This page describes how to upload your product data file in the Product Data view.
Before working with this view, please make sure you have read the Product Data Feed Requirements.
Table of Contents:
How to enter the Product Data view?
To enter the "Product Data" view, select an existing Product Guide in the Product Guide Overview Table and then click on the "Product Data" item in the taskbar on the left side of your browser (see image below).
Upload a new Data File
A new data file can be uploaded by clicking the button "Add Product File". The product data file has to fulfill specific requirements that are described in Product Data Feed Requirements. You can also read the requirements by clicking the info icon right next to the "Add Product File" button:
Select a Connector Type
At first you have to decide how the product data should be connected to your Product Guide. You can choose between three variants:
- Local Upload
- HTTP
- SFTP
Local Upload
Choose this variant if you have a local CSV file on your PC. Click on "Upload File" and select the product data file in the explorer.
HTTP
If your product data file is available under a HTTP(S) link, select the connector type "HTTP". After selecting this option you can see three different buttons with whom you can configure the HTTP settings.
Configure HTTP Download Settings
Clicking on the "Configure" button opens the following modal window:
Within this window you can enter your HTTP data feed URL. Furthermore you can enable an authentication and its fitting username and password.
Update Data Feed
After configuring the data feed settings you can upload/update the product data displaying in the Workbench. Like a local upload the file is used e.g. to connect the attribute values to the questions and answer options.
Scheduling
After clicking on the "Schedule" button a modal window appears in which you can enable a download schedule for you product data. That means that you can define a daily time or custom cron job which gets the current state of the product data from the feed. This secures that the Product Guide always has the current data.
Note: The schedule only updates the data for the live Product Guide instance. To get these data into the Workbench you have to click on the "Update" button as well.
SFTP
In case that your data file is accessible via SFTP select the connector type "SFTP". Selecting this option provides you the exact same three buttons like the HTTP type.
The "Update" and "Schedule" button are working like the buttons for the HTTP feed. Only the "Configure" button displays a different modal window.
Configure SFTP Download Settings
Unlike in the HTTP settings you have to enter your SFTP host name, port number and filename to get your product data feed. Furthermore you can also enable an authentication.
Important notes for HTTP or SFTP data download jobs
When providing your product data to excentos via automated download jobs - no matter if provided on HTTP or SFTP server - please pay attention to the following topics:
- if excentos provided the SFTP server for you, please upload your data file into the folder "www"
- please do not change the names of the folder or file without prior notice
- if you use XLS or XLSX or ODS files (instead of CSV files), please make sure that you do not rename the table within the spreadsheet file
Previewing your Product Data
After selecting a file, a modal window occurs and illustrates a preview of the product data. This preview serves as a test whether your product data file has the right format according to the Product Data Feed Requirements.
You can select a separator, quote, escape character and an encoding.
Set Initial Attribute Mapping
How mentioned in Required Fields and Their Names there are some attributes which are needed to display a set of information in the recommendation page. However not every data file uses exactly the needed nomenclature for the attributes. That is why can map each attribute from your file to one of the core attributes described in the required fields table.
Attributes with the exact same name (case sensitive) are auto-mapped. Furthermore it is not necessary to map all attributes. You can also edit the mappings later when clicking on the "Properties" button in the control bar.
Confirming this dialog adds your product data to your Product Guide.
Displaying Attribute Differences and Invalid Values
When updating a product data file the import modal window dialog is extended with two more pages.
New and Missing Attributes Dialog
The first one evaluates the attributes. If the new product file contains new attributes respectively some previous attribute are missing, they were displayed in two separate tables (new attributes, missing attributes). You can check if these changes seems to be right. Otherwise you should abort the import process.
Invalid Values Dialog
The second page displays all illegal or invalid values based on the attribute type. For example if the attribute price with type "Number" contains values with text instead of a number. Confirming this dialog has two consequences:
- The attribute type is automatically changed to "Text".
- Questions which are attached to these attributes are detached to avoid breaking some advisor functionalities (especially for numeric questions).
Related Articles
Read our FAQ regarding Product Data to learn when uploaded product data is live in the Product Guide, or how to combine changes you want to make to the Product Guide and to your product data at the same time.
