FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Intelligent Catalog Importer & Manager
How Intelligent Catalog Importer & Manager works
The module has 3 parts. You access it in Catalog> Intelligent Importer:
1) Manage external catalogs:
An external catalog is for example the site of a supplier. You have to create it, enter its name and home page. You must then indicate the extraction script that the company or your developer designed. This script tells the module how the specifics of the external catalog and how the various information must be extracted to be integrated into your Prestashop database.
2) Manage PHP functions:
The PHP functions take care of the methods of inserting different information. For example, the add_image function adds an image to Prestashop by resizing it to Prestashop standards and associating it with a product.
You don't usually have to worry about this part. These are standard insertion methods. This section is available for advanced developers who would like to create specific PHP interaction functions for specific needs.
3) Start the analysis:
Once your scripts are set up, simply click on the Launch Analysis button to import your products. You must authorize Java to launch.
The analysis that opens is a Java applet that will browse all the sites in your external catalogs. It is a crawling robot (a bit like the ones Google uses) which will be based on the home page you have indicated, open it, execute the script set up on the source code and search all internal site links on this page. He will then repeat this operation with all the links he has found, until he has browsed the whole site.
During this operation, which can last several hours, you must leave the window open. The robot is running on your computer so that it has no impact on your server.
When the Java robot finds a product through the script, it sends it to Prestashop to insert it into its database.
Concretely once the external catalogs have been configured, you only have to click on Launch the analysis and wait for it to finish. The products will appear progressively in Catalog> Products as if you had created them manually (it is advisable to filter by category on the SORTING category for example to see the progress of the insertion of the products).
If you do not want a catalog to be analyzed, deactivate it in manage external catalogs.
Frequently asked questions
Is it possible to automate the analysis
Yes, there are two possibilities for this.
Either you want the robot to run on a server (but this may slow it down moderately depending on its performance). In this case you must first install Java on this server (more precisely the JVM) and configure a CRON with the command provided in the module configuration.
Either you want the robot to run from a personal PC. In this case create a scheduled task (example under windows: Start> Programs> Accessories> System tools> Task scheduler) and use the command provided in the module configuration (java –jar ....). Java must be installed on this computer.
Is it possible to analyze a site on which you have to identify yourself to see all the information
Yes, you will have to give us the login and password. This is generally not a problem.
How are product sheets created? Is there a product description by declination? Do I have to enter the declensions, characteristics, etc of my supplier beforehand?
Product sheets are created exactly as if you were doing it by hand. Combinations for example are created in the Variation tab and its associated with the product as if they had been made using the combination generator.
We can assign quantities in the same way, put captions to images, PDFs, technical characteristics, etc. It is also possible to create reductions (tell us if you want them as a percentage, reduction of amount or replacement of price).
If the combinations, attributes, categories, etc. do not exist, the module will automatically create them, avoiding duplicates (if you had created the same label beforehand, the module will resume it). You will sometimes have to go back to the badly importable data (typically the colors to indicate the color code of "orange").
However it is also possible to have other behaviors, for example if you want from a file of your supplier on which is present several variations create a file at home by variation (One to many), it is possible . Similarly if you want to take the first line of the supplier description to make it a short description and the rest for the long term, tell us and we will set it up, the scripts are very flexible.
Note, however, that the more information you want and the more complex the management requested, the more expensive the script may be.
How is the update managed?
If desired, the module can in addition to import manage the update. For this it is based on the product reference. If the reference does not exist (for new products), the product is created, otherwise the information you want will be updated. It is important to define the information to be updated because, if you manually update the product, these modifications will be overwritten by the module during the update.
So if you update a product that had been imported into the SORT category and moved it to the appropriate category, it will stay there but the price may be updated.
To update, just click on Start scan.
Does the module allow me to manage my stocks
It is possible to take stock information from your supplier and report it in Prestashop. It is also possible to adapt it if necessary.
To synchronize stocks, simply click on Start analysis.
Is it possible to do automatic translation
Yes, for this we use Bing Translate (free). The translation is effective with small expressions. For the descriptions it does the heavy lifting but you will have to go back.
Should we create a different script for each external catalog?
Yes. Each site being built differently in terms of source code and having different information, it is necessary to program a different script for each supplier. On the other hand, you analyze manages all the catalogs programmed. So you only have to launch it once for all.
How long does the analysis take? Can I see what stage this is at?
The durations for an analysis vary widely depending on the website. Sometimes for 1,000 products we have 10,000 crawled links (ajax scripts, comments, add-to-cart links, etc.). It takes several hours.
You can click on F2 to see the number of products inserted and the number of URLs visited or to be visited. Press F9 to write a text file on the desktop listing the links that the robot should soon visit.
In which category will the articles be placed? Will the products be visible directly to my customers?
Generally we put all imported products in a SORT category which is deactivated (therefore not visible on the Front Office).
It is also possible to automatically associate the categories by making reconciliations with the category of your supplier thanks to our AI algorithm. But this method sometimes generates classification errors, it only serves to do the bulk of the work, the products can be imported deactivated.
There is one last possibility, reproduce the categories of your supplier each time one of them is encountered and put the products there.