Database Upload
Data in a tab delimited format can be uploaded and transferred into your ShopSite store. This feature can save you time when transferring existing data to your ShopSite generated web site, and can aid in editing large amounts of data, allowing you to use off-the-shelf data management software. While in either the products or the pages section (depending on whether you want to upload your products database or page format database), click on the "database upload" button and a page will come up asking for either the path to the database on your server or the file name of the database on a local disk. You must be using Netscape Navigator to take advantage of the second feature, which allows you to upload the database directly from your PC's hard drive through your browser.
Once you have specified a data file, a new screen will come up which walks you through reconciling between the data fields in the database you uploaded and the ShopSite database. Next to an item from the first line of your tab delimited database will appear a pull-down menu with the ShopSite fields. For example, if Beach Ball is the first item in the list, then you would select "name" from the menu, and for "15.50" select "price." There is a button next to each item and below the list another choice between "ignore or add new records". If you are adding a new database, you can ignore these choices. Just hit the "add new records" button.
Note: If you want to specify the pages that the products will appear on when uploading a product database, you must use the record number of the page as the reference, not the page's file name. You can choose to display a product on two or more pages by separating the record numbers with commas. Finding a list of the page record number is tricky. It's not hard, it's just that you would probably never guess what the easiest way is. Go into the pages section of the back office, which displays the list of all the pages in your site. Then, view the source code of that page. It will show you the name of each page with a record number next to it. That is the number that you use in your products database to put it on the page in the "in these pages" field. This is a temporary fix. Soon it will also reference by file name.
You can also use the database upload feature to update existing data. You need to be careful to make sure you don't overwrite any changes you may have made through the back office. In short, if you are going to edit your data off line, always edit it off line. Using the radio button, select the field you are using for a reference field. This will usually be the name of the item, unless you are changing the item names, in which case you should base it on a SKU number, which is unique to each item, but does not change. All other information outside the reference field will be updated.
In the event that there are new fields in the database you are uploading, it will ignore those fields by default, unless you choose to add them, where it asks, "If updating existing records, do you wish to ignore or add new records?" Be sure to select the "update existing records" button when you are updating, or it will duplicate each record instead of overwriting the old record.
