HomeHome Product Discus... Product Discus...SmithCartSmithCartImport does not import variant inventoriesImport does not import variant inventories
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7/6/2011 3:57 AM
 

Hi

I thought I'd post this here in case my posts here don't get seen;

http://www.smith-consulting.com/Forums/forumid/4/threadid/7799/scope/posts.aspx

We're using SmithCart 4.36 with DNN 5.x and SQL server 2008.

I'm trying to import the example spreadsheet.  It seems to import the product data but the inventory of variants is not being created.

I have also found a bug where if there is a variant group that only has one item in it. i.e. this is a drop down for something like "size" then the SKU for the variant inventory is not passed through to the order.   

For example, the data refers to beds and there is only an option for "queen" size. If I add "double" to the list then the SKU for the inventory is passed through. If I remove it again then the SKU is not passed. Of course, I am updating the inventory every time.

Are you working on fixing these for the latest release?  We need them to work critically and urgently.

thanks

Angus

 
New Post
7/7/2011 10:56 PM
 

Hi Angus,

I have been able to replicate the issue you reported when you only hsve one variant option in a dropdown on the product detail page and checkout with that product the cart is not sving the variant sku with the order.  The event that triggers the Variant SKU to be used with the product (along with the price and weight differerntials) is event of the user selecting the variant from the dropdown list.  If you only have one variant in the dropdown, the user never is able to select a varaint and their is no event to the cart that a variant has been selected.  This is an interestng issue raising the question If you have a variant of type of dropdown or radiobutton with only one option is it truely a product variant?   By definition, dropdown and radiobutton controls should only be used when there are multiple items for the user to select from.  A product variant of type dropdown or radiobutton with only one option is not really a product variant since the user has no choice to select an option and will always get the single variant option defined.  Therefore, the information you defining in your in your variant dropdown with only one option should really be at the product level.  If you have a product with only a single option you want the user to select from it should be defined as a "checkbox" or "textbox" variant type.  If you really want to use the variant dropdown type then you should define a second variant in the same group called "-Select-" so the user would have the option of not selecting the variant option or not selecting it.  Creating the variant of type checkbox or if you are using the dropdown type creating a second variant  titled "-Select-" will solve the issue you reported by requiring the user to select the variant from the dropdown and ultimately saving the variant SKU with the order.


Thanks

 
New Post
7/11/2011 12:34 AM
 

thanks Kevin,

I understand the issue a little better. However, I still don't understand why your code is unable to work if there is only a single value in the dropdown?  Surely "ddList.SelectedItem.Text" should be collected regardless of whether or not a user chose an option? Why does it depend on an "onChange" event which is what you are implying?  Also, going by the logic that you describe if there are two options in the list and the user leaves the box untouched, then does the event get fired?

If it works when there are two items and the user doesn't choose one then clearly an event is not required.

What need is there to fire an event to get the value?  It makes no sense. Dropdowns are often used to get values from database tables where data changes all the time. Just because there is only one record should not cause the application problems. The application should check the value of the drop down regardless of whether the user clicked on it or not.

I understand that if a product has a variant that does not vary then it ought to be a unique product it itself with the color as part of the description so that might be the way forward. However, another color may be made later that is not currently available. The next import would include this colour. Therefore, it is a variant.

Apart from all this, I am working with your example data!  If you understood the data and the application better you would have delivered test data that worked or raised this issue with us when we supplied that data for you to work with. 

And you still have no answered my question as to why the variant inventories are not being imported.

thanks

Angus

 
New Post
7/11/2011 7:10 PM
 

Hi Angus,

I just emailed the latest cart v4.43 with hotfixes to fix the variant inventory import issue.

 

The following items were fixed:
1. Fixed an issue in one of the stored procs that adds the variant inventory was truncating the variant name in the inventory table when importing.
2. Fixed the import to automatically assign the variant sort order.  Before the import was assigning "1" to all variant sort orders
3. Fixed the import to automatically populate "-1" to the max and min order qty to prevent the message when adding the item to the cart.
 
