Cleaning up after a Bad Import

A bad import will result in potentially a lot of invalid data being inserted into the system. This could include:
  • Category paths are being created & products are being put into those paths. 
  • Invalid pricing entries
  • Invalid product attributes
  • Invalid inventory or promotions
 

Careful importing

Our first piece of advice is to use any importer very carefully. They are very handy tools that save a lot of time, but if you mess them up, they can create a lot of pain to restore. So do everything to avoid it in the first place.

Our support team is available if you have any questions, and we can also provide you with a cost-effective estimate if you would rather just get us to do it for you.

We always recommend doing a couple of small test imports to start with to ensure it is working how you expect. To do this:
  1. Copy the heading row into a new spreadsheet.
  2. Copy & paste in one or two product lines.
  3. Save it as a separate spreadsheet & do import it.
  4. Examine the products you imported - in particular edit them in the administration tool and check the various tabs relating to what you imported.
    1. If you imported categories or multiple categories, check the "Categories" tab under the product. Ensure the product is in the categories you expect (and only those categories)
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    2. If you imported complex pricing check the "Advanced Pricing" tab
       
    3. If you imported product attribute columns scroll down in the "general" tab & check the expected attributes exist. Check no additional attributes you didn't want have been imported - especially if products have different attributes.
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Recovering from a bad import

If you do a bad import, we can't simply undo it. However, there are a few options:
 

Manual recovery

Manually undoing the changes is a tedious task. This is why we recommend doing a small test run first as it makes it a lot easier to undo:
  1. Edit the product in the admin & check its fields are set as you expect - manually revert any that aren't.
  2. If you imported categories:
    Click on the "Categories" tab under the item to see what categories it was added to. Delete it from any it should not be in.
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    Edit the full category list for your website (under Items > Category List). Delete any incorrect categories that may have been created by the import.
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  3. If you imported pricing lines (beyond the default pricing field):
    Click on the "Advanced pricing" tab & check the data there aligns with what you wanted. If not, revert it.
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If your import hasn't created a lot of entries for bad products, categories or pricing, you may be able to simply re-import the correct spreadsheet data.

If in doubt, feel free to discuss the best approach with our team.
 

Full website restore

We take regular backups of your website & can roll back to when the last backup was taken. However, this is the "nuclear option". It is least desirable primarily because you will lose any changes & data from your website since the restore was taken. This includes orders, enquiries, tracking data, products & categories you may have edited since the restore point.
It takes a bit of time & effort for our team to do the restore - so there is an associated cost.

Click here to learn more about what your options are in this regard.