Country field problem when Importing from CSV to WAM 1.49

[toolusa]

WAM works fairly well when importing from a CSV file except specifying the Country field.
When mapping, [Country] field is not available, and therefore needs to be manually set.
However, leaving [Country] field blank will produce error uploading although leaving out some other fields such as [State] and [Zipcode] will not.

WAM should be fixed in one of following ways:

1. [Country] not required when uploading, or
2. Mapping of [Country] when importing from a CSV file, or
3. Default values are automatically passed to unfilled or unmapped fields.

Please post how everyone else is dealing about this problem with WAM 1.49 when importing from a CSV file.

SK.

[Lanascountry]

Hey there SK and a warm welcome to you.
I think Mj and Rozz & Rick had to deal with that prob and think they are better able to
answer than myself. Rozz will probably be on here soon, and she is pretty good with
WAM!! WELCOME to you!! :D

[katandron1]

Okay have to ask......What is a CSV file??? I see you guys talkin about it all the time but have no earthly clue what that is.
Kat

[Lanascountry]

The comma-separated values (or CSV; also known as a comma-separated list or comma-separated variables) file format is a file type that stores tabular data. The format dates back to the early days of business computing. For this reason, CSV files are common on all computer platforms.

[toolusa]

Hey there SK and a warm welcome to you.
I think Mj and Rozz & Rick had to deal with that prob and think they are better able to
answer than myself. Rozz will probably be on here soon, and she is pretty good with
WAM!! WELCOME to you!! :D





I'm surprised to see this forum being so active!!
Glad to her Lanascountry, and look forward to see Rozz soon.

WAM is almost excellent (except what I've pointed out) compared eBay's TurboLister 2, Overstock's O-Lister (nightmare), etc. and Webidz I think has very bright future.

SK.

[toolusa]

Okay have to ask......What is a CSV file??? I see you guys talkin about it all the time but have no earthly clue what that is.
Kat

You probably now know what it is, but the significant thing about it is you can comma delimit something like [Item Title], [Description], [Price], [Quantity] to have one offer on each line in a file so that more than one items can be listed at once.

For me, I have a centralized database to generate a sales channel specific (among many such as Amazon, eBay, WeBidz, my website itself, etc.) sequence of delimited fields to import in bulk.

The objective of this thread is to smoothen importing such file to WAM so that I can upload to WeBidz without much manual work.

SK.:)

[Lanascountry]

LOL, SK..I KNOW what a CSV file IS..but use it?? DUH me!! :D
I ALSO feel we have a very bright future, we NEED folks like you in the forums to help!!
We have more wonderful members coming in daily. Kat and Roz also are very good at
handling questions! Many thanks, new friend! :)

[mj-trading]

Lana! We'll be back on here later if they have,nt got it yet as we are reloading everything in the pc again as it CRASHED! New pc and a Virus must have got it as the anti virus that came with this AVG was no good!

[Lanascountry]

try the free Norton or Mcafee..MJ..LOL, I am so sorry..I hope 'yal have not been burned..:(

[mj-trading]

The ones on the pc were bad! Now we went back to the one we were running on our p8 and the old xp we had that works great and it's free for home use! Before we were getting bugs when we had norton and the other popular one, then our internet supplier told us about this new one that they run on all there pc's and have had no problem since! It's good! www.avast.com Home addition free! Seems like it's on the job all the time!

Thanks

[admin]

WAM works fairly well when importing from a CSV file except specifying the Country field.
When mapping, [Country] field is not available, and therefore needs to be manually set.
However, leaving [Country] field blank will produce error uploading although leaving out some other fields such as [State] and [Zipcode] will not.

WAM should be fixed in one of following ways:

1. [Country] not required when uploading, or
2. Mapping of [Country] when importing from a CSV file, or
3. Default values are automatically passed to unfilled or unmapped fields.

Please post how everyone else is dealing about this problem with WAM 1.49 when importing from a CSV file.

SK.

We still have quite a ways to go with the WAM program, and the import/export function seems to be the area with the most work required. It should default to what is entered on the preferences page, but I will have to check further into this... as well as the error message.

Thanks for your report

[toolusa]

We still have quite a ways to go with the WAM program, and the import/export function seems to be the area with the most work required. It should default to what is entered on the preferences page, but I will have to check further into this... as well as the error message.

Thanks for your report

Oh yes. WAM is great compared to other listing programs like Turbo Lister 2, O-Lister, etc.
I hope this bug (or inconvenience) be fixed very soon.
I'm anxious to upload my 1,000+ (and growing) listing to WeBidz.

