This section provides information that helps you plan your export.
Asset Types Not Available for Export
Merchandising does not export the following types of assets:
Price lists
Price list folders
Exporting Asset Properties
When you export an asset, you can export any of its properties that have the following data types:
string
big string
list
,set
, andmap
collections of strings and repository itemsNote: Arrays are not supported.
date
timestamp
int
long
float
double
enumerated
boolean
repository items
For more information about property data types, see the chapters that describe creating and working with different asset types earlier in this guide.
For information about the properties you can export for prices, see Exporting Price Properties.
Asset Versioning
You do not have to add assets to a project to export them, but you do have to be working in the context of a project.
If you select an asset for export that you modified in your project, the modified version is exported. Otherwise, the main version—the version last checked in—is exported.
Note: Versioning information is not included in the export. If you plan to edit and re-import the spreadsheet to Merchandising, see Versioning Considerations.
Security
You must have Read and List access for assets and properties you want to export. You do not need Write access to export assets but you do need Write access to import changes to assets and properties. For more information about user permissions, contact your administrator or see Managing User Access and Security in the Content Administration Programming Guide.
Exporting in a Multisite Environment
In a multisite environment, each catalog asset is assigned the following properties:
Sites: Defines site membership for the asset.
Parent Category
Merchandising does not export either of these properties for catalog items, but does export the Sites property for promotions.
Export Size Limitations
The maximum number of asset rows is 65,534
The maximum number of asset rows that can be exported to a single spreadsheet is 65,533. Microsoft Excel has a maximum row limit of 65,536, and the first two rows of the exported spreadsheet are reserved for information about the export. If you export more than 65,534 assets, or you choose to itemize a collection property and the total number of items for all exported assets exceeds 65,534, any assets or collection items above that limit are not included in the spreadsheet. A message appears warning you that the data has been truncated.
The maximum number of characters in a cell is 32,767
Microsoft Excel does not allow more than 32,767 characters in a single cell. You could encounter this limit for any very long property value, but it is most likely to be an issue when you export very large collection properties, for example, a list of 2,000 SKU IDs that are greater than 15 characters each. In this case, use itemized format. See Options for Exporting Collection Properties.
Exporting Different Types of Assets
You can export only one type of asset in each export procedure. For example, you cannot export both products and categories to the same spreadsheet; you must export the products in one export procedure and then export the categories in another.
Some asset types are children of other asset types. For example, Configurable SKU is a type of SKU and Item Discount is a type of Promotion. If you choose to export a parent asset, all its child assets are automatically exported.
If you export both parent and child assets, only properties that apply to both asset types are available for export. For example, the One use per order property is not available for export when you select the Promotion asset type, but it is available when you select Shipping Discount.
Options for Exporting Collection Properties
You can export supported collection properties, such as lists, sets, and maps, in either of the following formats:
Flat: all collection items are listed in one cell and separated by commas
Itemized: each collection item is listed in a separate row
For instructions, see Exporting Asset Properties.
Items in map collections contain key/value pairs that map one thing to another. To represent these items, the key and the value are separated by an equals sign, for example, Alabama=AL,Alaska=AK
.
Flat Format
In flat format, each row of the spreadsheet represents a single asset with all of its exported properties. This format allows you to export multiple properties for each asset. Individual values in a collection are separated by a comma, for example, blue,green
, red
, or a comma and a space if they are repository items, for example, cat110006
, cat11008
, cat11009
.
The following table shows how the childSKUs
collection property appears in flat format:
ID | displayNameDefault | childSKUs |
---|---|---|
xprod1068 | Wool waist tie top | xsku1448, xsku1449 |
xprod2525 | Metallic silk blend tank top | xsku2525_1, xsku2525_2 |
Note: If collection items contain only numbers, or contain a comma in a value, the items are enclosed in double quotation marks, for example, "123","124"
. This prevents Microsoft Excel from interpreting the list of numbers as a single number. If a value contains a comma, the double quotation mark indicates that the comma does not begin a new item. For example, a keyword collection could be exported as: winter accessories,"hats, scarves, and gloves",knitted gifts
. The quotation marks are removed if you re-import the spreadsheet.
Itemized Format
In itemized format, collection items are separated into individual rows, so one asset might span several rows in the spreadsheet. If you choose to itemize a collection property, you can only select that one property for export.
The following table shows the products from the previous example with the childSKUs
property in itemized format:
ID | childSKUs |
---|---|
xprod1068 | xsku1448 |
xprod1068 | xsku1449 |
xprod2525 | xsku2525_1 |
xprod2525 | xsku2525_2 |