Downloading Appended SKUs?

[joshc]

We use appended SKUs for color options. I want to download a list of all the SKU's currently on our store but I can not find an option to download all the options in the pull down menus. When I download the database it just gives me the top level item and not the options. Is there anyway I can download all the SKUs?

The point of this is for live inventory tracking.

Thanks,
Josh

[Jim]

Are you talking about downloading the information in orders or downloading the products database fields?

To download the options from the products database you can download a single (or a selected number) from the products screen by selecting the products from the list and clicking the download button. To download all products go to Utilities > Database > Download >Products. In either case you can select to download "All Fields", "Selected Fields Only" or "Use field map" (which is a predefined format you create). If all you want is a few fields then it it best to use the Selected Fields Only option and choose the fields you want. For example I selected Name, SKU and Product options and when I downloaded a single product here is the output.

Code: Select all

#Name   SKU   Product Options
Apple   apple1sku   !0:menu1   ##
!0:menu1   menu2   menu3   menu4   use   apptext   sku   pricemod   weightmod   qtyonhand   lowstock   outofstock   image
red            checked      a123      0.0   1   0   0   none   ##
yellow            checked      b234      0.0   10   5   0   none   ##
green            checked      c456      0.0   0   0   0   none   ##
!!

The columns don't line up well in the forum or a text file so it is best to look at this in a spreadsheet. But here is basically what the above data means.
This row is the name of the database fields #Name SKU Product Options
This row is the first products information Apple apple1sku !0:menu1 ##
The "!0:menu1" indicates that this product has advanced options and indicates that the data for the option follows. The format is always and ! followed by a number and then menu1, so if you had 5 products with menu options it would be !4:menu1 (since counting started at 0 not 1). The ## indicates that is the end of data in the row.
The line "!0:menu1 menu2 menu3 menu4 use apptext sku pricemod weightmod qtyonhand lowstock outofstock image" is the header row for the advanced options. If there is data for all those fields then it will be in the columns under the appropriate data name.
The rows starting red, yellow, green are the data for the 3 advanced options my product had. They would line up under the menu1 column. menu2,menu3, menu4 are empty since there is only one set of option values. Use is either checked or blank depending on what you have set for the option. apptext is for any additional text you might have for an option, then comes the sku, pric, weight, quantity etc fields.
The line starting with !! indicates that is the end of the options for the product. If there are more products in the download file they would follow the same format except the initial header row is not included for each additional product. If a product has no advanced options then there will not be anything in the "Product Options" field and there won't be a row for options since there are none. If there are options for a product the header row for the options will be included for that product's options.

This format does not combine the main product and the option sku's, it will just display the product sku in the product data sku column and the option sku's in the options list sku column. I don't believe there is a way to get a listing other than the above format.

[joshc]

Jim,

Thank you for the quick reply, just so we are on the same page the photo at the bottom shows my issue. When I download the database I only get the top level SKU (3V014-AC000-) with 0 quantity. What I looking for is 3V014-AC000-RY (qty 1) and 3V014-AC000-HZ (qty 2) as per the advanced options for the pull down menu. If I could just get the SKU's and not the qty that would be fine too.

http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/jdiggi/Untitled-3.jpg

[Jim]

What version of ShopSite are you using? I thought that even from the introduction of the Advanced options, in ShopSite 10sp2 that the download had the format I explained earlier. But maybe that wasn't the case with the 10sp2 version. The image of the spreadsheet certainly does not match the current download format. (Did you make sure that you selected a download version greater than 10sp2 from the Download format pulldowns on the Utilites > Database > Download > Product Download screen. If you selected an older version the advanced options will not be downloaded since they didn't exist in older versions.

There is no setting or way that I know of that you can get combined sku for the product and the option in a single field in the download. You might try the xml download format since the data will be in a different format in that file. Because it uses xml tags to format individual field elements it might be possible to write an app/macro that would extract just theinformation you want, but there isn't anything provided by ShopSite that would do it.

[joshc]

Jim,

We are running SS 11 sp2. I didn't ever realize that the version number in downloads was the ss version.

If I download all fields I can see the options, but I can seem to find them when trying to select fields. I still don't know if this will work for what I am looking for.

I am working with godatafeed.com, they say it can fully integrate with shopsite. This is what they say about my problem.


- See Video Help from Shopsite
- Login to your ShopSite Control Panel and create an Advanced Option field for any/each of the following variants: size, color, material or pattern [confirm this is worded correctly]
- In your ShopSite Control Panel, [Please choose ONE of correct phrases below for step 2 and confirm it is worded correctly]:
- Populate your ‘gender’ and ‘age group’ fields [OR]
- Create 2 ‘Custom Fields’ ‘gender’ and ‘age group’. Acceptable values are for ‘gender’ are male, female or unisex, and acceptable values for ‘age group’ are adult or kids.
- Login to your GoDataFeed Account Center, re-import your data, then go into your Google Feed within the GoDataFeed control panel, and map the GDF_Variation field to ‘gdfvariations’ in Step 1.


Thanks again,
Josh

[Jim]

That doesn't sound like inventory tracking it sounds like submitting a feed of data to Google.

The steps they outline would be setting up products for creating a Google product feed. If that is what you want to do the generation of the feed is done by going to Merchandising > Google Services > Google Shopping. You can configure your Google account access info on the Configure screen. If you aren't going to actually be submitting it to google just put in bogus info in the FTP option fields. Once it is configured you can use the Send Feeds screen to create the actual feed. You will get a message saying that the feed failed but if you click on the "Feed Last Submitted:" date you will be taken to a screen where you can "Click here to view the original datafeed" which will allow you to save the data so you could send it to GoDataFeed account.

I'm not sure if the is exactly what you are looking for but if they are looking for data in a Google feed format that would be one way to get it.

[anthonyd]

Hey JoshC,
We are having the same problem with GDF today. We pull in our product xml file via the backoffice API url on GDF, but they aren't parsing is correctly even though they say they support Shopsite. It appears it chokes on the advanced options. Were you able to resolve this without creating a custom feed for GDF?
Thanks