SK.

[admin]

If you enter country, state and zip in your preferences within WAM, it should automatically include with imported auctions.

[toolusa]

If you enter country, state and zip in your preferences within WAM, it should automatically include with imported auctions.

You don't sound like the Admin above, but another person who has access to it.
No It doesn't. That however is a one of possible solutions that I've suggested WAM to be patched.

[toolusa]

You don't sound like the Admin above, but another person who has access to it.
No It doesn't. That however is a one of possible solutions that I've suggested WAM to be patched.

You know what everyone? I was trying things based on wrong problem.
It wasn't just filling out blank fields.
Like Admin stated above and unlike I've replied in reply, what's set on Tools -> Preference DOES get filled out after opening each individual item and saving it without changing any value (after importing from CSV).

As I was playing with the data.mdb located under Program Files\WAM 1.49\Data, the most strange thing is that, even after running a small UPDATE query on the access DB like,

UPDATE items SET modified = now(), closed = 1, shipping_method = 'USPS First Class', autorelist_nb = 0, country = 2084;

to fill all unfilled columns (and make the rest of rows the same as ones that I've opened and saved) that initial importing of CSV could not set, to emulate opening and saving each row from WAM, does not get me through uploading the rest of items.

What's opening and saving (even without changing any of the values) each item does in addition to filling out unfilled fields??
Admin, Moderator, anyone??

SK.

[admin]

That is actually how it is supposed to work. I remember something similar that was previously reported, and I thought there was already a fix provided. I will ensure that this is not something that was overlooked.

[toolusa]

That is actually how it is supposed to work. I remember something similar that was previously reported, and I thought there was already a fix provided. I will ensure that this is not something that was overlooked.

I kept on playing with WAM and it's mdb database, but still couldn't figure out what makes opening and saving (after importing CSV) changes or flags for successful uploading of listings.

I don't see any other table being updated than [items] after opening and saving an offer.
I don't see any other files than data.mdb that gets updated under WAM program files folder.

SK.

[admin]

I am not exactly sure what writes where, but I would not recommend runing database queries. There are security features and processes used by the program that enable changes to reflect on the auctions. External queries would most likely just mess your auctions up. You may or may not not see such issues in your auctions within the auction manager, but after upload it could cause issues with your auctions. If the auctions become problematic within our site database, it could require us to remove all of them.

I know it is troublesome with the current bugs/issues. We just don't don't want you to experience a bunch of issues in the future, which could cause loss of data and time.

[toolusa]

I am not exactly sure what writes where, but I would not recommend runing database queries. There are security features and processes used by the program that enable changes to reflect on the auctions. External queries would most likely just mess your auctions up. You may or may not not see such issues in your auctions within the auction manager, but after upload it could cause issues with your auctions. If the auctions become problematic within our site database, it could require us to remove all of them.

I know it is troublesome with the current bugs/issues. We just don't don't want you to experience a bunch of issues in the future, which could cause loss of data and time.

I understand you are being precautious, but I just want you to know that I've been a CIO at a bank for some time. I'm rather new to only business/marketing aspects of ecommerce.
It's just the basics I'm playing around to see if there would be a quick fix as I'm also starting to be interested in PHPprobid.
Speaking of PHPprobid, can you guys simply forward this problem with importing CSV to PHPprobid or Sage-ware support? Although modified WeBidz, they should have solution. No?

[admin]

We are actually the developers of this program. SageWare is one of our companies, and ProBid is the software base that we are programming this application for. We are currently working out bugs in the newest release, which should have already been completed. The import/export functionality is actually one of our top priorities after the next release.

[toolusa]

We are actually the developers of this program. SageWare is one of our companies, and ProBid is the software base that we are programming this application for. We are currently working out bugs in the newest release, which should have already been completed. The import/export functionality is actually one of our top priorities after the next release.

Oh that's very good to hear.
I'm just anxious to see how well WeBidz will sell my products.
Thanks!!

[toolusa]

We are actually the developers of this program. SageWare is one of our companies, and ProBid is the software base that we are programming this application for. We are currently working out bugs in the newest release, which should have already been completed. The import/export functionality is actually one of our top priorities after the next release.

Oh I'm just anxious to see some actions.
Does anyone know when the next release of WAM be out?
We have a confirmation that 1.49 doesn't work very well with CSV imports...

If I could add one more thing, it gets really slow as number of items become larger (and it gets too large), which must be due to the way it utilizes access DB.

