Database Help

I'm PHP illiterate. I'm trying to add ecommerce to a client's existing site but am having major issues with the database portion. When I say issues I mean every aspect other than adding the free ecommerce database to MAMP. After that I'm lost. I'm trying to populate the database with the products. I've been reading forum after forum along with the help and support guides but am truly lost. I've looked at using the admin back-end but that won't work due to the client having over 10,000 products if you include the option variations. My question is how do I go about getting these products somewhere so I can use them on the website? The client did send me a speadsheet in numbers with the product info but he put each option for a particular item in a new line as if it's a different product. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I throw my computer out the window.

Thanks,
Cameron

Hi Cameron,

Firstly, its not really a good idea to venture into an eCommerce project without knowing PHP unless you are using a ready made store such as PowerStore.

Secondly, you need to request that your client provides you with the information in a format that you can import into mySQL using a tool such as Navicat or phpMyAdmin. Either that or charge them for the time it takes to add 10,000's manually.

The way that I see it, the client has two options. Either pay for your time for manual entry or provide the data in a workable format (i.e. one line per product) so that you can import it.

The key is to be up front and honest with your client. It will save you a lot of unnecessary pain in the long run.

Cheers
Ian

Thanks Ian for the info. The difficulty is why I'm doing it. I learn best by falling forward and learning from my mistakes. Just sent him an email to see if he could reorganize the data.

No worries.

Let us know how you get on :-)

Cheers
Ian

I'm cooking with gas now. I got all 11,016 products to upload. Now just trying to figure out recordsets to allow for product placement on current pages. Any guidance there would be appreciated. Especially, any decent tutorials or how to's to learn the in and outs.

Thanks a lot for your support Ian

Cameron

Hi Cameron!

Take a look at data-bridge/ and the "How-tos". (data_bridge_manage_relational_table.php)
Maybe they can light up your next step. :)

But in general you need to create recordsets, with or with out databas/tabel relations.
And then loop them on the page or on a area on the page (like the top 10 best-sellers).

Ex. Database with 2 tables, tbl_products and tbl_categories

if you just wanna show the products (all) on one page you make a recordset for that table then loop them on one page (by draging the field from the recordset on the bindingspanel on to the page, then put a Repeat region on that field).
Els if you wanna loop from a category u need to make a recordset for looping every product from category 1. This is good if you are to have different pages with products.


Hope i understod you right, and that it will point you in the right direction! :)

Best regards Morgan

Thanks Morgan, that makes tons of sense. I've read pretty much all the how to's pertaining to databridge and eCart and started to watched the tutorial/video on recordsets but I tend to be fast paced and it was driving me nuts having to click as the video told me to but you reply makes total sense. Thanks for the info.

Cameron

Hi

Morgan, thanks for stepping in. I haven't been at the computer today so have only just seen Camerons reply.

Cameron, great to hear you got to where you wanted to be.

Cheers
Ian

Hi, nice to hear that you are on the right way and that we are able to help you out :)

Regards Morgan

Morgan I am on the right path but still have an issue/confusion about adding products to current pages. I want to add a few products to a page but cannot figure out how to even though you explained it previously.

I want to add the products to display similarly to how they are shown in the results page meaning the same info and size. I have 20 specific products to add but have no clue how to go about doing it such as making a table or adding fieldsets and how to make it pull only the products I want. Any step by step help would be greatly appreciated. The how to mentioned previously does not pertain to what I'm trying to do due to it discussing checkboxes and not tables or whatever I need to be doing and it talks about using all the data in a table not specific items.

Cameron