AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

Hi, we're using the 7.7.251 version of dataport with ablecommerce 7. Things work fine when uploading except that in our particular case we have categories which span many many levels and where a single product resides in final levels of many such categories. Also these categories contain comma many a times.
IN this case when i upload i am finding orphaned products and new categories created and what not.

I have tried to apply some solutions but not been able to solve fully. For instance. i do know that to separate multiple categories you can use comma, and to colon to define category structure. But to add to this we also have comma within category names and we really cannot remove them because they are very much required. Is there a way to upload using microsoft csv where we can handle all the 3 issues above.

As an example:

ProductId,StoreId,Name,Price,CostOfGoods,MSRP,Weight,Length,Width,Height,Manufacturer,Sku,ModelNumber,DisplayPage,TaxCode,Shippable,WarehouseId,Warehouse,InventoryModeId,InStock,InStockWarningLevel,ThumbnailUrl,ThumbnailAltText,ImageUrl,ImageAltText,Summary,Description,ExtendedDescription,Vendor,CreatedDate,LastModifiedDate,ProductTemplate,IsFeatured,IsProhibited,AllowReviews,AllowBackorder,WrapGroup,ExcludeFromFeed,HtmlHead,DisablePurchase,MinQuantity,MaxQuantity,VisibilityId,Theme,IconUrl,IconAltText,IsGiftCertificate,Categories,UseVariablePrice,MinimumPrice,MaximumPrice,SearchKeywords,HidePrice,CustomUrl,MSExcelWorkAround
,1,Umesh Test,0.22,0,0,9.52,13,11,7,Test Brand,UT-0001x,,,Taxable,Yes,6,Warehouse1,0,0,0,~/Assets/ProductImages/EDE-001400_v1_20080828_t.jpg,"Edelbrock Performer Carburetors, Carburetor, Performer, 600 cfm, 4-Barrel, Square Bore, Electric Choke, Single Inlet, Silver, Each, 1400",~/Assets/ProductImages/EDE-001400_v1_20080828.jpg,Test product,<i>This will show summary in italics</i>,<u> This will show description in underline</u>,This will show the extended desc.,,,,,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,,FALSE,,FALSE,0,0,0,,~/Assets/ProductImages/EDE-001400_v1_20080828_i.jpg,Test Product icon alt,FALSE,"CATEGORIES:Chrome, S'less, Billet Parts:Engine Dress-Up:Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Mechanical Water Pumps & Parts,CATEGORIES:Chassis, Steering & Susp Parts:Springs & Rel:Circle & Oval Race Springs & Rel,BRANDS:Umesh Test",FALSE,0,0,,FALSE,,Do not delete

This is example of single product where the 3 categories i need to add the product to are:
1.CATEGORIES:Chrome, S'less, Billet Parts:Engine Dress-Up:Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Mechanical Water Pumps & Parts
2. CATEGORIES:Chassis, Steering & Susp Parts:Springs & Rel:Circle & Oval Race Springs & Rel
3. BRANDS:Umesh Test

I have indicated in bold the final level category in which this product should reside of the 3 multi-level categories.

I would highly appreciate if someone can provide solution and also ms csv file attachment corresponding to this , which then i can use for other such cases.

Able uses the comma to separate different category paths. When I have run across the problem in the past, I had to either remove the comma or replace it with another character, then rename the category in the admin after it was created.

Thanks Judy, that's very helpful although a bit disappointing that we've to go through this roundabout mechanism. I thought i had seen somewhere that adding of double quotes would help.

Such as:
""CATEGORIES:Chrome, S'less, Billet Parts:Engine Dress-Up:Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Water Pumps & Parts:Other Chev Mechanical Water Pumps & Parts","CATEGORIES:Chassis, Steering & Susp Parts:Springs & Rel:Circle & Oval Race Springs & Rel","BRANDS:Umesh Test"" . But this didn't seem to work when i tried.

Mods/Able Staff, any thoughts please ?

You can try using an html entity of &#44; , but that would still require changing your category names one time.

You can try using an html entity of &#44; , but that would still require changing your category names one time.

This comes a little late but never too late to say thanks, i guess . Thanks Judy, this was helpful. Our problem is solved.

Regards
Umesh