Section in the admin panel: Catalogue → Product import.
What this is
A wizard for the bulk addition and update of products from an Excel file. Replaces manual one-by-one entry in Catalogue → Products, when a firm sets up a new sheet collection, updates a manufacturer's price list or connects hundreds of new positions at once. The file may contain hundreds or thousands of rows.
Access: open to the root firm administrator (with the right to import "on behalf of" any selected firm) and to regular firms with filled-in contacts (phone + email) — without contacts the import is closed, so that there is someone to call when there are problems with a heavy upload.
Supported formats
Excel only: .xlsx or .xls. One file per import. The encoding is the standard Excel one, column separators are detected by the system itself.
Wizard steps
Step 1. Uploading the file
- Firm selection (only for the root administrator; a regular firm imports only into itself). The imported products will be bound to the selected firm.
- Download example file — button that generates a reference Excel with all the right columns. Each header contains a comment with the field description — use it to understand what goes where. The example file itself has a second sheet, "Field descriptions" — a detailed reference for every field; only the first sheet is processed on upload, the others (including this one) are ignored and do not interfere with the import.
- Upload file — pick your .xlsx and click "Upload".
Also on this step the product name formation formula is shown:
[decor code] [structure] [edging type] [radius] [moisture-resistant] [decor name] [manufacturer name] [X] [Y] [Z]The worktop edging type takes the values 1U, 2U, 1L, 2L (edge profile variants), 1ABS (the edge on one long side is closed with ABS edge banding), 2ABS (the edge on two sides is closed with ABS edge banding), or XX (no rounding). The rounding radius is one of: R1, R1.5, R3, R3.3, R5.5, R6, R9, R13 (in mm).
The name is assembled automatically from the corresponding Excel columns — no need to compose each name manually. This gives uniformity: products of one collection get the same name format, only the dimensions and characteristics differ. If the edging type and radius are already present in the decor code or decor name, the system strips them out itself — so the name is not duplicated — and assembles the final name in all catalogue languages at once.
The rounding type and radius only need to be specified for real worktops — a material is treated as a worktop based on a combination of attributes, including its typical thickness. Wall panels, although supplied in sheet format, have no roundings, and the system does not require these fields for them.
Step 2. Column mapping
Excel rarely looks exactly as the system requires: different manufacturers name columns differently and place them in different orders. On this step you tell the system where in the file which field is located.
- File preview — an expandable table with the content: the first rows are visible immediately, you can see which column contains what.
- Header row — the row number where the column names are located (often 1, but not always — some manufacturers have several header rows).
- Import range — from which row to start ("Data from row") and where to end ("To row"). This allows skipping summary rows at the end or service comments at the beginning.
- Field mapping — for each system field select the corresponding Excel column (or "do not use" if the file has nothing for it).
- Moisture resistance — an optional field, value empty or 1. If 1 is specified, the label "Moisture-resistant" is automatically added to the product name in all catalogue languages, and during duplicate matching (step 3) a moisture-resistant material and a regular one are treated as different items. The system can recognise the column by keywords (moisture resistance, moisture, waterproof and similar).
- Convenient hotkeys in the preview: click on a row = the start import row, Shift+click = the end one, Ctrl+click = the header row. Helps avoid entering numbers manually on large files.
- Sale unit — the field accepts several notation formats: by area (м2, m2, or the corresponding numeric code) — the material is calculated and sold by square metres, or by sheets (sheet or the corresponding numeric code) — the material is sold as whole sheets. Case and exact spelling do not matter. In the product editing form the unit can also be selected from a drop-down list.
- Required fields are highlighted — if you do not map them, the "Continue" button is disabled.
- Dimension check by material type — each material type has allowed limits for width, length and thickness; if an item's dimensions are out of range, the row is highlighted with a warning showing the allowed range. The import results table shows a "Material type" column — you can see which type each item was assigned to.
