Learn how to edit your product data templates.
You can access the templates through “Settings>Templates”.
To edit a product data template, click the “Edit” button towards the right of that template’s name. This opens our Template Editor page, which has the following tabs:
> 1. Settings. These are the general settings required by the channel and you may want to add/update these details before sending the feed..
Overview of Settings
Name, description - the name and description of this template.
Feed type: XML or Flat or Excel:
XML requires the following fields:
> XML envelope is the larger container that all products are stored in. It is similar to the name of the file or the header of the file.
> XML item envelope is the smaller container for each product which the fields are contained in.
Flat Feed requires the following parameters::
– Field delimiter is the character to separate fields from each other within an enclosure
– Field enclosure is the character to separate different product enclosures from each other
– Fixed headers and footers are information to identify different feeds from each other
Excel feed type - follows MS Excel formatting guidelines and does not require any formatting parameters.
Mime type. Encoding, New Line, Decimal, Date, Time format are part of the general data transmission protocol format requirements. If you were working in a predefined channel template, these values are already set. If you were working in a generic template, these require assigning values.
Field Mapping
Channel required data field contents can be formatted or changed from the tab “Field Mapping.” By using this processyou will not update or change the base data in the Inventory database but it allows you to quickly update a specific template.
Click on the “Add field” button to provide the field to be amended.
> If you are working on a predefined channel template (e.g. Amazon Template), the system will show on screen a long list of predefined “Target fields” that can be amended for that particular channel. Browse and select the field or use the search function to find anything. Selecting the target field will bring the “Field Properties” dialog box.
> If you are working on a generic template, when you click on the “Add Field” button, the system will bring up the “Field Properties “dialog box immediately, where you can manually enter the “Target Field” value.
Field Properties Dialog Box
In this dialog box, you have the following tabs to help to change or format your data:
> General, this is the main target and source field selector. This is the tab for reformatting.
> Attributes are only for XML tag attributes
> Replacements are for finding and replacing clauses in fields
> URL Params are for formatting product-specific URL links
> Advanced, are for advanced formatting options
Please see below for a summary of each tab.
General Tab
This is the tab where you set the source for the target fields.
> If you were working in a predefined channel template (e.g., Amazon Template), you have already chosen the “Target field” that you want to override in the previous screen, and now you need to specify your “Source Field” that needs to be a field from your inventory database.
> Autofill function:
– Autofill is a useful feature to fill in the fields listed in your inventory database automatically,
– Just below the Source field, the button with “M” denotes that the Autofill mode is active,
– The button with “A” denotes Manual fill mode is active,
– And you can toggle between these two modes by clicking on this button.
– Click on the “Source 0” textbox to use the Autofill feature, and the system will provide a long list of predefined fields in your database that can be matched with the selected Target field. And conversely, in the manual fill mode, you need to fill out the field name.
– Manual fill function: type in dynamic field name without any suggestions. Make sure to include a hashtag before writing text. StoreAutomator supports some internal coding that can be written during manual fill; coding allows extra functions, calculations, and conditional formatting of the field's output data. Please refer to Template Functions for detailed information.
– Sometimes, the feed needs to combine a couple or more fields into one. To do that, click on the “Add New” button, and a new source is added. You can add as many fields as you need.
Added data sources can be combined into one field in the “Format” Text box using the appropriate syntax. Any text written in the textbox will be included in the new field, and sources can be added as the source number put in curly brackets; e.g. {0} or {1}.
– If you are using multiple sources, make sure to select “Use all sources” under source usage.
– If you are using 2 or more complementary sources, you can select “Use First Valid Source” the system will use the field with a value and omit all null data.
– Check the “Required” checkbox to denote if the channel requires this Field. This is a useful feature to exclude a product or listing from the feed if this listing doesn’t have the required field or the field's date is invalid.
– Formatting of the data in “Format” textbox uses .NET framework formatting, here are some highlights:
– {0}, {1}, {2}, 0, 1, 2 are source numbers
– {0:C2}, is currency formatting with 2 decimal points
– {0:d}, is date formatting
– {0:t}, is time formatting
– {0,12} reserves a 12 decimal long string and align text to the right
– {0,-12} reserves a 12 decimal long string and align text to left
– {0,8:yyyy} reserves an 8 decimal long field with 4 character year
– {0:#.0000} number with 4 decimal places
– {0:0,000.00} number with 2 decimal places and thousands separator
– {0:N0} general number formatting with 0 decimal places
– {0,P1} percentage formatting with 1 decimal place
– https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.format?view=netframework-4.7.2
Template Source Fields Advance Settings
Click OK to save your work or proceed to the replacements tab to further enter your feed requirements.
Attributes tab
You can only enter Attributes for a field if the feed template is XML type. In XML, attributes are the container-specific parameters that stay within tags (< >) with the container's name.
E.g.: <p style=”color:red”>text here…</p>
Here (style=”color: red”) is an attribute for the “p” element and is setting the text color as red. Sometimes channels allow for such formatting to emphasize product details. While working in this tab, enter the attribute to the “Attribute” textbox and link the source to it as described in the Autofill function above in the “General” tab. Hit add new to add as many attributes as you like.
Replacements tab
You can use the Replacements tab to replace words or part of a sentence with something else. Find the specific text with the “Find” textbox and replace it with the text in the “Replace” textbox. You can start typing while in manual mode and utilize the autofill function to find a predefined field described in the Autofill function above in the “General” Tab. If you are replacing it with text, make sure to add “#” before the text.
You can add as many replacements as you wish.
URL Params tab
Once you add a field, you can add more URL parameters to the end of this field by completing the information on this tab. You can add as many parameters as you like. URL parameters in the output file will be added after the “?” switch, and “&” will be placed between parameters, as depicted in the syntax example below:
?<Parameter_1>=<Source_1>&<Parameter_2>=<Source_2>&<Parameter_3>=<Source_3>
You can write the parameter’s name to the “Parameter” text box and link it with the “Source” textbox as described in the Autofill function above in the “General” Tab.
Advanced Tab
These are the settings for individual fields.
> Field Map Action Mode is to define whether the mapped source field will be updated or created in the marketplace. If you select create-update mode, the system will automatically use them together and analyze what to use between the two options. So, if the mapped source field data you are providing is not already available in the marketplace catalog, the system will use create mode. If the data is already populated, then the system will create it for you.
Boolean Mapping
> Boolean true False format and Join separator works the same as explained under “Template Settings” except that these settings are at field level and apply to the field only.
Field Data
> Skip empty (appears only with XML Feed types) , skip empty containers as Object and as CDATA and don’t include them in the feed.
Array Options
> Repeat (appears only with XML Feed types): Sometimes, a field may have multiple data nodes as arrays; e.g. an image field might have multiple URL links. When creating a feed, the system’s default behavior for this condition includes each field respectively and separates them with the “Join separator”. If “Repeat” is checked, the system keeps each data in its separate XML Nodes.
> Prefix and suffix are used to add any text to the beginning and the end of the field container. This is the same as the “Format” text box in the “General” tab, except this one cannot be formatted.
> Limit, sets the feed file size limiter, as required by some channels.
Click OK to save your work.
After you have finished making the changes you require, make sure your templates are assigned to the channel. The following links to an article outlining how to do this.