Import feature

[mstanden]

Hello,

i have been asked by quite a few car dealers now if it is possible to import a csv file of their available stock for sale, this would be quite a good idea as many dealers have hundreds of cars for sale, and inputting them indivudually would take many hours. Maybe somebody have written a mod for this, if so please let me know.. or if anybody has any other ideas i would appreciate any input. Thanks

Regards

Mark

[Lhotch]

A universal import feature would be very difficult to implement. Since every source CSV file and every classified site can have different fields it would take a decent understanding and a lot of intervention in terms of setup and binding CSV fields to database fields to get something like this to work.

[gregbatch]

Such a feature would be of great benefit in selling commercial classified accounts for me as well.

It doesn't really need to be a universal import. It can be rigid. (these values in this order). I don't think any of my customers would need to use such a feature as a regular maintenance feature, in fact, I'm not sure I would want them to have access to it at all. I'd rather have it as an admin feature. The initial setup, where there could be hundreds of entries, is where it would be extremely helpful.

If a customer could give me their inventory in a tab, csv, or Excel file for the intitial setup that would make life easier for everyone and make it an easier sell. I can easily manipulate it to conform to the structure of the import.

I have done a bulk csv import through MySQLAdmin, but I missed a field, so had to go back and fix some things manually.

[bearcat]

I would be interested in this as well.

[juven14]

How would you suggest handling images? If they are importing several hundred vehicles doing the listing image uploads would be problematic. Would you just have them use modify listing and add in the images?

[bearcat]

While I'm not sure the exact best way to do it, in this thread:

Suggestions for Dealers

I suggest having the ability to lasso and upload multiple images at once. With that feature and a decent connection, you could probably add images for 50-100 ads in an hour or so, depending on how efficient you can make the user interface.

With the current system and multiple images per ad, it would take much longer.

[gregbatch]

Originally Posted by juven14

How would you suggest handling images? If they are importing several hundred vehicles doing the listing image uploads would be problematic. Would you just have them use modify listing and add in the images?

In an app I had several years ago, the upload was simply a bulk FTP to a folder. The client was responsible for having the filename of the photos in the appropriate record of the csv file.

[bgordon]

Originally Posted by gregbatch

Such a feature would be of great benefit in selling commercial classified accounts for me as well.

It doesn't really need to be a universal import. It can be rigid. (these values in this order). I don't think any of my customers would need to use such a feature as a regular maintenance feature, in fact, I'm not sure I would want them to have access to it at all. I'd rather have it as an admin feature. The initial setup, where there could be hundreds of entries, is where it would be extremely helpful.

If a customer could give me their inventory in a tab, csv, or Excel file for the intitial setup that would make life easier for everyone and make it an easier sell. I can easily manipulate it to conform to the structure of the import.

I have done a bulk csv import through MySQLAdmin, but I missed a field, so had to go back and fix some things manually.

In the absence og an alternative, could you explain how you did this in MYSQL admin? I am faced with a dealer who has over 200 listings and I really want to import them...

[arminium]

The easiest way i know (bearing in mind i am novice) is to add a new listing with everypossible field used and the go to your MYPHPadmin which you should by the link in your Control Panel. download an export of the file modify and upload again.


i wanted to remove all but two countries from the countries list, Using modify would of taken hours, using MYSQL it was just a matter of selecting mark all and de-selecting the two i wanted and hitting delete

[gregbatch]

I did the merge file setup in Excel. Let me look and see if I still have it handy and I'll get back to you.

Basically I did this:
1. Did export in MySQL Admin to get the structure.
2. rearranged columns in Excel to match the db structure
3. Exported from Excel as tab separated (can't use commas, as they may be in text and Excel doesn't put the " qualifier on it.
4. Opened in Word Perfect and did search for tab and replaced with |
5. Imported data in MySQL Admin using | as my separator

It seems like alot, but in reality it takes only a few minutes compared to entering it. Now, I know there are some great data utilities out there that will rearrange, parse, merge, and change delimiters on various text files, but I needed something fairly quick and didn't have time to look.

I'll keep looking for those file for you...