Preparing your Bulk File
Bulk edits in SureDone are made using .CSV spreadsheets, these files can be opened in almost any spreadsheet application, such as Excel or Google Sheets. This guide will give you the basics you need to set up your spreadsheet for SureDone.
Note: our Examples are using the Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011, things may be located in a slightly different location on your application.
Setting up Your File
The file is organized in a series of columns, which represent fields in SureDone, and rows, which represent items in SureDone.
- The Columns -
The first row is the headers - this tells the system what fields will be updated with the values in each column. In the below example, column C will hold all of your “stock” values for the items in this spreadsheet.
There are two very important headers that must come first:
- The action - this must be the first column (A) - it tells the system what action to perform.
There are 6 possible actions:- Edit - edits the products with the data provided in the uploaded spreadsheet.
- Relist - this will take the products and relist them to your active channels. If a product is already listed on some channels, it will act as an update for those channels.
- Add - adds new products to SureDone and pushes them to the marketplaces
- Start - adds products to your inventory as a draft. It will not push to any marketplace.
- End - ends the listing on any active channels, but keeps the product in your SureDone
- Delete - deletes the product from all channels AND the SureDone database forever, this cannot be undone.
- The identifier - this must be the second column. It tells the system which product to perform the action on.
There are 3 possible identifiers:- GUID - this is the best one to use, it is easy to recognize & complete unique
- SKU - you can also use the SKU, but only if you are not working on variation listings
- ID - this is a sequential number assigned by the system which is also 100% unique
After these two, you can have as many headers or as few headers as you’d like. Please write them all in small cases. You should only upload headers you are using for that specific upload (e.g. if you are uploading the price & stock there - is no reason to include the title header. Every field in SureDone has a corresponding bulk header and the order is not important as long as the action is first and the identifier is second.
You can download a file with the most common headers and please see the attached file.
Please note that if you include a header that isn't being updated and it is left blank in the CSV, after submitting the upload your data might be overwritten. It is best to only include headers of fields you want to edit/update and that all the cells for that corresponding header are filled (unless you are intentionally trying to clear data of the field for certain items).
- The Rows -
Each row in your bulk upload file represents a product. The system checks column A for the action and then checks column B to know which product this line represents. It then applies all of the data in the following cells to the fields listed in the header row. In the example below, you will see us editing 3 different products with their price and stock.
It’s important that you only have a product on your spreadsheet once, putting the same product on the sheet twice will cause problems, with the second instance overwriting any changes by the first.
- File Format -
Make sure that the file you upload is a .csv (Comma Separated Values) spreadsheet.
If the file is already in another format, you can do this by selecting File > “Save As…"
If you upload a .xlsx, .txt, or another file, you will receive an error "Upload Failed: Identifier is invalid” because the Bulk Uploader won’t be able to read it.
Now that you know the basics about how Bulk Files are made, Click Here to learn how to export data out of SureDone in bulk.
This guide is a part of the “Introduction to Bulk” Series - for maximum learning, please read all the guides in the series! To view the whole series, go here!