Problem 1: With little more than 800 items, DB becomes 162mb. That's about 200k per listing. Master DB doesn't take up much data, but only few MBs.
-> A DB with more number of listings (each listing contains more data than that of WAM DB) is only 42mb. Compacting the WAM DB did not help and I'm suspecting WAM DB saves picture files as OLE maybe? There is a field for it and that's the only thing that could possibly expand the size of the DB file.

Problem 2: Each time a listing opens within WAM, DB file is opened to SELECT it, and each time a listing is saved within WAM, DB files is opened to UPDATE it.
-> DB can be left open while working on WAM. Opening and closing the DB file takes more resource than leaving it open.


Thanks!!

SK.

[admin]

We just imported over 1400 items from csv for a customer, and the database is only 44mb. 800 items should not run the database size that high. Possibly do you still have a bunch of closed items in the auction manager? If so, we would suggest choosing to display "ended items" from the drop down menu at the bottom of the auction manager screen. Then select all and delete these if you no longer need them. Then choose compact database from the file menu. Compacting the databse will only bring the size down if there have been items removed. Kind of like defraging your pc.

Only the picture path is stored in the database, not the picture itself. Pictures are stored in the uplimg folder.

I am not sure about the opening and closing of the DB, but can look into this. When you are opening an auction, is it taking a long time to open?

CSV import works fine with 1.49, but future versions will be more user friendly as we implement changes. Is there a particular problem you are having with the import function?

[toolusa]

We just imported over 1400 items from csv for a customer, and the database is only 44mb. 800 items should not run the database size that high. Possibly do you still have a bunch of closed items in the auction manager? If so, we would suggest choosing to display "ended items" from the drop down menu at the bottom of the auction manager screen. Then select all and delete these if you no longer need them. Then choose compact database from the file menu. Compacting the databse will only bring the size down if there have been items removed. Kind of like defraging your pc.

Only the picture path is stored in the database, not the picture itself. Pictures are stored in the uplimg folder.

I am not sure about the opening and closing of the DB, but can look into this. When you are opening an auction, is it taking a long time to open?

CSV import works fine with 1.49, but future versions will be more user friendly as we implement changes. Is there a particular problem you are having with the import function?

Are there many Admins in this forum? Let me brief the conclusion of WAM 1.49 CSV import problem.
-> WAM 1.49 does import CSV file alright. But it's not immediately uploadable. Opening an item and saving it (after CSV import) makes particular item ready for uploading. Hence, with hundreds of litems, importing CSV to upload is practically not working.

Again, I've been a CIO for some time before jumping into e-business and the technical issues that I bring up in this forum is not to seek for help, but to advise whoever develops WAM.

As Admin has presented as an example, an MS-Access DB with 1,000 items should be about 40+MB.
Something is not right about my WAM DB has because it's about 800 items and 162MB.
And if you think again here, how much of a text make that much difference? (Please remember the CIO thing. I don't have any undeleted or hidden items. 162MB is jumped from few MBs immediately after CSV import.)
There is something that makes the DB large.
Though, above Problem1 is not that important. It takes a lot more time and energy to fix DB structure.
WAM being still in pre-mature stage of programming, performance tuning can be done later.

Also Problem2 can be a quick fix, but is not really a requirement if immediate uploading is possible (after CSV import).

What's most important here is, when will be the next release of WAM be???

SK.

[admin]

We expected the next release to be out already, but have been having some issues/bugs with the invoicing section, which is where the majority of the changes are being made for the next release. The next release should be shortly. But database size issue will not be addressed in the next release, as we are not aware of a specific issue.

When you are matching columns for import are you matching all item specific columns (title, description, price, etc), then choosing "use default settings" for all other entries (like currency, duration, payment options, etc). Possibly a field like description is being entered into other fields? Which could increase the database size significantly.

[toolusa]

As of March 14th, 2008, with new release of WAM to 2.05, all my problems are solved.

1. As soon as CSV import, it was immediately uploadable. I did not have to repeat opening and saving each item. The bulk uploading is now fixed.
2. Because I don't have to open and close an item, DB size getting too big was not a problem - As soon as CSV import, I upload then delete all items from WAM. In this way, the DB status is close to being left open. And the problem of handling the DB file is at opening the DB file when a single item is opened, then DB file is closed when such a single item is closed. But it is definitely a wish list to improve on how DB file is handled.

Thank you WeBidz!!

SK.

[admin]

Glad to hear things are working better for you. We still have a long ways to go, but we are slowly getting there. We thank everyone for having patience with us as we build this tool further and resolve bugs.