You are here:  » Data Feed Issue


Data Feed Issue

Submitted by ChrisNBC on Thu, 2013-08-15 11:58 in

Hi David,

Hope all is going well.

I'm currently working on a new site comparing mobile phones. I've created a new installation of PT together with a dB and have also extended the dB schema using the instructions in http://www.pricetapestry.com/node/3094. I tested the installation using an existing data feed and it all worked perfectly. However, when I attempt to load either of the new mobile data feeds I have (Orange and o2 in csv formats) only a fraction of the records load. Also, I notice that when I use the trial import function only one record loads instead of the usual ten. I have checked the data feeds and both look fine to me. To test that the problem is not caused by my extended dB schema I also loaded an existing data feed (not mobile products) into the extended fields which worked fine. I notice in the products table there is a duplicate record check field, I wondered if this might be causing the issue? due to the fact a mobile data feed might appear to contain duplicate records as a particular mobile model will appear multiple times but under a unique tariff? I wondered if you could suggest what might be causing the issue I'm experiencing?

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Chris

Submitted by support on Thu, 2013-08-15 12:12

Hi Chris,

This is a common situation with mobile phone feeds - due to the way that the duplicate prevention works in Price Tapestry, which is that the (Merchant + Product Name) combination must be unique.

In mobile phone feeds, it is common for the product name field to simply be the name of a handset, for example "Samsung Galaxy S3". Then, for the same merchant, there may be multiple instances of this product name, but each having different network, contract length, free minutes, free texts etc.

The usual solution to this is to embellish the Product Name field using a combination of Text Before and Text after filters. For example, if a feed has a network field with name "Network" and a tariff field with name "Tariff" then you could add a Text After filter to the Product Name field containing:

  on %Network% (%Tariff%)

(notice the SPACE at the beginning, which is important!) This would result in a much more unique product name like "Samsung Galaxy S3 on Orange (Dolphin)"

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com

Submitted by ChrisNBC on Thu, 2013-08-15 23:24

Hi David,

Thanks for the quick response. I set up a filter as you suggested but have been unable to get it to work on the Product Name field. For example when I tried to append the Tariff field the result in the Db is...."Curve 9360 Purple Refurb %Tariff%". I must be doing something wrong somewhere...would be grateful for any suggestions you might have to resolve this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Chris

Submitted by support on Fri, 2013-08-16 09:03

Hi Chris,

The field name within the %Placeholder% must match exactly the field name in the feed. The easiest thing to do when creating your filter is open a new browser window, and in the new window go to Feed Registration Step 2 for the feed that you are working on. Then, scroll down to the sample data that is displayed on that page and copy the exact field name as it appears in the table, and paste that into your filter value. It is case sensitive, so it might be for example that it just needs to be %tariff% instead - that should be all it is...

Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com

Submitted by ChrisNBC on Fri, 2013-08-16 09:51

Hi David,

Thanks for your advice. I realised when I read it that it was my error as I was taking the field name from my dB table and not the field name from the actual feed!!

It's working beautifully now!

Regards
Chris