In this Guide: DataPort Changes for v4.1

Tracking Upload: Changing Order Status & Updates to Product Inventory

MonsterCommerce 4.1 has made some changes to help ensure inventory levels for products and advanced variants are better maintained when the status of an order is changed. DataPort 4.0 has now been modified to adjust inventory levels in the exact same manner when you use the Tracking Upload.

Products Upload: Maximum Characters in a Field

With MonsterCommerce version 4.1 certain fields within the Product Editor have new maximum character limits. DataPort has been changed to adhere to these new field lengths. Data will automatically be truncated to fit the new rules when either entered or imported into DataPort.

The new maximum characters allowed within the Product Editor are:

• Manufacturer Part Number - 250 characters
• Product Part Number - 250 characters
• Additional Information Link - 500 characters
• Additional Information Link Label - 1000 characters
• Large Image filename - 500 characters
• Large Image Alt Title - 500 characters
• Thumbnail Image filename - 500 characters
• Thumbnail Image Alt Title - 500 characters
• Advanced Variant Product Number - 250 characters
• Advanced Variant Manufacturer Number - 250 characters

Customer Upload: Validation for New Required Fields

Required Fields within the Customer Profile

With version 4.1 new data validations have been introduced for the Customer Profile. They are as follows:

• All Customers must have a First Name, Last Name and either an Email address or a Username defined
• All Customers must have a Street Address, City, State/Province (if U.S. or Canada), Zip code and Country
• All Customers must have a Password
• No two Customers can have the same Email address
• No two Customers can have the same Username
• No two Customers can have the same combination of First Name, Last Name and Email Address and/or Username

How are Customer Profiles Identified?

The Customer ID is now the primary key by which a Customer Profile is identified. This Customer ID is now included in the customer download/upload and is the value used to identify which Customer Profile to update. Using the Customer ID as the primary reference allows the First Name, Last Name, Email and Username values to be changed via DataPort. If the Customer ID does not match the ID of an existing profile, then the Customer is identified by the combination of First Name/Last Name/Email/Username.

The steps that DataPort goes through to identify customers are:

• If a Customer ID is associated with the Customer Profile then DataPort will look for an existing profile with this ID
• If a Customer Profile is found with this Customer ID then the profile is updated
• If a Customer Profile with this ID cannot be found, or the ID was not provided during the upload, then DataPort will look for a Customer Profile with matching First Name, Last Name, Email and Username information
• If a match is then found this Customer Profile is updated
• If no match is found by either the ID or other information, then a new Customer Profile is created with the provided information

Validation Process when Uploading Customer Information

When Customer information is uploaded to your MonsterCommerce store through DataPort, the information is checked against all Customer Profile data validation rules. Those Customer Profiles that pass the validation rules can be uploaded to your store.

This process also indicates the Customer Profiles that do not pass validation. Those Customer Profiles will not be uploaded until the issues are corrected. A new function has been added that allows you to export the Customer Profiles that do not pass validation to a CSV file for easier updates.

The following steps will export these Customer Profiles to a CSV file:

• Download all customers
• Press the button to upload customers, DataPort will validate all the customer data
• Instead of uploading, press the “Export Invalid Customers” button and save the information to a CSV
• Edit this CSV in Excel, adding in missing information and changing data to prevent conflicts
• Purge DataPort's memory or close and re-open DataPort
• Import in the CSV of edited customer data
• Click the button to upload the customers
• Verify that all the customer data passes validation
• Press the “Upload” button

Note: Keep in mind that you have now downloaded the Customer IDs for these Customer Profiles. Any changes to the First Name, Last Name, Email and Username fields will be updated in the Customer Profiles with these IDs

Image Legend:

• Green - Customer uploaded successfully
• Red - Customer uploaded process encountered an error
• Gray - Customer does not pass validation rules