This tutorial will provide you with an introduction to Elastic Path Commerce 6.1's attribute and import capabilities. It will guide you through the creation of product attributes, the creation of a product type and the import of a category and its products.
What you will learn
- Import product attributes
- Import product types
- Upload product images.
Background
Elastic Path Commerce 6.1 administrators need to import product attributes and categories from time to time, as an organization's catalog changes. These activities might be done in a batch process in Elastic Path Commerce 6.1 using the EP Import/Export Utility, or manually, but in some cases it will be more convenient to simply import them through the Commerce Manager. This tutorial steps you through the import process.
Prerequisites
Elastic Path Commerce 6.1 Trial installation.
(This tutorial assumes that you are working from the demonstration SNAPITUP storefront that is provided as part of the Elastic Path Commerce 6.1 trial installer.)
You will need the following files to complete the exercise; ensure you have everything before beginning.
- book-images directory containing the following images:
- building-images.jpg
- interactive-panoramas.jpg
- mastering-digital-slr-photography.jpg
- teach-yourself-photography.jpg
- the-digital-photography-book.jpg
- writings-on-photography.jpg
- book-categories.csv
- books.csv
- bookProductTemplate.properties
- bookProductTemplate.vm
Set Up VFS
You must also ensure that your Elastic Path Commerce installation can locate the asset files you will be importing. To do this, use the Commerce Manager to configure your Virtual File System (VFS) as described below. You will need to make these changes if you are working with the Trial version of Elastic Path or if you are working in a development environment.
1. Log in to Commerce Manager.
2. From the Activity menu select Configuration, then click System Configuration in the left pane.
3. Locate each setting in the Setting Name list in the right pane, and edit each VFS settings as follows:
| COMMERCE/APPSPECIFIC/RCP/ASSETS/vfsHost | The first part of the path to your assets. For example, c: |
|---|---|
| COMMERCE/APPSPECIFIC/RCP/ASSETS/vfsProtocol | file |
| COMMERCE/APPSPECIFIC/RCP/ASSETS/vfsRootpath | The second part of the path to your assets. For example, \path\to\assets |
With regards to setting the assets path in vfsHost and vfsRootpath, you can split the path any way you want, but you must have a part in each of the settings.
4. Close and then Restart Commerce Manager. (Your changes will not take effect until Commerce Manager has been restarted.)
Approximate time to complete
30 minutes