Resolved VM Products must be resaved after import

Hello,

First issue I see is that you are using the category_id and this isn't working. Since ID 13 is not found it will create a category with the name 13. Fields ending with _id are not recommended to be used. In your case it is better to use the category_path field.

Any ideas where to check for a solution?

Have a look at my answer in the other thread. You can't use the * as shopper group name. You must use an existing group name, if you want to assign the product to everybody, leave the field out or empty.

You can't use the * as shopper group name

I did remove the shopper_group_name field from the import, and it did fix this issue. It defaults to "Available for all" Unfortunately, another issue came up.

After importing the parent and child products, I need to import pricing tiers. Two tiers for the parent product (0-23 units, 24-0 units). The child product stays at the original price (0-0, one tier).

In my price import CSV file, if I don't use the shopper_group_name field, the shopper group is "Default Shopper Group" for the new pricing. This will hide the pricing tiers for guest shoppers. How can I assign the "Available for all" group for a price import?

Also, I notice that subsequent price imports add new price entries, even if the price has not changed (doesn't update the price, just adds it). Is this the intended behavior? Seems that I'll end up with a huge pile of prices for every product very quickly.

OK, after more searching, I'm feeling both enlightened and confused.

I uncovered the tutorial on price updating (product_price_new). I'll give that a try.

Regarding the shopper group name, you mention I can't use the asterisk. But numerous forum posts and tutorials say that is the character to use for all shopper groups, which is what I want. But when I use that for my pricing import, the child product pricing does not display.

One concept I'm trying to achieve is to manage one single csv file for every manufacturer's products on the site. My expectation was to have one row for each product that would have fields for every aspect of that product in the store, and I would import that one file every time I had product changes or additions.

I see now that certain pricing scenarios require a separate import file/process, and product or price updates require extra fields than product additions. So my goal has shifted to trying to set up a single file to manage the products, and remove certain columns before importing either products or pricing tiers. What I'd like to avoid is removing products prior to importing that aren't being updated, and not have duplicate information introduced as a result. Would you you happen to have a tutorial on "store management" techniques when it comes to achieving some sort of efficiency of csv file management? Would XML be a better choice than CSV for these issues?

Hello,

How can I assign the "Available for all" group for a price import?

Have a look at the Import VirtueMart prices tutorial. For prices the * is used for shopper group names because VirtueMart needs it

Is this the intended behavior?

This is not the intended behavior, I will need to see the debug log to understand why CSVI can't find the existing price.

But numerous forum posts and tutorials say that is the character to use for all shopper groups

That is only for the shopper groups linked to prices, not for the shopper groups linked to products. In the next release, CSVI 6.5.0, you will be able to use the asterisk as well for products as we will just discard it on import. At least the import file will look more consistent.

Would XML be a better choice than CSV for these issues?

That is not going to help in this case. If anything, it may make things more difficult.

and remove certain columns before importing either products or pricing tiers.

You don't have to delete any columns. I would say you are better off to make another template where you skip the columns you don't need.

So you have a single CSV file for a manufacturer with all their products and another CSV file for that manufacturer with the pricing tiers. You then have one template for the product import and one template for the price import. That should be efficient enough I think.

You could have the pricing tiers in the same CSV file as the product file but then you would need to duplicate all the product information as well because each row needs all information. In this case you still have 2 templates but in the product template you would skip the pricing fields and in the price template you would skip the product fields.

Would you you happen to have a tutorial on "store management" techniques when it comes to achieving some sort of efficiency of csv file management?

There is no such tutorial but I have explained my thoughts above.

I appreciate the help. Looks like the single CSV file with skipping fields in the import template is what I'm after.

Using the asterisk for shopper_group_name works for price import, but the entire field should be skipped for product import (if you want "All shoppers". This took a lot of wrangling to get straight in my head. Reworking that would ease a lot of confusion.

Reworking that would ease a lot of confusion.

I agree and it just wasn't clear to me either until now. So in the next release it will be working around that confusion so that should be cleared.