Google MC XML Export tweaks needed #8450

1 - Great Thanks

2 -

Which shipping rule do you get on items that are out of stock?

We seem to get the same shipping rule showing up that was showing when there was a problem in this plugin

Are items that are out of stock allowed on Google Merchant?

They are allowed, but have to state they are out of stock. We already have a rule in place to show out of stock - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29102555/csvi/Screen%20Shot%202016-08-11%20at%2009.46.05.png

3 -

or you can't have free products on Google Merchant?

I don't think you can advertise free products in Google MC

4 - Sorry a bit of incorrect information here.
Image links are OK. The problem is with the exported product_url link.
See the full export here, where all products have the extra "helper" in place - https://www.lowenergysupermarket.com/Google-MC/LES-GMC.xml

The URL we have in settings doesn't have helper in it - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29102555/csvi/Screen%20Shot%202016-08-11%20at%2009.50.00.png

I edited the last post as you replied.
I will set up a new staging copy of the site and send info over to you.

Heres what I edited
4 - Sorry a bit of incorrect information here.
Image links are OK. The problem is with the exported product_url link.
See the full export here, where all products have the extra "helper" in place - www.lowenergysupermarket.com/Google-MC/LES-GMC.xml

4 - Helper in URL

Testing the issue with "helper" in the exported URL in our live site, I have found the issue.

When we manually export (as you did with the staging1 site) "helper" doesn't show up.

But we have started using CRON to export this to our server so that Google can check it daily.

I followed these instructions to set up a CSVi CRON Job , in there it suggests that we use the path "/home/domain/public_html/administrator/components/com_csvi/helper/cron.php"

I did this, swapped out domain form my own domain, added template id, secret key, etc & the CRON runs fine, but the URL has the word "helper" in it.

If I remove "helper" from the CRON path, the the CRON doesn't run.

The price issue has been solved?

Yes.
Setting to ignore products with a value greater than 0, still exported products that where 0.00?
So, I set to greater than 0.01 & this works.

I will have a look at the cron issue.

Thanks, keep me posted ;)

Not sure if you want this on a new thread or happy to keep in here.

We noticed a issue with exporting manufacturer information for children products.
Where a parent/child product is set up, the child is exporting correctly, but doesn't pull the manufacturer data from the parent. Instead just shows as ;

<g:brand>
<![CDATA[ ]]>
</g:brand>

Is it possible to modify this to pull the parent manufacturer?

Google have also informed us that the shipping exported data is cosmetically incorrect?
Not sure what this means exactly, so am awaiting more information from them.

Thanks
Andy

You still have access to the staging1 copy of the site if you need to check there.
Let me know if you need me to send credentials over again.
Thanks
Andy

Exported XML file is here - http://bit.ly/2chIzaF

Every bit of data is wrapped in CDATA ? Is this needed?

You can edit each field in your template fields and enable/disable CDATA tags.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that ;)
However, when switching them all off, CDATA, still shows for Link & Manufacturer as seen here - bit.ly/2chIzaF
I checked and cleared all cache too?

Also is it possible to pull manufacturer name from parent for children or do I need to set Manufacturer for all children when setting products up?

That patch fixes the CDATA issue, thanks.

As a workaround I have set a default Manufacturer in the export field, but would be handy if children could pull the parent manufacturer when not present.

CDATA is part of the XML standard and having them isn't an issue?

I would have assumed so too & was telling my client the same too. But removed them just to test & over 90% of the cosmetic errors reporting back from Google disappeared.

So it seems there is another Hoop to jump through to satisfy Google?

*What do you think about pulling the manufacturer for children products, when no manufacturer is already set?
*

What this means is that for every child we also need to load the parent information as VirtueMart does. That is OK for VirtueMart as it only needs to load 1 parent per page load, we will need to do it for the complete dataset you are exporting, which is possibly the complete database. This will be a performance penalty.

Isn't this what you already do for children products for other ares such as;
categories, prices (where price is the same), image (where image is the same)

The patch for pulling manufacturer from parent to children is done.

Thanks Tharuna, I hadn't seen that until today so will test it later & let you know if there are any issues.

Also I am running a couple of versions behind, now & worried to update, because of so may patch files have been used.
If I update CSVi & the VM Plugin, are the patch files that you /roland have created all in the latest versions?

Thanks again,
Andy