9. Import Configurable Product
The Import Wizard of Store Manager for Magento facilitates efficient importing of the various product types - simple, grouped, configurable, bundle etc.
Before importing configurable products in bulk you need to make sure that in your .csv file you have all the data you are going to import and that they are correctly listed and organized.
Before starting the process of import of your configurable products, please, check if you in your .csv file indicated the following:
In the column “Configurable Products” of your .csv file indicate SKUs of all simple products associated with that configurable product. The SKUs should be separated by comma symbol.
Make sure that simple products are assigned to same attribute set as configurable product you would like to import.
In configurable products (attribute) field you should indicate the attribute name basing on which configurable products should be created.
You can check the example of .csv file with correctly organized columns for proper configurable product upload below.
Please, mind that in every case the combinations of .csv fileds may be different and also you should remember about required data that are used to create correct product. It depends upon Magento required attributes (like description, price, qty, etc) or your the required attributes which you yourself set as required.
After you make sure that your .csv file contains all the necessary data, you can go ahead and launch Import Products Wizard itself.
1. You can call up Import Products Wizard from Import/Export tab or you can also choose Import Products Wizard button on the toolbar.
Either you can right-click on any products and choose the action to run the wizard.
2. Import is mass procedure and is rather complicated one, so to ensure the safety of your data we recommend you to do database backup. It can be done directly from the Import Wizard window by pressing the relevant button.
To proceed with uploading of your configurable products, press the [Import] button.
3. The next step allows selecting the file you would like to use for import. Click the browse button to see your local folders and specify the location of the .csv file. If your file is stored somewhere remotely, you can also use HTTP or FTP link to the .csv file.
If you had performed import previously and saved import configuration settings, you can load them at this step of import.
4. At the step of .csv file preview there are no additional options to set. This window only allows to see a part of .csv file selected for import in order to make sure that you've chosen correct file with the actual data.
Also here you can check which field delimiters and quote character values you have chosen to separate columns and fields of your file. You will need to indicate that information further.
5. Select fields delimiter and quote character page contains important settings. Analyzing data from the previous step, you have to indicate delimiters for file columns and file details.
Please, pay special attention to that step, since if you specify wrong values, import may not work.
6. Next step allows choosing store view you would like to import your configurable products to. You can update default store view by checking appropriate tickbox.
7. Base formats window contains settings that influence importing of date values and numbers. In most cases you can leave these settings as they are.
8. At the next step you have to Assign columns from .csv file to appropriate database fields.
The left pane "Database Fields" shows the list of fields in your database. The right pane shows the fields of your .csv file.
You have to set the correspondence between the fields of left and right pane in order to indicate where exactly the data from .csv file will be placed after import.
If the columns are marked in red, it means that they are not assigned yet.
9. On Import Preview page you can see if you correctly set all the settings and if your columns where linked properly. which you specified at the previous steps. If some of the columns are blank, that means that either you haven't assigned .csv column, or it is empty in source (.csv) file. Columns that were not assigned will not be imported, whereas empty values will overwrite the existing.
10. Import options settings will affect Import results. So please pay special attention to that step of import.
You can choose Import Method:
"Add and Modify" – this option will add new product if it is not available in database yet and modify those products that were found
"Add Only" – only adds new products only
"Modify Only" – this option only updates the existing products and do not add new entries
"Just Add" – this option simply adds products as new without checking whether the products already exist in the database, so sometimes it may produce product duplicates (in case if the same product already exist in your database) .
Also at this step you can save all import settings and save the configuration with them somewhere at your computer. You can load it next time you decide to import configurable products to Magento from a file with similar formatting, column names etc.
Re-indexation of your database tables you can perform during the importing by checking the one of the following options:
If you use the bridge connection type choose the 'Reindex product data by bridge' option and Store Manager via bridge retrieve imported data with re -indexing during posting.
You can indicate to perform re-index by Store Manager itself after import has been completed - 'Reindex product data by Store Manager' option.
To facilitate the import process you can un-check this field and launch re-indexation from your Admin Panel after import as well.
If necessary to clean up the relations for configurable products - you should on this step of import procedure in 'Clean Relations' sector check the necessary product type check-boxes.
11. In the last window of Import Product Wizard you will see if any errors occurred during import process.
Please, also check a few useful articles:
What Are Magento Super Attributes? How to Add Super Attributes?
How to Create Various Types of Products in Magento
What is Magento Configurable Product and how to Import Magento Configurable Products?
Create Magento Configurable Products Easily
Massively Associate Child Simple Products to Main Configurable via Import to Magento