Hello,
I added a data feed from a URL using the Automation Tool. It gives me a last run time and a status of OK, but when I check my database (ultimately via by checking the tables) there was no data in the tables. Can you advise on what I am doing incorrectly?
Thank you David! That worked. But it only imported 20 items and I had previously checked the feed and it had over 300 items. Any thoughts?
Hi,
For a product to be imported, the each record must have valid:
Product Name
Buy URL
Price
...and further, the (merchant + product name) combination must be unique.
To find out what is causing the discrepancy in this place, check out the Feed Analyser tool (download) and then run this against your new feed. This will report number of duplicate products, as well as the number of records with one or more of the required fields invalid.
Furthermore, if it does look like a duplicate issue, you will be able to view an example record which should help indicate the reason for the duplication, which is especially common in niche areas such as clothing feeds, where items are listed multiple times but just in different sizes, where the size (or colour as another example) is in a different field.
In these cases, it is often possible to combine the value of other fields in the feed with the product name (normally using Text Before and/or Text After) in conjunction with the placeholder terminology that lets you pull in the value of other fields e.g. %COLOR% etc. however I don't necessarily recommend this as it can result in duplicate content issues; and merchant's websites normally make it clear that other size / colour options are available; so having just one instance of the "generic" product on your site is normally fine..
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com
Tried the Analyser, it worked great, but it tells me there are only 20 records and no duplicates and no invalids! Crazy..
Hi,
Could you possibly email me a copy of the feed (.zipped if possible) - or just the feed URL if that's more convenient, and I'll check it out on my test server for you..!
Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com
OK, I think somewhere a results per page was set to 20 (by default). And I guess the feed just pulls in one 'page'.
Hi,
Results per page defaults to 10 ($config_resultsPerPage in config.php for standalone, or set in /wp-admin/ > Settings > PriceTapestry.org for the plugin), but you should then see the pagination links, e.g.
Standalone:
http://www.webpricecheck.co.uk/merchant/Advanced-MP3-Players/
Plugin:
http://wordpress.webpricecheck.co.uk/merchant/Advanced-MP3-Players/
How many products does it show in the Price Tapestry /admin/ home page?
Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com
I see what you are saying. I think that somehow on my feed it was set to 20. I really don't understand exactly what is happening with the feed, I guess I will play around a little more and come back if I can't figure it out. Thanks David!
Hi inphilly,
No probs! It does sound like a "truncated" or fixed limit version of the feed was downloaded; if you ever want me to check out a feed, just post the link (or email a copy) - I always remove details before publishing replies, and I'll happily check anything out on my test server.
Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com
Hi!
After setting up and running an Automation Tool job to fetch a feed for the first time, you will need to go through the one-time-only Feed Registration process for the new feed. After successfully running a new job ("OK" displayed in the Status column) for the first time, go to the /admin/ home page for your Price Tapestry installation and then click Register alongside the feed filename (matching the Filename parameter in your Automation Tool job configuration). From there, follow the feed registration instructions from step 3 on this page.
Why is like this?
The script is designed to be totally flexible in terms of how you receive feeds. They just need to get to your /feeds/ folder - it doesn't matter how.
The Automation Tool is a way to set-up jobs that fetch feeds from a remote URL to the feeds folder - and when you ultimately set-up the CRON job for your site, the first thing it does is run all your Automation Tool jobs, and then imports all feeds.
But that doesn't mean that all your feeds have to have arrived at your site by way of the Automation Tool. A small number of (mainly very niche) affiliate networks only provide feeds by way of an FTP "push" - they upload the feeds to your site for you, and of course, you can manually upload feeds using an FTP program if necessary, but of course that doesn't lend itself too well to automation - but in some cases users may only receive a feed via email so this is the only option.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
David.
--
PriceTapestry.com