Any chance of releasing source code for Feed builders?

[draneb]

Is there any chance of releasing the source code for Google Base, Shopping.com and Yahoo Product Submit feed builders?

I was comparing my shopping.com feed file between AC 5.5 and AC 7.0 and they are very different.

For the MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) in 5.5 it put the product sku, which is correct. In 7.0 it is putting 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, like some sort of ID. The product description is blank in the new feed builder because I am assuming it is pulling from the product summary. (This is also the case in the GoogleBase feed builder) These are things we could tweak, like before, if we had the source code. Not to mention we lost the ability to append an affiliate ID at the end of the URL so that we can track ROI. Right now we are just stuck.

Another advantage to having the source code is that some comparison shopping site feeds are very similar. We could move lines of code here and there and create a new feed builder altogether.

[jmestep]

There is a post on the Wiki that I used to create a custom GoogleBase class, but a multi-feed able-to-customize would be nice.

[draneb]

That is a great start but there are fields that GoogleBase doesn't require that others do, such as:

Category (product category tree) and
Weight of product

These are the two that I am facing right now trying to create the shopping.com feed.

I can envision a custom feed builder script. Perhaps it could be made something like this:

It starts with a text box where you would type in the header title for that field.
Next to that would be a pull down menu with all of the available export fields available. (link, name, descr, price, etc.)
Next to that would be a button that reads [+more rows] or buttons that read [+more rows] and [-less rows] (like the custom fields in AC 5.5)
I guess lastly you would have a place to type in the file name.

[Nick]

I also would like to see this. A tool that enabled you to select the correct information so we could avoid errors would be very helpful.

[jmestep]

Yes, it's a bummer having fields that can't be changed. Feed specs change and merchants also might want to do something different, like not use the Summary field for the description and add an AFID onto the end of the URL.

[crockettdunn]

Not just a bummer, this is a deal breaker for me. All of the feed generators fail for my cart of 40K+ parts. I invested hours of my time and basically blew the budget of my project (losing money now), by learning all of the specs for the various feeds, familiarizing myself with the DB tables, deducing how the product URLs are formed, and writing a script go generate the feeds.

One of the primary selling points of AC7 for me was when I saw the admin side: marketing, and the feed generators, so I hope you can understand my frustration when all feed gens failed, and the source was compiled.

In addition to the feeds, the siteMap generator, while it appears to adhere to web standards, does NOT adhere to Google's super-special standards . Working around that, too.

To the community: PM me or contact me directly @ : acFeeds@cdllc.la if you would like to discuss the concepts & methods behind the feed-generation script. I'm hesitant to post here because... welll, frankly, I don't want the liability or responsibility....

Other than that, AC is a solid product, which makes this all the more frustrating. I hope we can count on continual patches and upgrades as we have in the past.

Kind regards,
Crockett Dunn
Owner, CDLLC
866.888.7134
http://cdllc.la

[jmestep]

There is an example on the wiki.ablecommerce.com for generating other feeds. I've made three feeds that way and can pick what I want to display. Once you do the first one, it's not too bad.
Draneb's been working on adapting a couple I did for him, so maybe he'll post some pointers here.
I just can't release my code, sorry.

[mazhar]

Here is the WIKI topic for custom feed provider
http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/ ... d_Provider

[crockettdunn]

---------------->SOLVED!!! <-------------------------------
########### UPDATE 2009.02.06 #################

We have built a fully-automated Google Base Feed Generator that runs outside of A.C. The software smart enough to build and upload as many 100,000 item files you need, and schedule itself to re-run prior to the data expiration.

PM me if you are interested, of contact me via http://cdllc.la/

Cheers!

Crockett Dunn
Owner, CDLLC
http://www.crockettdunn.com/
###################################################
Thank you, jmstep & mazhar.

Here is the issue. I have a feed generated, but Google is "choking" on it. I've deleted it and re-uploaded it, and I'm having no luck. The error message doesn't help me either.

Here is what I am experiencing:

Uploads:

Schedule: none ceate

Last upload date & status:

Nov 18, 2008 11:13 am CST details
Processing


Item Status:

Processed: 0
Inserted: 0


##############
and onto the details:
##############


Feed status details

Outcome: Data feed has not yet processed
Number of items processed: 0
Number of inserted items: 0
Uploaded at: Nov 18, 2008 11:13 am CST
Processed at:

* Detected file format: XML


Errors:
Error Bad data
We didn't understand some of the XML formatting in your file. You may be missing a tag or have a nesting or formatting error.

