This is one of three ways to add products to your account, see Add your products to Programa for the full overview, including managing products once they're added.
Getting there
Go to Products in the left-hand nav, then click Add product. A dropdown opens with three options: Add manually, Add from URL, and, under Bulk import products, Import from CSV.
Select Import from CSV
Upload a .xlsx, .xls, or .csv file (up to 50MB). You'll see tips for best results before uploading:
Avoid merged cells, so each value sits in its own cell.
Use clear, descriptive column headers (e.g. Product Name, Brand, Price).
One product per row.
Click Import.
Once submitted, you'll see: "Your products are being imported... We're importing your products and setting them up in your catalogue. This may take up to a few hours, we'll email you when everything is ready to review."
Programa uses AI to match the columns in your file to its product fields, so there's no fixed template to follow. How well it matches depends on how clearly your columns are labelled, so use descriptive headers and check the results after import.
A few things to know about what does and doesn't come across:
Brand must already exist on your account. Rows with a brand that isn't already added to your company will not import at all, not just import without a brand, and you'll receive an email specifying which brand needs to be added. Make sure every brand referenced in your spreadsheet is added first (see Adding products manually for how).
Fields that map reliably: product name, brand, description, SKU, lead time, product URL, price, and specifications (height, depth, width, colour, finish, material) when included.
Category and pricing unit ("Per") are not currently imported, even when included in your file, they're not part of what the import brings across today. Set both manually per product after import.
Images can come across in two ways: pasted into an Excel file, or through an Image URL column (which also works with CSV). See Including images below.
If your file doesn't meet the upload requirements, you'll see an inline error rather than a failed import, for example, files over 50MB show "File exceeds size limit. The maximum allowed size is 50 MB," and unsupported formats show "Unsupported file type. Please upload an .xlsx, .xls, or .csv file."
Including images
There are two ways to bring images in with your import.
Paste images into an Excel file (.xlsx or .xls)
Add your products, including their images, to an Excel file. If your products live in another system, export them from there.
Keep each image on the same row as its product.
Use .png or .jpg images.
Keep all images the same size.
Keep the total file size, images included, under 50MB.
Use an Image URL column (Excel or CSV)
Add a column called Image URL and put the web address of each product's image in it, for example the link to the image on your website. Programa copies the image in when it imports. This is the easiest option if your products are already listed online, and it's the only way to include images with a CSV file.
As with Add from URL, review imported products afterwards rather than treating the import as final, particularly to add category and pricing unit, and to check your images came across correctly.