How does category mapping work?

Hi,

Yes - sorry about the lag regards documentation for the new features. I'm going to concentrate on that tomorrow.

In the mean time; Category Mapping enables you to group different category names from different merchants into 1 single category name.

For example, let's say you have one feed that lists TVs under the category "TV", and another feed that uses the category "Television". If you want to list all those products under the single category "Televisions", you would create a new category mapping called "Televisions", and then list "TV" and "Television" in the textarea on the configuration page.

Then, during import; whever a category field contains either "TV" or "Television", it will be imported with category "Televisions" instead...

If running the import via the fetch.sh, it doesn't seem to update the categories. Do you have to do a manual update of the import to get all the associated categories to be replaced by the mapped category?

Hi,

Importing via the automation scripts shouldn't be any different than importing via the admin interface - they both call exactly the same function within includes/admin.php.

The category list itself is not present anywhere other than in the products table - so if products have been updated then the categories should have been also.

It is worth checking therefore that the feeds you believe to have updated via your automation script have infact imported successfully. The other thing to check is the categories that you are perhaps expecting to have disappeared as a result of new mappings are not present in other feeds that may not have been re-imported...

Cheers,
David.

It appears that it is just the one csv file that isn't updating via the fetch.sh. It updates when clicking import in admin, and the categories are then correctly mapped. mmm...

Hiya,

What parameters are you using with import.php in you automation script? If you are using @MODIFIED it is possible that the way in which you are downloading this particular CSV file is either failing (and the file is not actually being updated); or it is not updating the timestamp.

If you've proven that the file is being correctly downloaded and you are using @MODIFIED, one thing to try would be to issue the touch command immediately after your command to download this particular feed in order to update the timestamp. For example:

Cheers,
David.

Hi,

I don't quite get this category mapping - what determines which is the category field in the feed in the first place, as they are different for each network?

thanks

Steve

Hi Steve,

Category mapping is just way of saying that for all the different ways that merchants might name a category for "Televisions", you want them all imported as - "Televisions".

So, you could setup a mapping for "Televisions", and then in the list add any other merchant's version of this category that you come across, for example:

TVs
Television Sets
Colour Television
etc. etc.

Then, whenever you import; anything that has a category (from the feed) that is in the above list will be imported into the category "Televisions" instead of whatever name the merchant used.

In terms of which is the category field, it is different for every merchant in the same way that they all use slightly different names for the buy URL, product name etc. For example, with an Affiliate Window feed the field name is "MASTERCATEGORY". You register this field just as any other on the feed registration page (step 2) under the "Optional Index Fields" section.

Hope this helps!
Cheers
David.