- On-the-fly validation — if the data has obvious errors (empty required fields, invalid numbers in dimensions), they are shown with row numbers.
- Name and code validation — invalid characters (quotation marks, brackets, special characters) in the decor code, decor name, structure or additional name are shown as a separate error with a list of the characters found. Cyrillic and Latin letters must not be mixed in a decor name — for example, a Latin C in place of a Cyrillic С is detected by the system, which suggests which character to replace it with, indicating its position and character code.
Step 3. Duplicate matching
The smartest step. The system compares every row from Excel with the existing products of the selected firm and offers three scenarios per row:
The comparison takes into account not only the decor code but also the material type and structure: if Excel specifies a material type that does not match the type of an already existing product, this is treated as different items, and the other card is not substituted. The same applies to structure — if the existing product has it specified but the price list does not, these are also different products.
- New product — such an article does not exist yet, create from scratch.
- Update existing — the article already exists, update its characteristics/prices/images. It is visible which fields will be changed. The product's properties (decor code, name, structure, rounding parameters) are overwritten only if the "update data" checkbox is enabled — without it, re-uploading the price list does not overwrite manually verified cards, and the update is simply recorded as skipped.
- Skip — do not touch the existing product, do not create a new one.
A comparison preview is visible for every row: the current value in the system ↔ the new value from Excel. The decision "new/update/skip" can be changed per row before launching the import.
If a product has aliases (your firm's internal designations), they are shown right in the import process — at this matching step, when editing a row, and in the final results. Only your firm's aliases are shown — other companies' designations are not mixed in.
Step 4. Image processing
If Excel has a column with image URLs (Google Drive, direct links), the system separately processes the images:
- Loading by URL — the system downloads the image and saves it in the catalogue.
- Size comparison — if the product already has an image, the new one is loaded only if it is larger (higher resolution). A low-quality image will not replace a good one.
- Preview before replacement — both images are visible side by side, marked what will happen: "will be replaced (new is larger)" or "will not be updated (current is larger)".
- Common issues:
- Google Drive: the file must be public, otherwise the link does not work.
- Local paths (
C:\photos\...) — do not work, full URLs are required. - Links requiring authentication are skipped with a mark.
Step 5. Result
The summary report: how many rows were created, how many updated, how many skipped, how many with errors. Errors are shown row by row — you can fix the Excel and re-import only the problem rows.
Import history
All launched imports are saved with the date, firm, file name and the user who launched them. The root firm administrator sees the imports of all firms; a regular firm sees only its own. You can open the card of a past import to see what and when was uploaded — useful when investigating "where did these 200 products suddenly come from".
What matters
- Download the example before the first import. The comments in its headers explain every field — this is much faster than guessing.
- The product name is not entered manually. Fill in the separate fields (decor code, decor name, manufacturer name, dimensions) — the system assembles the name by the formula itself. This guarantees uniformity.
- The manufacturer must exist before the import (see Manufacturers). If Excel mentions a manufacturer that is not in the reference, the row goes into the errors.
- First try on 10 rows, then on the full file. The column mapping and the duplicate check often require 2–3 iterations to catch all the nuances of your specific price list.
- Prepare the images in advance: upload to Google Drive with public access, place the links in the corresponding Excel column. After the import they will be pulled in.
- The system determines the product kind (edge banding or board) by the material type in the reference catalogue, not by the name text — edge banding is recognised as edge banding regardless of the language of the name. If the type is marked as board material but the dimensions are clearly those of edge banding (small width and thickness), the item is automatically reclassified as edge banding; for edge bands, the letter suffix of the decor code is then transferred to the "Structure" field, but only if it is not already filled in.
- If the result of step 3 (matching) showed many "updates" where there should be "new" — you most likely have wrong mapping of the manufacturer's code column. Go back to step 2 and check the mapping of the "code" column.
- If your firm's contacts are empty (phone or email) — the import is blocked. Fill them in first in the firm card.