AttributeBuilder™ - Online Help
STARBASE-21
sells a great import module called FlatFile Attribute Import. It let's
you get all those product attributes
into your store, quickly and easily by importing a flat file that you create
locally on your computer.
But, creating the flat
file to import is a whole other job. You can create it with a text editor like
Notepad, or you
can use a spreadsheet program like Excel that doesn't do the greatest job of
creating a properly formatted flatfile.
AttributeBuilder™
is a 32bit Windows application that makes managing your products' attributes
easy, efficient and simple.
In a few easy steps, you can populate your Merchant store with product attributes
and easily make changes to your attributes
without the frustration of using the Admin interface.
Installing the Software
AttributeBuilder™
comes with 2 files: AttributeBuilder.exe and ATTRIBS.DBF. Place these files
together in a folder and run
the exe from that folder. Save a backup of the DBF file, as it comes blank,
should you ever wish to revert to a blank file again.
The Process
Run AttributeBuilder™
locally on your Windows 95/98/NT/2K computer and enter all your product information
into its builtin database.
One click of the Export
menu and in seconds your flatfile is created, perfectly formatted for importing
into your store.
Here's an example of the flat file produced with the little bit of data entered
in the program to create these screenshots:
Open the Admin interface
in your store, then under your store's Utilities, click on the
Import Attributes From Flat File
utility.
Click on the Upload File
button next to the Data File field and browse to the local directory where you've
installed AttributeBuilder™. Here you'll find the flat file that it produced,
named: attribexport.dat. Check the
Overwrite checkbox and then click the Upload button. The flat file will be uploaded
to your server and the
pop-up window will disappear. Select Other for the Delimiter and use the default
| (pipe character). Then
click the Next button.
Since you'll be keeping
all your attributes locally with AttributeBuilder™, and the flat
file will always contain all your
products' attributes, you can select from the 3 options of Existing Attributes.
NOTE: products must
exist in your store BEFORE you can import attributes for them. Need a program
to make handling
your products import file easy? See our ProductBuilder
program.
For the Fields, you can
select whether you want to SKIP a particular field, or designate the fields
that are in your flat file.
Click the Import button, and your products' attributes are all updated. It's
that simple!