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Virtuemart Excel-Like Product Manager component documentation

 

1. Intro

2. Layout

2.1. Grid section

2.2. Upper toolbar section

2.2.1. Clone products

2.2.2. Active data search

2.3. FIlters section

3. Editable Fields

4. ADD / EDIT / DELETE Products

5. IMPORT / EXPORT Products

5.1. Import

5.2. Export

6. Product Variants

7. Component update

1. Intro

 

Must-have super simple utility component for VirtueMart online shops. It enables for user to change prices, stock and other product fields very easy and fast lake they do in MS Excel. UI and keyboard behavior is same as in MS Excel. User can also add new or delete products.

Average user needs around 45 min to modify price for 100 products using default VM interface (intense work). With this component needed time for same work task is around 6 min. From 1.0.12 we added support for product custom fields. Just imagine amount of time saving in case of editing them!

 

This is the right thing for you if your users give you a blank stare when you're trying to explain them how to update prices in stock using default Virtuemart interface.

Component suports addind and deletind.

While working with online spreadsheet all changes are autosaved.

Component support fast .CSV import and export.

 

2. Layout

 

layout.jpg

Image 1. general layout

 

There is three section of main layout, but it is  focused on one big spreadsheet (like in MS Excel). Other two are upper toolbar and righ side filters section. If you load 10000 products grid will create HTML elements only for grid rows user see, so it will work fast no matter how many product you filter. It also supports pagination. it will show up when applicable. Grid loads up to X rows per page where X is number you can set in lower left corner. General layout is shown on (Image1).

2.1. Grid section

Grid contains rows of products. You can manipulate with grid easy and fast like in MS Excel. You can use keyboard too.

 

There is Frozen columns option you can set in Options > Settings > Frozen Columns. That meand that if you scroll right, first X column will stay fixed as you scroll. Where X is number of frozen columns you set. You can see that there is three frozen coumns in this example (Image 2).

 

frozen_columns.jpg

Image 2. frozen columns (ID, SKU, Product Name)

2.2. Upper toolbar section

On upper toolbar section you have options to go back to Joomla Administrator page, undo and redo settings, clone products, delete products (if enabled in options), export options, general options and active data search.

2.2.1. Clone products

 

In grid select product you want to clone (one by one or multiselect continious rows) and then hit Clone button in upper toolbar section, after confirmation selected rows will be cloned in a second.

 

2.2.2. Active data search

Active data search is used to search entire grid fast by word. Active data search will then find all occurances of that word or phrase in current grid. Note that dropdown cells aren’t included in search.

 

2.3. FIlters section

On the right part of screen you can see filters section (Image 3).

 

filters.jpg

Image 3. Filters

This section is used to filter products by:

 

- By product SKU

- By product name

- By product category( or multiple categories)

- By product manufacturer

- By product stock

- By product status

- By product custom fields

To apply filters, you must click on Refresh button.

Also you can mass update product price or override price that is filtered by criteria. You can update price with next rules:

 

[+/-]X%         - for updating price in percents or,

[+/-]X                  - for updating product in current currency.

 

Examlpes:

 

+10%                - to mass update filtered products price for +10%

-10                - to mass update filtered products price for -10 in curent currency

 

When you set it, hit button Mass update override price or Mass update price depend what you want.

 

Another option is that you can add, view or edit as much price as you want to selected products, ased on shopper group, discount etc. You can add price related to specific shopper group, add tax and discount. Example is on Image 4. By clicking on + Price you are adding one more price to that product or set of products.

 

prices.jpg

Image 4. Different prices, tax, currency etc. add for different group

 

 

3. Editable Fields

There is numerous editable fields, and you can edit all in just one layout (which is very fast).

List of editable fields:

 

- Product price

- Product price override (final sales price including tax)

- Product sales price

- Product shopper group / quantity range prices

- Product published

- Product featured

- Product stock

- Product alias (part of SEF url, useful when SEO optimizing)

- Product SKU

- Product name

- Product categories

- Product manufacturer

- Product meta description

- Product meta author

- Product meta keys

- Product meta robot

- Product dimensions

- Product short description

- Product description

- Product custom fields

- Product images (add/remove/order/set meta)

- Product weight

- Product weight unit

- Product length

- Product width

- Product height

- Product length/width/height unit

- Product packaging

- Product unit

- Product images

- Product content

- Product url

- Product GTIN/EAN (vm3)

- Product MPN(vm3)

 

 

4. ADD / EDIT / DELETE Products

Manipulation with products is as simple as it can be because of grid.

 

Last row is always empty row so you can add a new one. You must enable adding first in Options > Settings > Allow adding.

 

To edit any cel in product row, just focus on it. For editing “Images” or “Content” cell, you’ll have some extra options in place where filters used to be. You can add multiple images and for “Content” you.0’ll have HTML editor.

 

To delete row, you must enable delete first in Options > Settings > Allow deleting. After that you can delete row(s) by selecting them and clicking on “Delete” in upper toolbar, or just click on x sign on very left of each row when hobvered.

 

All changes are auto-saved.

 

5. IMPORT / EXPORT Products

With our component you can easily import and export numerous of products with CSV(comma separated) files. To run export or import go to upper toolbar and yo’ll see Export/Import option Image 5. One of great possibilities of our component is that you can have customized Export/Import.

 

import.jpg

Image 5. Export/Import

5.1. Import

To import products from CSV go to Export/Import > Update from CSV. Then select file and wait to import it. Pay attention to Import options in Options > Settings > Export/Import and Custom Import options.

 

You can set separator, custom import format (select only columns you want to import from csv, not whole csv with all it’s columns), turn images import and much more.

To void price or stock update remove coresponding column from CSV file.

 

Pay attention to separator in custom import, because failure of import is in many cases related to separator, so yo need to properly set it.

 

When adding new product using import make sure cell of virtuemart_product_id is empty.

5.1.1. Importing child products / variants

 

When you are adding child products of existing product in CSV, you must enter virtuemart_product_id of parent product in “parent” cell of each chield product you are adding.

 

When you want to add children products along with parent product you dont have virtuemart_product_id available because that is auto-assigned value. In this case you can do "parent" relation using sku, slug or title convention:

Example Image 6.

import_child.jpg

Image 6. child import possibilities

Set by SKU. Example:          sku:value-of-parent-sku

Set by SLUG. Example:         slug:value-of-parent-sku

Set by TITLE. Example:         title:value-of-parent-product-title

Sku, slug or title convention can be always used instead of parent id, but we don't recomend that since id is best object designator.

5.2. Export

To export products to CSV go to Export/Import > Export CSV and wait for component to prepare and download file for you.

 

Pay attention to Export options in Options > Settings > Export/Import and Custom Export options.

6. Product Variants / Child

You can easily add product variant / child by clicking on purple + sign in column “Parent” of every product row.

7. Component update

When update is available, you’ll see notification in top toolbar. Download and rewrite files, or reinstall component.