ChannelEngine: create product bundles in bulk via CSV upload

About this article

This article describes the process involved in the creation of product bundles in bulk, using a CSV file.

Introduction

While it is possible to create individual product bundles step by step via the ChannelEngine web interface, it is also possible to create basic bundles by uploading a CSV file. If you need to add a lot of product information to your bundles, use an additional feed to enrich them – or manually update them via the regular bundle management tool on ChannelEngine.

Requirements

The following requirements must be met for you to successfully create new bundles in bulk.

• The CSV must have a comma as delimiter. Delimiters such as semicolons, pipes, or tabs cannot be used.
• Prices must have decimals, and cannot contain thousands separators. Use a dot as the decimal separator. E.g.: 59.99. It is also possible to use the string value DEFAULT (or default), which uses the current price of the product.
• The value in the MPN_BUNDLE is under 20 characters.
• default), which uses the current price of the product.
• Duplicate Merchant product numbers for individual products (e.g.: PRODUCT1_MPN) are not allowed. Instead, use the PRODUCT_QTY columns to increase the number of units per product.
• Duplicate Merchant product numbers for bundles (e.g.: MPN_BUNDLE) are not allowed within the same CSV. If you use an MPN_BUNDLE that had been created previously, it updates the existing bundle with the latest details.
• Merchant product numbers tied to parent products are not allowed.
• The CSV must contain the following columns, be it in upper or lower case, with the following headers names. Note that the locations of the headers and their values are fixed. I.e.: column #1 needs to contain a unique Merchant product number for your bundle, column #2 must contain a unique GTIN, etc.
• MPN_BUNDLE - the bundle's unique Merchant product number. The maximum number of characters is 20.
• EAN_BUNDLE - the bundle's unique GTIN, such as an EAN or UPC. Note that this GTIN cannot be already known to ChannelEngine.
• NAME_BUNDLE - the bundle's title.
• IMG_LINK* - the bundle's main image.
• PRODUCT1_MPN - the Merchant product number of the bundle's first product. This product has to be known to ChannelEngine.
• PRODUCT1_QTY - the quantity of the first product included in the bundle.
• PRODUCT1_PRICE - the price of the first product.
• PRODUCT2_MPN** - the Merchant product number of the bundle's second product. This product has to be known to ChannelEngine.
• PRODUCT2_QTY** - the quantity of the second product included in the bundle.
• PRODUCT2_PRICE** - the price of the second product.
• And so on.

* If you provide this information via an additional feed, you do not have to include it in your bundle feed. However, the column related to this attribute must be included.

** If one of these values is left empty for one of the products in your bundle, the product is excluded from the bundle.

Process

Once you select the CSV file for upload, ChannelEngine processes the file. If all goes well, the task is marked as a success. You can see the status of this task on ChannelEngine by going to Settings, Scheduled tasks.

If the file processing fails, the task is given the label Failed – and a notification is shown. Note that you may need to enable Product bundles import failed notifications, under the Product message settings, to receive notifications of this kind. More information on enabling notifications can be found in the article ChannelEngine: how to configure notifications.

The error in the notification should state that a definition cannot be found, which either means that one of your column headers is named incorrectly or the GTIN/Merchant product number for the individual parts of the bundle cannot be found. If the error is unclear, contact ChannelEngine's Support team – and make sure to have your CSV file ready.

Example file

To download an example of CSV template, click the link below.