Catalog Upload

You can upload catalog data in comma-separated value (CSV) files by using the Management Center Catalogs tool. Catalog data includes categories, catalog entries (products, SKUs, bundles, and kits), sales catalogs, attributes, asset references, and more. If you have catalog data in a spreadsheet, you can upload the data from the spreadsheet instead of manually entering the data into the Catalogs tool.

Feature Pack 6 or later You can also load this data in XML format. If you choose to create and use an XML formatted file, ensure that your file uses the CSV column names as the XML element names.

Note: You must upload the images that are associated with the catalog data with the Assets tool.

Use the Catalog Upload feature to upload:

A comma-separated value (CSV) file.
One or more CSV files in a compressed (.zip) file.
Multiple language CSV files in a compressed (.zip) file. If you load multiple language CSV files in a compressed file, you must make sure all the CSV files are using the same file encoding.
An XML formatted file.
One or more XML files in a compressed (.zip) file.
One or more CSV files and one or more XML files in a compressed (.zip) file.
Multiple language XML files in a compressed (.zip) file. If you load multiple language XML files in a compressed file, you must make sure all the XML files are using the same file encoding.
Catalog entry or catalog entry descriptive information updates by using keywords. You can update specific information without including values for all fields (CSV columns or XML elements) in the input file. If a field does not include a value in the input file, then the field is not changed by the upload process.

You can also delete and replace catalog data with the Catalog Upload feature. The Catalog Upload feature uses the Data Load utility.

Known limitations of the Catalog Upload feature

Newly created business objects such as catalog entries or categories might not show up immediately on the storefront due to dynamic caching.
To resolve this problem, invalidate cache manually. For more information about cache invalidation, see Removing cache entries through the Cache Monitor.
The Data Load utility sample files might not behave the same way as the Catalog Upload sample files.
The Catalog Upload feature does not work with the Firefox browser, use Internet Explorer to upload catalog data.
The Catalog Upload feature does not support synchronizing data across linked categories. Do not use Catalog Upload to change the parent or child categories for a category that is a linked category. You can use Catalog Upload to add or remove catalog entries from a category. When you load changes to the catalog entry assignments for a category, the load process does synchronize the changes across any linked categories.
If you are working in an extended site store, you cannot use Catalog Upload to load data for creating, updating, or deleting catalog objects that belong to your catalog asset store. To load data for catalog objects that belong to your catalog asset store, you must switch the store that you are working in to be your catalog asset store.
The Catalog Upload feature cannot set categories to be marked for delete. When you include a value to delete a category with the Catalog Upload feature, the load operation deletes the category from the database.
An IT developer can customize the Catalog Upload feature to support marking categories for delete by enabling the markForDelete property in a custom configuration file. For more information, see Catalog load configuration properties.
You cannot use the Catalog Upload feature to load rule-based sales category data.

Other ways of uploading catalog data

In addition to uploading catalog data with the Catalogs tool, you can also upload catalog data with the command-line loading utilities. The command-line loading utilities include the Data Load utility and the massload utility. Use the command-line utilities for loading large amounts of data, for example, when initially loading the stores catalogs.

Feature Pack 6 or later The massload utility is deprecated for WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 6. The Data Load utility is the recommended command-line loading utility. If you are currently using the mass load utility, you are recommended to switch to the Data Load utility to load your CSV and XML input files into your target database. If your system contains scheduled and automated processes that use massload, it is recommended that you update these processes to use the Data Load utility. Other WebSphere Commerce utilities that use the massload utility, such as the acpload utility, continue to use the massload utility in WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 6. If you have business reasons to continue using the massload utility, you can continue to use this utility. For more information about the Data Load utility, see Overview of the Data Load utility. You can switch to the Data Load utility by using the TableObjectMediator to load your data when no business object mediator exists for the data that you are loading. For more about the TableObjectMediator formation, see Data Load utility table-based mediator and builder.