes, Dan and I are off-topic on this. What we were discussing is important for both of us and something that is/was commonly misunderstood about BVC2004.

I have never used the tool, nor have any intention of trying to get it to work for our needs going forward. We generally just modify the technology we developed for our feed services to populate catalogs from whatever data source we have. Everything is possible as the data involved is very simple and mostly static. If you would like, send me an email with some details about where the data is currently stored and we can propose a few ideas to quickly get that into BVC5 for you.

Scott Mech
[email protected]
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