After fixing the truncation and sort order (items 1 and 2 above) I was able to checkout and successfully see the variant inventory decremented and variant sku saved.  We also fixed the issue discussed in the above thread regarding selecting a variant item from the dropdown so you do not need to select a variant from the dropdown in order for the cart to save the variant sku and decrement the variant inventory.  
 
Thanks
 
 
 

Scott Kelly
Project Manager
DotNetNuke Consulting, DotNetNuke Store and DNN Ecommerce
 
New Post
7/12/2011 7:54 AM
 

Hi Scott and thanks very much for the patches.

However, we are still NOT able to get the import to work with the above spreadsheet.

Firstly we upgraded the module in the usual way by re-installing over the top.  Then we imported the new spreadsheet.

NO variant inventories created.

Secondly we deleted all the existing products and imported again.

NO variant inventories created.

Finally we removed all the smith modules and checked there we not longer any DB objects left. I am pleased to note that all the DB objects had gone; unlike previous versions of Smith Cart which left dozens of tables and sp's which had to be removed manually.

Then we re-installed from scratch and tested the import again.

NO variant inventories created.

Equally frustrating is that re-imports do NOT seem to be updating the existing products. i.e. when prices or other attributes are changed they are not updated.

Finally, in desperation, we deleted all the products and tried an old spreadsheet of our own which somehow worked!  This spreadsheet has a different structure to the one you have provided above.

So, I can only conclude that you are developing with a different spreadsheet/structure than the one you have listed here.

Can you test the one you have here because it clearly does NOT work.

thanks

Angus

ps: our old spreadsheet that seems to import the variants has the following structure:

 

CategoryName
SubcategoryName
Manufacturer
ProductSortOrder
ProductSku
ProductName
UnitCost
QuantityOnHand
Weight
Summary
ProductDescription
Description2
Description3
Description4
Description5
ThumbImage1
LargeImage1
ZoomImage1
LargeImage2
ZoomImage2
LargeImage3
ZoomImage3
LargeImage4
ZoomImage4
LargeImage5
ZoomImage5
VariantGroup1
VariantName1
VariantPriceDif1
VariantWeightDif1
VariantImage1
VariantDisplayType1
VariantGroup2
VariantName2
VariantPriceDif2
VariantWeightDif2
VariantImage2
VariantDisplayType2
VariantGroup3
VariantName3
VariantPriceDif3
VariantWeightDif3
VariantImage3
VariantDisplayType3
VariantGroup4
VariantName4
VariantPriceDif4
VariantWeightDif4
VariantImage4
VariantDisplayType4
VariantGroup5
VariantName5
VariantPriceDif5
VariantWeightDif5
VariantImage5
VariantDisplayType5
VariantSku
VariantQtyOnHand
Width
Height
Length
 
New Post
7/13/2011 3:08 AM
 

Hi again

We have been doing some testing this morning on your test portal (www17.smith-consulting.com) to see if the problems we reported have been resolved, here is what we found:

RE-IMPORTING:

- If you change the products main price it does not update.

- Changing a variant price does not update.

- Changing the name of a variant still leaves the old variant available to select in the store.
Example: for one product only change column AK from 'Strato' to 'Silk' or another material then re-import.
Strato will still be available to the shopper even though it is not available in the .xls

- Adding a new product to the same sheet and re-importing, the product appears fine but the inventory is not imported so the main skus are used not the variants.

RE-IMPORTING AFTER DELETING ALL PRODUCTS FROM WITHIN Smith Cart:
 
- Variant inventories are NOT created for any products.
 
- Prices are remembered from the deleted products.
 
It looks like the module has reverted back to using a soft delete, this was one of the original problems we had reported that was SUPPOSED to have been fixed.
 
This situation is now getting extremely frustrating, clearly you are not testing your module fully before release.  We are fed up with waiting for you to deliver
functionality that was paid for 7 months ago!  It's just not good enough.
 