Line # 5236


##############
amd into my xml file, around line 5236:
##############
</item>
<item>
<title>
AC0243639
</title>
<description>
REPLACES ALLIS CHALMERS/TUSK AC0243639: VALVE (243639)
</description>
<g:id>
518145
</g:id>
<g:image_link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/Assets/im ... re_HGM.jpg
</g:image_link>
<link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/AC0243639P-518145.aspx
</link>
<g:price>
114.17
</g:price>
</item>
<item>
<title>
AC0243791
</title>
<description>
[********LINE 5236] REPLACES ALLIS CHALMERS/TUSK AC0243791: HOLDER & BRUSH (243791)
</description>
<g:id>
518146
</g:id>
<g:image_link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/Assets/im ... re_HGM.jpg
</g:image_link>
<link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/AC0243791P-518146.aspx
</link>
<g:price>
10.92
</g:price>
</item>
<item>
<title>
AC0243846
</title>
<description>
REPLACES ALLIS CHALMERS/TUSK AC0243846: BUSHING (243846)
</description>
<g:id>
518147
</g:id>
<g:image_link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/Assets/im ... re_HGM.jpg
</g:image_link>
<link>
http://store.hgmliftparts.com/AC0243846P-518147.aspx
</link>
<g:price>
2.19
</g:price>
</item>


##############
if you are *really* curious:
##############
Entire feed resides here: http://store.hgmliftparts.com/GoogleBase.xml


######
just found this, which explains the zero processed, but does not explain the error:
#####
Hello,

We've been experiencing delays in the processing of your data
feeds. As a result, items remain in the 'Published...searchable soon'
status for longer than normal and are taking longer to appear in
Google Base
and Google Product Search results.

While we work on fixing this issue, you do not need to re-upload your
feed. Once the delays are resolved, your feed will process as usual.
I'll be posting back to this thread once I have status updates to
report.

Thank you guys so much for your patience.

-The Google Base Guy

So, let's hope we can chalk this up to a Google glich, but BOY OH BOY, it has been a time costly one !!

Kind regards,
Crockett Dunn
Owner, CDLLC
http://crockettdunn.com
866.888.7134

[afm]

Ampersands (&) have a special meaning in XML. If you are making the feed yourself, then you need to either encode the ampersand (use & instead) or wrap the description text in CDATA tags. This page on w3schools explains how to use CDATA tags (and why ampersands cause trouble):

http://www.w3schools.com/XML/xml_cdata.asp

If you are using someone else's code to create the feed file, then pass this along to the author and ask them to make the change.

[crockettdunn]

Thank you, Andy. I shall investigate that as a possible suspect.

My current hypothesis is as follows.

• I have a 150MB feed
• I have received processing errors with corresponding line numbers, and removed the offending items
• regardless of how many offending items I remove, the processing error always occurs on or around the same line number
• before the processing error occurs, the same approximate number (261) of records is always processed
• Conclusion: file size/item count limitation

As an experiment I have uploaded two base feeds corresponding to the first and second 261 or so products.

[heinscott]

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but, with very little work, we were able to create our own feed generator from scratch. We only needed to add one table to the database, one data object, and one report generator .aspx page to spit out the appropriate output. For most feeds, I was able to keep it simple, using either csv or tab delimited text file. Here's a pic of the generator...

feeds.jpg

As you can see, you can easily choose a feed type, include all your (non-hidden) products, and copy settings from one feed template to another. After that, all requirements for the different engines are hard-coded in. I think at this point, it takes approximately 20 minutes to hard-code in settings for a new feed type. So far, I haven't noticed any problems with using special characters... possibly because I'm not using XML??
My boss was able to resubmit all of our 9 feeds of 900+ products to the various engines the other day in just a few minutes.
If it would be helpful for anyone to see code, or get details on our process, let me know. I would be happy to share.

-Scott

[draneb]

Hello,

I am trying to add one custom field to my custom feed generator, taken from the Google Base example Mazhar posted on WIKI.

I am trying to add MSRP

I see the price is shown like this
price = string.Format("{0:F2}", product.Price);

I tried
msrp = string.Format("{0:F2}", product.MSRP);
just as a guess but I don't think it's working. Is that incorrect?

Thank you.

[mazhar]

Did you try

Code: Select all

price = product.Price.ToString("0:ulc");

[draneb]

Hello,

I am trying to create a custom feed and need one more thing.
I need to list the main category the product is in. Is that possible?

Thank you!

[jmestep]

In Able 7, there is no "main" category, so you just have to pick one. Something like Product.Categories[0]

[igavemybest]

You can also purchase the source code for ablecommerce, I believe it is included in there.