Review: Easy Populate - the fast way to add or edit your products
Review: Easy Populate - the fast way to add or edit your products
Added by Geoff Ford. February 02, 2004
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Overview
With a large inventory of products, using the osCommerce admin section to update products can be a chore. Any time you need to update multiple products at once, Easy Populate is designed to overcome the problems of dealing with large product catalogs and save you a heap of time and frustration. In short, Easy Populate allows you to download your product database, make changes to product information in a spreadsheet, and upload to replace the existing information.
Installation
Installation is reasonably simple. A couple of files are added to the admin directory, minor changes are made to link the contribution into your admin menu, and a writeable directory must be created.
There are a large number of configuration variables and the author recommends going through this carefully to get the most out of the contribution. For instance, there is the ability to turn on or off downloading and updating of product attributes.
I would recommend testing thoroughly prior to implementation on a live site with alot of other mods or contributions, particularly if your database structure has changed.
As always read the documentation thoroughly. Backup your files prior to installation. Test thoroughly! It would pay to backup your database prior to testing.
Documentation
Definitely a winner in comparison to most contributions. There is a manual with information on installation and use. This is provided in multiple versions (including PDF).
The documentation is very comprehensive including troubleshooting specific problems.
A section "SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
FOR LARGE STORES" covers issues related to updating large product catalogs.
Functionality
The system is simple to use. Download your product data. Open this in Excel or another spreadsheet/database. Edit away.
There are huge advantages in being able to update your data using a spreadsheet. This also allows you to link data into your offline product database and computer systems - particularly important if the web is only one of your sales channels.
Additional Functionality the manual highlights are:
Conclusion
If your cart has a large number of products and/or requires frequent updates of product information (e.g. prices or availability) you should consider Easy Populate. The excellent documentation makes installing and using Easy Populate straightforward. This is an important supplement to the base osCommerce system.
Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.
Overview
With a large inventory of products, using the osCommerce admin section to update products can be a chore. Any time you need to update multiple products at once, Easy Populate is designed to overcome the problems of dealing with large product catalogs and save you a heap of time and frustration. In short, Easy Populate allows you to download your product database, make changes to product information in a spreadsheet, and upload to replace the existing information.
Installation
Installation is reasonably simple. A couple of files are added to the admin directory, minor changes are made to link the contribution into your admin menu, and a writeable directory must be created.
There are a large number of configuration variables and the author recommends going through this carefully to get the most out of the contribution. For instance, there is the ability to turn on or off downloading and updating of product attributes.
I would recommend testing thoroughly prior to implementation on a live site with alot of other mods or contributions, particularly if your database structure has changed.
As always read the documentation thoroughly. Backup your files prior to installation. Test thoroughly! It would pay to backup your database prior to testing.
Documentation
Definitely a winner in comparison to most contributions. There is a manual with information on installation and use. This is provided in multiple versions (including PDF).
The documentation is very comprehensive including troubleshooting specific problems.
A section "SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
FOR LARGE STORES" covers issues related to updating large product catalogs.
Functionality
The system is simple to use. Download your product data. Open this in Excel or another spreadsheet/database. Edit away.
There are huge advantages in being able to update your data using a spreadsheet. This also allows you to link data into your offline product database and computer systems - particularly important if the web is only one of your sales channels.
Additional Functionality the manual highlights are:
- Supports Froogle export format
- Supports multiple languages
- Creates Categories and Manufacturers on the fly
- Unlimited levels of categories/subcategories are supported.
- Products without pictures can be defaulted to a standard "no picture available" image.
- Upload a file via browser or grab a file from the temp directory.
Conclusion
If your cart has a large number of products and/or requires frequent updates of product information (e.g. prices or availability) you should consider Easy Populate. The excellent documentation makes installing and using Easy Populate straightforward. This is an important supplement to the base osCommerce system.
Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.
Category(s): osCommerce Contributions
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