10. The Data Tool

The Data Tool is a companion product to Kartris. It's a Windows application that is designed to carry out various tasks relating to Kartris, although it is primarily used for importing data.

The Data Tool is presently a free download from our web site.

10.1. Overview

The Data Tool requires .NET 4.0 or above installed on your machine in order to run. It can be downloaded for free from our web site 'downloads' page. It does not need installation, just unzip the files to your desktop and then open KartrisDataTool.exe to get started. You should see the following:

10.2. Getting started

You will generally find it's easier to use the Data Tool if you set up the connections you need before starting. Clicking 'Saved connections' in the left hand menu brings up a dialog which lets you create as many connections to different databases as you need.

10.3. Importing data

The Data Tool can import from CactuShop v6 or v7 (CactuShop is an older classic ASP shopping cart also produced by Cactusoft), from a CSV or Excel spreadsheet, or from another Kartris database.

The basic principle of data imports is to have a source and destination, and copy information from one to the other. In this way, imports and upgrades do not damage or change the original database.

The import dialogs will typically walk you through step-by-step, and give information if there are problems.

10.3.1. Formatting spreadsheet/CSV data for import

The Data Tool requires CSV or spreadsheet data to be suitably formatted for import. A sample spreadsheet with some correctly formatted data is included in the data tool zip, or you can download it below.

Example Excel Spreadsheet for importing with the Kartris data tool 1519051679_8531.xls 48KB

10.3.1.1. Categories

Above: the category fields section of the data tool import spreadsheet

The spreadsheet can contain categories nested up to FIVE levels deep. The first column, Cat5_Name1, holds a top level category name. The Cat4_Name1 field on the same line would hold a subcategory of this, and so on down to Cat1_Name1.

Since each product must have at least one parent category, every row of your spreadsheet should have a Cat5_Name1 value, but not necessarily any subcategories.

10.3.1.2. Products

Above: the product fields section of the data tool import spreadsheet

The P_Name1 field (product name) holds the name of the product. Product name is used by the data tool as the key for a product, therefore you should not have multiple products with the same name in a data tool spreadsheet (if you do, they will be assumed to be the same product). However, the product name will appear on multiple rows if a product has multiple versions.

10.3.1.3. Product images

The P_Image field in the spreadsheet is very flexible in accepting the locations of images.

You can enter a single image name, or you can add multiple image locations, separated with either a comma or semi-colon.

image1.jpg
image1.jpg,image2.jpg,image3.jpg
image1.jpg;image2.jpg;image3.jpg

If you enter local paths to images (e.g. just an image name, or a folder plus image name), then the data tool will look for these within the source images folder you specify. So in the case above, if you selected a folder on the C: drive called 'source', it would look for those JPG files in C:\source.

You can also get the data tool to retrieve web images, if you have a full URL. In this case, the data tool will still need a 'source' folder, but will retrieve the web image, copy it to this source folder and then process it and position it in the destination folder. For example:

http://www.site.xyz/images/image1.jpg
http://www.site.xyz/images/image1.jpg,http://www.site.xyz/images/image2.jpg
http://www.site.xyz/images/image1.jpg;http://www.site.xyz/images/image2.jpg

If you leave the image field blank, then no image will be created in the new 'Images' folder system. However, this will not delete images that are already on the site in that location.

10.3.1.4. Versions

Above: the version fields section of the data tool import spreadsheet

The V_CodeNumber (the SKU) is the unique key for versions and must be unique.

V_Price and V_Weight should all be numerical values with no currency or weight units.

V_Type can be 'c' for combination, 'b' for base version (the base of an options product) or 'v' for version. The field is not required, if blank, 'v' will be assumed.

10.3.1.5. Tax rates

The T_TaxRate field for EU sites, and others using a VAT model (UK, NZ) should hold the % rate of VAT that applies. The T_TaxRate2 field should have zero.

For Canadian sites, it will hold the GST value, while the T_TaxRate2 field would hold the PST value.