What are you playing at?
 
Angus
 
New Post
7/13/2011 3:38 AM
 

oh and I forgot to mention, 

I created a clean new DNN 562 build on local and was able to import the products successfully including variants.

However, I then ran into all the same issues outlined above.

Import works when you do it once on a clean install.

 
New Post
12/19/2011 8:29 AM
 

What is the status on this?  It's been 5 months.  These are issues everyone is having not just Angus.

 
New Post
12/19/2011 9:22 AM
 

Also, we get this on a test with just one record.

 

The 'Microsoft.Jet.OleDb.4.0' provider is not registered on the local machine.

 

SmithCart 4.67.0

MS Server 2008

DNN 6

 

FIXED:  I changed the App Pool settings to allow 32-bit.

 
New Post
12/19/2011 12:31 PM
 
Hi Craig,

Are you currently experiencing any issues?

Thanks,



 
New Post
12/20/2011 1:14 PM
 

Hi Kevin,

 

Yes, when we import the variants do not work.  If a unique variant sku is required for every variant option then why isn't there a spot to put that?

1. The sku for the order never gets updated with the variant sku.

Based on the only xls file I could get to work (listed earlier in this thread)  I set the VariantSku.

 

Can you do this with the import?

1. Add the Tab1, Tab2, Tab3, Tab4 fields

2. Set Minimum order quantity  (the default -1 does not work or else there must be a minimum order amount of $1)

3. Hide quantity by default

4. Require login option

 

One other thing, we have RequireLogin set and it makes you fill out the registration form to complete your order but the DNN user is never created.  Do we need to configure something additional?

 

Thanks,
Craig

 
New Post
12/20/2011 7:50 PM
 

Hi Craig,

1. Currently we don’t have a template to set up the tabs but we are researching some options on using template options in the future.

2. What would you like to set for the "Minimum order quantity" field? The "-1" is the default for No Minimum Order Quantity, currently the ability to set a value for this field is not currently available when importing.

3. The ability to set the "Hide Quantity" to be enabled by default is not available in the import feature. Do you want the Quantity to be hidden for all your products?

4. The ability to set the "Require Login" to be enabled by default is not available in the import feature. How do you have your "Sign-In and Registration Page Setup" configured in the Cart Settings? Do you wish for the user to be signed in before adding an item to the Cart or before they checkout?

If you would like to receive a fixed quote to add any of the features above not currently supported, please send an email with a link to this forum post to sales@smith-consulting.com. We quote all feature enhancements blow cost since it is enhancing the module and in most cases we can begin work within a week.

Thanks,

 
New Post
1/30/2012 7:34 AM
 
Hi Kevin

I see there are new versions released. But I can't find any clear indication as to whether imports now work properly and update existing records.

Can you clarify the status of this issue now?

I am at the point of writing some code to do this job myself.

thanks
Gus
 
New Post
2/2/2012 7:05 PM
 

Hi Gus,

I have tested the import and I can confirm that the Import feature updates existing data. If you would like to log in to our test site we can provide you with login credentials and the import specs so you can confirm the correct behavior. If you need login credentials, please send an email with a link to this post to kevin@smith-consulting.com and I will provide you access.

Thanks,

 
New Post
3/13/2012 6:47 PM
 

Hi Craig.

I am sorry to bother you, I have the same issue you had, by trying to import variant sku for each variant:

 

Hi Kevin,

 

Yes, when we import the variants do not work.  If a unique variant sku is required for every variant option then why isn't there a spot to put that?

1. The sku for the order never gets updated with the variant sku.

Based on the only xls file I could get to work (listed earlier in this thread)  I set the VariantSku

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, my question for you is how did you set the variant sku? did you jusy added a column in excel format for each variant sku? like column ¨VariantSku1¨ for variant 1, an so on?

If you don´t mind please advise. Thank you.

Gabriel

 

 

 
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