MerchantForge Support

The following support information is for Hybrid Forge products released on MerchantForge.com. If you require further assistance with our products, please contact us directly.

ImportManager Magento Extension

Installation Notes:

• Download the zipped ImportManager plugin from your account.
• Uncompress the plugin files into your local installation of Magento. There should be three folders that will be extracted into existing Magento directories:

  \app

  plugin code and admin pages.

  \js

  plugin js files and updated Scriptaculous effects.js.

  \skin

  Contains the plugin css/images.

How to use the ImportManager:

You will need to install the ImportManager (see above). Once installed, log into your Magento admin area.

1) Prepare Your Retail Pro CSV File

Ensure that the Retail Pro CSV contains the following columns:

• Item#
  Item# in Retail Pro, which will become the SKU# for the Simple Products when imported Magento.
• Qty
  Quantity of products.
• Style#
  A manufacturer SKU or other identifier to group like items. This will become the SKU# for the Configurable Product so it is important that all products belonging together will share the same Style#.
• You can download a sample CSV headers file here.

NOTE: If any of the above headers do not exist, then the Upload page will refuse to read the CSV. If any rows in the CSV contains empty values for these columns, then the Upload will ignore these rows and will continue to process the rest of the file - error messages will be displayed about which rows are missing info or causing trouble.

Other columns that will be useful to include in the CSV are the following:

• Vend Code
  Manufacturer name
• Desc2
  Short description
• Attr
  Primary attribute, i.e. color
• Size
  Secondary attribute, i.e. size
• Price
  Price of the item; can also be labelled as "Inven P$"
• Cost
  Cost of the item

2) Upload Your Retail Pro CSV File

• Select "Upload CSV" from the "ImportManager" drop-down in the main menu
• Browse to your CSV exported from Retail Pro
• Click "Upload"

At this point you should see your "Upload Results", a list of messages detailing the results of your CSV upload. New products requiring more details will be counted as "added for confirmation". If the product has been imported before, its quantity will be updated in Magento and it will be counted as "products updated". Take note of any error messages that might be displayed as you may need to resolve some issues with your CSV. Products in your CSV with errors (likely missing required information such as an item#) will not be moved to the Product Importer.

3) Importing Products into Magento

Once you have uploaded your Retail Pro CSV you can begin the product importing process.

• Select "Product Importer" from the "ImportManager" drop-down in the main menu. Here you will see an overview of all the products that were successfully staged for importing from your Retail Pro CSV file. Products will be grouped by Configurable products, with Simple products listed underneath.

• Click "Edit"on any Configurable product heading to edit both the Configurable and Simple product information.
  • Update all the fields in the Configurable section first. Modifying the Product Name or Price in the Configurable will automatically affect the Simple product fields.
  • The Attribute Set (i.e. Default or T-Shirts, etc.) and the column Attribute type (i.e. Color, Size, etc) are the most important dropdowns to update. Attribute Set cannot be updated after it has been imported, so do not forget to select it. The selectable Attribute list is restricted by the Attribute Set; which can be refreshed by loading the page or selecting a different Attribute Set.
  • Name, Price, and Attribute values can be modified per Simple product. The following fields for the Simple product will be copied from the Configurable section: Attribute Set, Categories, Manufactuerer, Long Description, Short Description.

  NOTE: If the Configurable product in the Product Importer and a Configurable product in Magento have matching SKUs, then you will not be allowed to modify the Configurable fields. You can use the Select Configurable dropdown to use an existing Configurable product in Magento, but only use this if you are sure that all products in that grouping belongs to this Configurable.

• Click "Save" on any Configurable product heading to save the product information you changed.
• Click "Cancel" on any Configurable product heading to reset the product information to its last saved state (or initial state if not saved).
• Click "Import" to move this product from the staging area into your Magento store.
• Click "Import All" to import all products on the currently viewed page - "Import All" will not import products on every page
• (optional) To refresh the search index so that the newly imported items will be searchable, navigate to Admin Panel -> System menu -> Cache Management menu item-> Catalog section-> Search Index item, and click Rebuild.

4) Warning/Error Indicators & Messages

Warnings and errors indicate product conflicts. If there are warning or error indicators showing for a particular product, you will not be able to import this product into Magento until the conflicts are resolved. Currently there are 2 types of indicators:

• Yellow Table Rows: This indicates that this particular Simple product matches the SKU of an existing Simple product in your Magento store already. Simply click the table row to view the product and details about how to resolve this warning.
• Red Table Rows: This indicates that this particular Simple product matches the SKU of an existing Configurable product. Simply click the table row to view the product and error details. You will need to goto this existing Configurable product in Magento and change its SKU before you can import this product using the ImportManager.

5) Interface Notes / Tips:

• You can hide/show the Simple products within a Configurable product grouping by clicking on the "-" or "+" buttons respectively.
• As you scroll down the Product Importer page, the paging information and the "Import All" button will appear at the page top for you.
• If the interface becomes unresponsive, try refreshing the page. It is likely that your page session has expired and you have been logged out of the system.