[intro]Before you begin this Guide, it is essential that you have installed the Product Attributes feature and enabled Product Codes. You then need to have assigned a Product Code manually to a Product using this Guide before you install the Import/Export System which will enable you to export all of your Product information onto a spreadsheet. [/intro]

In this Guide, you’ll learn how to assign a Product Code to each of your Products using a spreadsheet, so you can quickly add this attribute to lots of Products at once. Assigning a Product Code is useful for Products where customers will use the Product Code to search for the Product that they want.

1. Before you begin, you need to export your products to a spreadsheet by following the steps in this Guide. When you have opened the file, you should have a spreadsheet that looks something like this:

2. For this demonstration, I’m going to add a Product Code to a single Product that has Variants. To make it easier to understand, I’ve coloured the Product row bright yellow - the rows beneath this refer to the Product’s Variants:

The first thing you need to do to the spreadsheet is to add the ‘Edit’ command so that when you upload the file back to your EKM online shop, the system knows that some extra details have been added to an existing Product.

3. Click the A column to highlight it, and then click the Find & Select icon on the top right-hand corner:

4. In the drop-down menu, select Replace:

5. In the window that appears, add the word ‘Product’ in the Find What field and the words ‘Edit Product’ in the Replace With field, before clicking the Replace All button:

This action will amend the ‘Product’ and ‘Product Variant’ rows to read ‘Edit Product’ and ‘Edit Product Variant’ accordingly. When you upload your spreadsheet onto your EKM online shop, the system will be aware that some of the data for the Products has been amended.

[warning] If you have any Products and Product Variants that you do not want to add the Product Code attribute to, you need to delete entirely them from your spreadsheet. [/warning]

Adding the Product Codes to the Products

6. Your next step is to scroll along your spreadsheet until you see the Code column:

7. You now need to add your Product Code to the Product row first - on my images, this is the bright yellow row:

[remember]The Product Code for the Product on the Edit Product Row needs to be the same as the default Product Variant. You can find out what the default Product Variant is by searching the spreadsheet for the VariantDefault column. The row populated with ‘Yes’ is the default Product Variant - you need to ensure that the Product Code for the Default Variant and the Edit Product row are the same. [/remember]

In my example, the Product is a coffee mug, and the Variants will all have different Product Codes. You need to populate the Code column with the relevant Product Code for each Variant.

8. The easiest way to do this is to copy the VariantItem data on your spreadsheet, so you can quickly see which Variant is which when you’re adding your Product Codes. Scroll along your spreadsheet until you find the VariantItem1, VariantItem2, VariantItem3 and VariantItem4 columns:

Count how many of these columns are populated. My Product has four Variant Choices on it, so all of my columns are populated. I then need to create four empty columns. If you only have two VariantItem columns populated, then you only need to create two empty columns.

9. Scroll back to the Code column and click the header to highlight the whole column, before clicking the Insert button above:

10. This will create a new column to the left of your Code column. Repeat this until you have the number of empty columns you need. My Product has four Variant Choices, so I have added four empty columns:

11. Scroll back along your spreadsheet to VariantItem1, VariantItem2, VariantItem3 and VariantItem4 columns and copy the contents of the populated columns into the new columns you’ve just created:

12. You can now refer to the contents of the columns you’ve just populated to work out which Product Code should be on which Variant. Populate the cells in the Code column with the Product Codes for your Product Variants:

13. When you have added the Product Codes for your Products and Product Variants, you need to delete the excess columns you created. You can do this by right-clicking the column header and selecting Delete from the drop-down menu:

14. You now need to save your spreadsheet by clicking the File button in the top left-hand corner as normal:

Now you have finished working on your spreadsheet, the next step is to upload it onto your EKM online shop.

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