Maffos Bulk Upload System - Review

[Greg H]

Just thought Id share my thoughts on the Bulk Upload System Maffo developed recently.

What does it do ?

-It allows you to upload ads to your site in bulk. dozens/hundreds/thousands at a time.

The actual task of doing the upload is quite simple and intuitive, the hard part is collecting the data and images from the advertiser, particularly images.

This is how I do it....

-I send my client a spreadsheet which contains the columns/fileds required to place an Ad eg: Category/Ad Title/Description/Price/Extra Fields/image name/etc

-They send it back, along with all the images named as they are in the spreedsheet.

-I check that all the images are present and run them through a image resiing program which takes seconds and that all the data is in the correct places.

- Then I upload the images to the server, save the spreedsheet as a .csv file

- Login to Admin/Modules/Maffos Bulk Upload System, point it to my .csv file

-Then all you have to do is follow the prompts, along the way it checks the quality and layout of the data by showing you a few random ads as they will look when uploaded and it lets you know if an image is missing.

- Once the upload process is finished(which does not take long, depending on how many ads there are) you are given one chance to "Undo" it if something is not right.

I have used this on a live site and it works great.

By far and away the most time consuming and hardest part is collecting the data from the advertiser in the right format in the spreedsheet then checking it.

I would highly recommend this module to anyone who has numerous ads to place. To place large amounts of ads manually would take a LOT longer and would be very tedious work.

I would be happy to answer any questions anyone has from a users point of view.

Job well done Maffo!

Cheers

[michael]

Sounds very useful indeed. Will it be available to use with Version 4?

[Greg H]

I believe that Maffo has just finished this for V4.

Can you confirm this Maffo ?

Cheers

[racingjon]

Yes, this is now available for V4. I have been running it on a live V4 RC10 site for about 3 weeks now, and it works great for me. Took only a few minutes to process a batch of 400+ listings with pictures. Lots of safety features, including the option to wipe out the entire upload in case something goes wrong. (Which it shouldn't, since you are walked through each step and alerted to fix any errors before the upload is processed.)

I think Maffo is tweaking the admin panel a bit, then releasing a full version for sale.