Hi, Can anyone help with this one?

I'm setting up a Catalook store, and I have squillions of products, and a good few categories to set up. It is obviously staring me in the face, but I cannot see where I can import/export products and categories. Can anyone give me a hint?

Catalook is great, but there are so many lights and bells, I don't know wehre to look!!!

Thanks in advance. Phatt.

In your purchase you will find a folder with an xls and mdb file.

For first time users, I suggest people import that file and see what happens - you can see the fields and categories. That shows you the structure of what is involved in the concept of importing.

You can use use access or xls to import data.

You import through the 'store settings' page - scroll right down to the bottom and you'll see the data management section - just above the red buttons to delete.

Some things, when you test, you need to be in admin mode - not host mode.

Nina

I believe my problem runs along the same line as everyone else in this topic. im having trouble uploading a xls or mdb to get the products up onto the site. every time I hit the "start product data import" I get the message underneath it saying 
"The following error occurred: The 'Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0' provider is not registered on the local machine. "
I then tried to look around online to find it seems vista no longer supports microsoft jet, or that it does but in a really comlicated way. Is there any work around or a diffrent way to upload the xls or mdb file to fill out the store.

Thanks much in advance

Steve

Allright!!!!! XML I think is working its just that im getting this error.

Field missing or wrong data type: productCost Product Name: Pentium 4 3GHz Data Set:1(Column 'ProductCost' does not belong to table items.)
Field missing or wrong data type:RoleExpiryType Product Name: Pentium 4 3GHz Data Set:1(Column 'RoleExpiryType' does not belong to table items.)
Field missing or wrong data type:ItemDeliveryType Product Name: Pentium 4 3GHz Data Set:1(Column 'ItemDeliveryType' does not belong to table items.)
Field missing or wrong data type:ReorderPoint Product Name: Pentium 4 3GHz Data Set:1(Column 'ReorderPoint' does not belong to table items.)

Which is from the sample xml thats included in catdat, I believe that some items are just needed to be changed then, if im correct? If I could get an example of how to fix that problem or what do fill them with? Thank you so much Nina for that reply it helped alot. If I may ask what do you mean by xml handlers?

Thanks

Steve

Posted By Nina Meiers on 20 Jan 2010 02:06 AM
I suppose there will be a workaround some time but it's very frustrating that this has occured.
It's a windows issue, not a store one.
Nina

Hello Jade Wire, im having just a little bit of trouble hahahah. I tried importing the data as an xml now and its saying i have some missing fields or incorrect fields and when I tried it a diffrent way it says that catagory 2 does not belong in the table. Is there a sample of a correct way to upload.

Thanks

Steve

OK, I went back and double checked what I did. I was a bit wrong in the approach I took.

The best way - and the only way to do it without issue is to try this (assuming you have Microsoft Access)

If you HAVE NOT entered in any products yet:
In the unzipped main CATALook directory is a sub-directory called CATdat.
Open catimportitems.mdb in Microsoft Access - this has a table called "items" which you can import to website directly

If you HAVE entered products already:

IMPORTING DATA FROM WEBSITE TO ACCESS
Step 1) Export what you have to XML file
Step 2) Open a NEW and EMPTY Access Database
Step 3) Choose Import -> From XML and make sure to choose "Structure & Data"
Step 3a) If you received errors from rows during import - dont worry simply delete all records in table "Record" and delete the "importerror" table and keep going to next step - this is because DescriptionHTML column had too much text in it.
Step 4) Open the Table in the designer and change the following columns to type "MEMO" :
Keywords
Description
DescriptionHTML
Step 4a) If you received errors earlier - do the import again only this time choose "Append to Existing Table"

You should have a table called "Record" at this point and can import any further XML files in the future. One issue - it appends data so you will get duplicate records of products. You can simply delete all rows before importing again. I often change the column ProductID to type "Number" and change the index property to "Yes - No Duplicates" to prevent items from duplicating just in case I forget

EXPORTING DATA FROM ACCESS (AND IMPORTING TO SITE - XML)
Step 1) Export to XML file (Warning: you will lose HTML tags in DescriptionHTML) and open in Notepad - you can delete this column from the import on teh website to preserve any existing descriptions
Step 2)  Change first line to and the last line from to - very important!!! Catalook looks for this.
Step 3) Upload and import - I advise you back up your data or test this on a copy first.

EXPORTING DATA FROM ACCESS (AND IMPORTING TO SITE - EXCEL) BEST WAY
Step 1) Export to EXCEL file (xls) if you can import as such-- Excel was best for maintaining DescriptionHTML tags - XML removed all tags
Step 2) Open Excel file and change the TAB from "Record" to "items" - very important!!! Catalook looks for this.
Step 3) Upload and import - I advise you back up your data or test this on a copy first.

TO GET JET 4.0 WORKING ON 64BIT DNN SERVER

If you have 64bit web server you can add MSJet40.dll file to SysWOW64 folder in Windows directory, then use cmd console to browse to SysWOW64 folder and run command: "regsvr32 msjet40.dll" and then change your site to run in a Classic App Pool (with 32bit Enabled in avanced settings).

Thanks you so much JadeWire for the detailed description, but it seems like every speedbump there is im hitting hahahaha  im now getting

The following error occurred: Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.

Is it something that gets created with the xml document that I can simply delete? I looked around online and the answers for this say to look somewhere and delete an additional peice of code or file and that fixes it, thing is I can't seem to find this code they talk about. Or maybe its just something in the document itself that im not seeing. (hahaha I feel like im a blind person sometimes)

Thanks Much

Steve

are you importing the xml? is that where you get this error? if so make sure the xml file starts with : 

**EDIT: I can't post the format here. This forum software is reading my XML tags as if they really ARE xml tags and deleting them***

pretend that the { below is really a < char and that } is really >

you should have xml that looks like this:

{items}

    {Record}

...bunch of stuff in middle...

   {/Record}

{/items}

it NEEDS to start and end with the item tags delete everything else before and after

Who knew I would be stuck this long on trying to import some items. The last tip you gave me Jadewire worked for a little bit when i tested it out on a dummy site but when I triedto put it on the store I get a diffrent error and im not sure where this one is comeing from since I dont see where in the code it says something about it.

Column 'Category2ImportID' does not belong to table Record

 Maybe something isnt right with the page or the store settings? Id be willing to show the webpage and some of the stuff im typing if that would help any?

Steve

Hi Nina
presently i am using catalook.net store for my shopping cart i am facing a problem if i edit skin the changes are not updating can u tell me why its happening