Template feeds with attributes

[chetv]

I know this has been a question for some time but has anyone figured out how include attributes as separate products when creating Google or other feeds. I have 1 store that must have 1,000 attributes and we either forget submitting them or I create a manual spreadsheet. We are not using inventory in this store. There must be a better way.

[Mark Hood]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

I know this has been a question for some time but has anyone figured out how include attributes as separate products when creating Google or other feeds. I have 1 store that must have 1,000 attributes and we either forget submitting them or I create a manual spreadsheet. We are not using inventory in this store. There must be a better way.

I'm not so sure this is possible without using inventory since that is the information google is looking to receive with attributes. If you do use inventory you can use something like emporium plus template data feed or a service like feedexact.

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

Mark,
We have been making our feeds to Google and Bing etc with Bill's template feed for many years but we have never figured out how to include all the attributes. I don't have any problem using inventory as a mechanism to get attributes included in the Google feed, we just don't want to display inventory on our website. If you know of a way to include attributes I would appreciate more comments. This one art supply site has a lot of attributes and works very well with attributes. We have found our customer will search for products that are attributes and not pick up on the main product.

[Brennan]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

You can have inventory tracking turned off and still use inventory variants. Inventory variants will create a non active product you can use to export the attribute specific data (SKU, Weight, size, color, etc)

Here are some videos on how they work:

http://www.mivamerchant.com/videos/s...ts-demystified

http://www.mivamerchant.com/videos/s...ntory-variants

Oncs you have inventory variants setup you can use template data feed to loop through the variants for each product and output them to the feed.

It is also worth noting that feeds are very high on our priority list to build into the core software, so expect some new functionality in the future. These too will need variants setup to export attribute specific data as products.

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

Brennan thank you for the reference videos. They were helpful.

I have been using Weiland's template feed for many years. I am somewhat confused by Bill's explanation on setting up the feed under his FAQ area and the use of a custom fields. I do use custom fields so that is not the issue. Is anyone doing their Google feeds this way? Would you mind sharing your setup? For example, in the variant setup video each variant is a inactive part. Normally you setup your template feed for active parts only? How are the variants going to be included in the export? Do you use custom fields for each attribute (variant generated part)?

This one site i'm working has probably only 5 template based attributes but probably 100 product based attributes with 10-30 attributes per product. So you see the number gets quite large.

Any help your be appreciated.

[Brennan]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

Hi Chet -

See the Q/A section here

http://www.emporiumplus.com/v5/exprodf.htm


The specific one which addresses this question.

Q: How do I export multiple lines for a product when that product has variants which change the product?

A: Beginning with Template Data Feed 5.066 and Miva Merchant Production Release 8 you can use the token %item_group_id% in the product line. Note: Google is currently only accepting these attributes as product variants (color, material, pattern, size). So in conjunction with the %item_group_id% you will also use the token for the variant. Those are in the format %variant:color%. This tells the module to stay on the same master product and export a separate line for each variant. So if you have attribute inventory variant products, then use this feature in the header and product lines. If you do not have any attribute inventory variant products, do not use this feature. Naturally, use of the token will increase the processing time required to generate the data feed, so don't use it if not needed.

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

I'm setting this up I come up with this - I already have a custom field for color but this is the color of certain products not variants. Do I use this same custom field named color and import the colors for the variants into this field or do I have to set up a separate color and name it something slightly different and then adjust the template to this new name?

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

I tried a few things and feel the inventory variants are not being processed consistently. I only tried a few but some of the variants had the primary product code then the attribute; some of the attributes only had attributes showing in the variant list. One part that looked correct on www.artisticartifacts.com was 17504XXX but when I went on the site to look at it I got an error message. I tried to attach the .jpg of the error but it doesn't appear to be here.

"error message says Unable to locate form for inventory attributes"

Do you have to change all your photos to default for Inventory Variants to work? I didn't

Another point is we are using product template manager by Sebenza if that is critical?

I still have the question on how to handle color? I already have color as a custom field as a necessity for Google on clothing.

I did modify my template feed but am not getting anything to show in the feeds.

Any input would be appreciated.

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

Followup on my attempts to use inventory variants to submit attributes with template feed. Everything seems to work except for the fact that we use Sebenza's attribute template manager and that doesn't work very well with inventory variants. It creates an error message as stated above. This is disturbing to the customers and blocks Google from getting to the image and causes a feed error. Until someone either Miva or Sebenza provide a solution to the attribute quantitiy feature of Sebenza's module you can't use this functionality.

[Brennan]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

That error your getting, means the hidden input for form Action is not on the page. Attribute Machine is looking for the action with a value of ADPR.

Try adding this to the page:

<input type="hidden" name="Action" value="ADPR" />

[chetv]

Re: Template feeds with attributes

Brennan thanks for suggestion. It was already on the page and the error comes up on any item that has the Sebenza module with "Attribute Quantity for radio buttons" template and inventory variants.