Just completed Product feed automation for
* Pixmania (www.pixmania.com) pro cvs file import automation
* ATS Distribution (www.atsdistribution.co.uk) pricelist/product feed
Compatible with zen cart, cre loaded, oscommerce and other shopping carts
Edit Easy Populate to Add New/Extra Fields
July 2, 2009
Before you go about editing easy populate to add extra fields, an important decision has to be made. In which table are these extra fields going to be located? In Product table or in a separate table?
Adding new/extra fields to the products table is simpler compare to adding new/extra fields to a separate table.
Adding easy populate new/extra fields to the products table
0. Backup your database and your file.
1. Create new/extra fields in the products table. This can be done directly through phpMyAdmin if you have direct access to your database or through scripting in case you don’t.
2. Edit easy populate import.
3. Edit easy populate export
4. Test to confirm changes
Adding easy populate new/extra fields to a separate table
Easy Populate (EP) Wizard Feedback
September 24, 2008
For tutorial on how to use Easy Populate Wizard, read Easy Populate Wizard Tutorial
Please post your EP (Easy Populate) Wizard, feature requests, commet, and feedback here. Also you can request a free copy of Easy Populate Wizard for 15 days trial at no charge.
Easy Populate (EP) Wizard
September 21, 2008
STEP – 1 SELECT EP type corresponding to the one you use for your store.
EPA – Easy Populate Advanced comes with cre loaded. Product identification based on product id.
EPB – Easy Populate Basic – http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,500. Product identification based on product model. A variant of this comes with cre loaded as well.
Easy Populate Wizard Step 1
STEP – 2 Here you provide information about source file
1. Field Delimiter
possible selections in this drop down are asterisks(*), caret(^), comma(,), dash(-), pipe(|), semi colon(;), space(\s), tab(\t), tilde(~). Default is tab(\t)
2. Source File Name
Use the “select” button to bring out file dialog window
3. First Row Contains Column Headings
Check this checkbox if the first row of the data/source file contains column headings
4. Reference Column
Use this to select the column you will like to fix and use as reference for navigational purposes.
easy populate wizard step 2a
Easy Populate Wizard Step 2b
easy populate wizard step 2a
Easy Populate Wizard Step 2b
STEP 3 Here you provide information about destination file that is the you want to save your processed data as.
1. Field Delimeter drop down for selecting the type of delimiter to use. The default and recommended delimiter is the tab (\t). Possible values as asterisks(*), caret(^), comma(,), dash(-), pipe(|), semi colon(;), space(\s), tab(\t), tilde(~).
2. EPA or EPB File Name to use.
Easy Populate Wizard Step 3a
Easy Populate Wizard Step 3b
STEP 4 This is the final step. Here you are provided with EPA or EPB dedpending on your selection in step 1.
1. Source File Fields provides source file fields in drop downs. Your objective is to select fields in the drop down that you want to match to the corresponding EPA or EPB fields.
2. You have the ability yo override these values using the Override Default Value input boxes.
3. When you do not need a field, select exclude this field.
Easy Populate Wizard Step 4a
Easy Populate Wizard Step 4b
Custom Quantity Pricing (custom quantity price breaks per product) with Customer Groups
September 13, 2008
For an average e-commerce site, managing product quantity prices for different customer groups can be a daunting task. If you look at it closely, for 10 different prices and three different customer groups, that translate to 30 different values to update. Now multiply that by 200 
different products, that is 6000 different values to update. Even with the aid of easy populate, it does not in any way reduce the volume of work that needs to be done.
In the spirit of continuous improvement, there is a solution that eliminates this problem. What the solution does is provide the capability to set the base price and end price for each product. By using a linear relationship, 
the individual prices for each price points can be calculated on the fly there by eliminating manual intervention.
Another advantage of this method is the ability to use it with easy populate effectively. There is no need to replicate rows to accommodate the different customer groups.
Method and System for Loading Large Amount of Product Attributes without using Easy Populate
May 22, 2008
Problem:
If you have used the existing system of loading product attributes based on easy populate(EP), easy populate basic (EPB) or easy populate advanced (EPA), you will quickly notice that the system is clumsy and very confusing. Partly because of the header names and the associated numbering. I posted a response here to clarify the confusion. Even with that write-up and my several years of experience, I still get confused! To add another dimension to the problem, if you have large amount of attributes, you will realized that you reach the 256 column limit pretty quickly considering that you use about three columns for each attribute option values and 2 columns for attribute names.
Solution:
Faced with a challenge to loaded over 5000 attribute option values, I have developed a new method that is user friendly, intuitive and fast. The method is very scalable to accommodate any amount of product attributes. It is particular suited for sites with large amount of attribute option values since there is no column or row limitation. You don’t have to worry about splitting files to separate small files because of timeout error. The method has been tested on a site with over over 40 attribute option and over 5000 attribute option values.
Here is live website on which this method has been applied: 
Contact me at if you are interested in using this method on your site.
Easy Populate Advanced (EPA) – Blank Page
January 15, 2008
I recently came across this problem; may be it’s not really a problem but it is something worth noting. While importing an EPA file, EPA import will just hang up and display a blank screen. I noticed that the EPA file is actually imported but only up to some point, the first 78 rows to be specific. This implies the code broke on row 79. I didn’t understand the problem immediately because I compared row 78 with row 79; both look similar to me. After a while I decided to remove row 79 and re-import again. To my surprise everything worked fine! Later, after extensive research on the culprit row 79, I finally realized that the problem was due to:
v_products_model
The specified length is 25 characters, but in my offending row, the length was 26. So for this particular row to be imported, I had to alter the number of characters in my products model number to be 25 or less.
If you really need more than 25 characters for product model; go to epconfigure.php (located in admin folder), change:
$modelsize = 25;
to a number of your choice then go to your products table and change
products_model
to the same number.
Recent Comments