Format a file for import

The easiest way to format a file for importing products, SKUs, and collections is to start by exporting a file from your catalog that contains the items you want to modify. If you are importing inventory, you must manually create the import file starting with a blank spreadsheet.

Caution: If you leave a cell blank, a property value might be deleted. See Format for deleting property values.

Required formats for importing a spreadsheet

The first row and first column of the spreadsheet are reserved for use by the import process and must contain specific information. The first row contains information about the data that is being imported and the first column (except for row 1) contains the ID property of the items being imported.

In the first row of the spreadsheet, you must specify the repository, item type, and any special formats for data types, as follows:

Beginning with the second row, the first column of the spreadsheet is reserved for the ID property of the imported items. No other property can occupy column one.

Import file size limitations

The maximum number of item rows that can be imported from a single spreadsheet is 25,000. If you import more than 25,000 items, any items above that limit are not imported and the import report includes a message that tells you the import was truncated.

Format for importing non-ASCII characters

When you import text properties (such as display names for products, SKUs, and collections) that contain non-ASCII characters, you must save the CSV file with UTF-8 encoding before you import it. Otherwise, the non-ASCII characters will appear garbled in the administrative interface.

Note: When you export text properties that contain non-ASCII characters, those characters do not automatically display in the exported CSV file. In order to display these characters in the CSV file you must save it with UTF-8 encoding

Format for adding new items

The import feature allows you to create new items when you import your spreadsheet. To create an item, add a row to the spreadsheet and enter property values for each column. If you leave a cell blank, then the value for that property is set to null. If you leave the ID column blank, the item is skipped and not created.

Creating new items is supported only for importing products, SKUs, and collections. It is not supported for importing inventory.

You assign an ID value for the new item in one of the following ways:

To create a new top-level collection, in addition to adding the new row, you must also add the new collection’s ID to the fixedChildCategories column of the rootCategory row. For example, if you add a row to the spreadsheet to add a new category whose ID is cat5000, you must also add the ID cat5000 to the fixedChildCategories column of the rootCategory. Otherwise, the new collection will not appear in the Catalog area in the administration interface.

Note: To create an item, you must provide values for required properties.

Format for deleting property values

You can delete a property value of an item when you import it. To delete a property value, leave the corresponding cell blank.

Note:

This delete format does not apply when you are adding items to collection properties. If you format a column to prepend or append items to a collection, blank cells are automatically ignored during import -- nothing is added or removed from the collection. See Format for adding items to a collection property.

Marking data to ignore

When you import a spreadsheet, the file might contain data that you do not want to include in the import, for example, columns with formulas or notes, columns containing a property that you do not want to edit, or blank cells that might cause data to be deleted. To remove these items from the import, you can mark columns (properties), rows (individual items), or cells (individual property values) to be ignored by the import process.

Use the keyword IGNORE, in all capital letters, to mark data that you want to ignore during import, as follows:

To ignore this

Do this

Ignore a column of data, such as a single property or extra column

Type the word IGNORE in the column heading (row 2).

Ignore an item (a single row)

Type the word IGNORE in the ID cell for the item (column 1).

Ignore a property for an item (a single cell)

Type IGNORE in the cell.

Format for adding items to a collection property

You can add items to a collection property by typing an ampersand (&) before or after the property name in the column heading of a collection property, as follows:

If you already use the ampersand character as part of a collection property name, you can use a different character for appending and prepending items to collections.

The prepend and append formats simplify the process of editing collections because you only need to include additional items and not every item in the collection. If you do not use this format, the import process overwrites the collection property with the exact items listed in the spreadsheet.

When you use this format, leave a cell blank to indicate that nothing should be added to the collection. If you have formatted a column to prepend or append items to a collection, blank cells in that column are ignored during import (nothing is added or removed from the collection).

The following illustration shows an example of the prepend format used to add products to collections:

This illustration is described in the preceding text.

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