Applying Templates With Data Port

[Humannature]

I must be missing something because I don't see a way to update a products template with the data port. This was easily done in the pre gold days. We have over 1,500 items we need to add templates to. Please don't tell me we lost yet another feature by going to gold!

[Humannature]

I also don't see a way to do this with the batch edit.

[jmestep]

Were you using an older version of Able 7? In newer versions, Able let you assign more than one template to a product, so the template selection didn't appear in the batch edit there either.

[Humannature]

Before "Gold" you could assign templates with the dataport. This was very useful when you have over a thousand products to assign a template. Now post "Gold" this is missing from dataport and the new batch edit. So what good are templates if you have to apply them one by one? Applying multiple templates is great, but to be forced to do it thousands of times by hand just for a single product line is a joke. New abilities should not kill the usability of the feature itself!

So all I want to do is offer customers a choice on product pages such as "have this item hand signed or not". Is there a way to do this with out clicking on the product - clicking templates - clicking change - clicking add template - clicking OK - clicking save, Over A Thousand Times?

[Humannature]

OK it seems that one of the new features in Gold is the ability to use the dataport to apply variants. (which for some reason is called options on the product page back end) It's a bit more complicated than using a template in pre-gold, but a lot better than doing it by hand over a thousand times.

I still don't understand how templates are useful unless you are only doing a few items. Otherwise it is just to slow and cumbersome to implement.

[Humannature]

I used the dataport to add a variant to a product successfully and am just about to upload it to 1700 products. My only question is how do I remove these variants? The variants are only offered for a limited time, but the products themselves will still be for sale. How can I remove them quickly when they are not offered any longer? I dont want to delete the products and then re-upload them because of SEO issues. I tried uploading a product variant file with the corresponding fields blank but this did not work. With templates you could just delete the template and it would affect all associated products.
Thanks

[Katie]

Code: Select all

So all I want to do is offer customers a choice on product pages such as "have this item hand signed or not". Is there a way to do this with out clicking on the product - clicking templates - clicking change - clicking add template - clicking OK - clicking save, Over A Thousand Times?

You don't have to do it this way. From the Product template page, there is a column which shows the number of products that are assigned to the template. You can click on this link and see a simple search page with grid below showing all currently assigned products. It may not be ideal for changing 1700 products at once, but it will be easier than going through the product editing pages.

With Gold, we have already added several pages that include multiple select and batch operations. Over time, we hope that every feature will have some capability like this. The green Feedback button is one sure way to be heard

I don't think the Dataport has the capability to remove data or associations to things like variants. It is used to update or add new information.

I hope this helps...

Katie

[Humannature]

Thanks for the reply.

I realize that you can add products to templates this way but it requires me to do a search for each product one at a time. Or I could add a keyword to all 1700 products with the dataport then search for that key word, then click add 1700 times. Both are less that desirable. It just seems like these great features (templates and variants) are rendered too cumbersome to use unless you have a very small amount of products to apply them to. Or in the case of Variants, you never need to remove them.

Its kind of like having a machine gun but your clip only holds one bullet. Some what pointless.
Just my opinion.

Thanks Again

[Katie]

Ok. Well, not everyone needs to associate and disassociate product templates for 1700 products at once. Again, if you need a feature, then request it using the Feedback button. This is how we progress and add new features that merchants need.

Thanks

[Humannature]

OK I can appreciate that, but this is not about adding a new feature. It's about Able removing this feature when we "upgraded" to "Gold". Didn't expect to lose functionality. Maybe Able should post a list of features that they have removed in an "upgrade" so customers can make a more informed choice. If we had been told about this removal we would not have upgraded. I have already submitted a request to re-implement this feature. Truly wish we had never upgraded though. For us we lost more than we gained. Just my opinion.

[Katie]

We are not removing features in Gold, so I'm very curious which feature(s) you think were removed.
Here is a link to the AC7 Merchant Guide -
http://help.ablecommerce.com/mergedProj ... te_map.htm

Maybe you can point them out so I can look into it further.

[Humannature]

Pre-Gold the there was a template field with the dataport. You could add templates by listing it in the field and uploading. With over 14,000 products on our site this made adding templates extremely easy and fast. Post Gold this field was removed and now must be done by hand one at a time. I believe (and this part is speculation) that it had something to do with the ability in Gold to add multiple templates to one product. While some will appreciate being able to add multiple templates to a product, the cumbersome method of template application is costing us a lot of additional time.

Thank You For The Attention You Are Giving This Problem

[Katie]

What version of AbleCommerce 7 were you using before upgrading to Gold? We added the ability to assign multiple templates back in Dec. 09 with the release of 7.0.4. And obviously, the change had unintended consequences...

About a week ago, I did submit a feature enhancement to allow for multiple updates of a product template, but unfortunately it won't be ready for the upcoming release (R6) because it's already in the final QA stage.

I really want everyone to be happy after upgrading to Gold. So, PLEASE let us know if there are other features that would make it easier for you to manage your store.

Katie

[Humannature]

According to our records the last upgrade we did before Gold was in Jan 2011 to the 7.6 version. Templates worked with the Dataport up until we went Gold in May of this year.

Thank You