Import Feature
A prerequisite for importing products into Acenda is the creation of the corresponding marketplace posting templates for those items. See the ‘Building a Posting Template’ article before creating a product import using the following steps:
On the sidebar, under Data Management, click Import/Export.
Click the Export tab.
Click + New Export and select Catalog for Model and click Export. This will export the current product catalog along with the attributes mapped in your posting templates. It is recommended to have at least one product created in Acenda before exporting the catalog.
Download the exported catalog by clicking the cloud symbol to its right and open the file. Delete any existing products below the first row of headers.
Delete the first 5 columns ‘id’, ‘created_at’, ‘created_by’, ‘updated_at’, and ‘updated_by’.
In the ‘group’ column, enter product if the product is a parent and variant if the product is a variant.
In the ‘group_skus.0’ column enter the parent SKU if the product is a variant to be grouped with that parent product.
Format the UPC column as numbers by clicking the column letter, right clicking the highlighted column, selecting ‘Format Cells’ and selecting ‘number’ as the format, and reducing the decimal places to 0.
In the images… columns enter the image URLs. Main and swatch image are the first 2 images and it is possible to add as many image columns as desired in the format images.default.x.alternate.url where x is the image number. However, note that most marketplaces only allow up to 15-20 images.
For product measurement columns (e.g. fields.depth.value and fields.depth.unit) only the .value columns is required. The .unit column, if used, must be lower case and in the correct format (e.g. in for inches). To view the allowed formats for units go to Items, click 'View' next to any item, click the 'Details' tab, and find the desired measurement units field and click the pencil (edit) icon to its right and then click the dropdown menu in the units box to view the possible unit values.
For the options.0 and options.1 columns always use the values color and size, respectively, for parent products only.
Once finished inputting data, save the file as a CSV UTF-8 which is the only file type supported by the import.
Now go to Import/Exports, click the Import tab, and click + New Import. Select ‘Catalog’ from the Import Type dropdown and then select the file you just saved as a CSV UTF-8 by dropping it or browsing.
You will now see a list of all your file’s attributes (source headers) next to data mapping fields. In the ‘Select Field’ box choose the Acenda mapping to use for that attribute. You can only use a mapping once per upload. The system will automatically find the closest match if your header is already an Acenda mapping. Check the box to the attribute’s left to enable it.
To save the upload file format for future use, check the box next to ‘Save custom import profile for future use’ and give the profile a name in the box which appears once checked. For instance, if your upload is for the Target Boots category, name it accordingly and you can then select that saved profile from the ‘Import Profile’ dropdown where it says ‘- - Custom Import Profile - -’ to automatically map future Target Boots uploads with the same column headers your initial upload used.
If the upload contains only new SKUs leave the next two boxes unchecked. If adding new SKUs as well as updating existing SKUs check the ‘Overwrite any records that have the same ID’ box, and if only updating existing products check the ‘Only update existing records’ box.
Click Start Import.
Now that the products are imported, you must map them to a marketplace and posting template with a Channel Item Mapping import.
First go to the Exports tab and click + New Export, and select Channel Item Mapping from the dropdown. Then click Export.
Download and open the file as before.
Delete the first 5 columns like before.
Delete the product_id column.
Enter the recently imported product SKUs in the product_sku column.
To get the subscription id, go to the Integrations tab on the sidebar under Organization. The subscription id is the ID number to the left of the sales channel in the Sales Channel section. Enter that number in the subscription_id column.
To get the posting template id, go to the Integrations tab on the sidebar under Organization. Click Edit by the subscription/marketplace and click the Posting Templates tab. The posting template id is the ID number to the left of the posting template in this section. Enter that number in the posting_template_id column.
The listing_action column allows three options: FULL, which sends full listing content to the marketplace; ZERO, which sends full content with 0 inventory (regardless of actual inventory) to the marketplace; and UNLIST, which unlists (retires) the SKU.
It is possible to add multiple mappings per SKU by creating additional rows with that SKU and entering the additional subscription and posting template ids in those rows.
Once finished creating the file, save as CSV UTF-8 and click + New Import on the Imports tab.
Select ‘Channel Item Mapping’ from the Item Type dropdown and then select the file by dropping it or browsing.
You will now see a list of all your file’s attributes (source headers) next to data mapping fields. In the ‘Select Field’ box choose the Acenda mapping to use for that attribute. You can only use a mapping once per upload. The system will automatically find the closest match if your header is already an Acenda mapping. Check the box to the attribute’s left to enable it.
To save the upload file format for future use, check the box next to ‘Save custom import profile for future use’ and give the profile a name in the box which appears once checked. For a channel item mapping, you only need to do this once as all uploads will have the same 6 fields. You can then select that saved profile from the ‘Import Profile’ dropdown where it says ‘- - Custom Import Profile - -’ to automatically map future channel item mapping uploads with the same column headers your initial upload used.
If the upload contains only new SKUs leave the next two boxes unchecked. If adding new SKUs as well as updating existing SKUs check the ‘Overwrite any records that have the same ID’ box, and if only updating existing products check the ‘Only update existing records’ box.
Click Start Import.