Product Mash for Actinic
Release Notes
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Features introduced in version 4.0.0.4
New Features
Added format options for custom feeds, (save up to 10 different formats for each custom option feed)
Added batch paramaters C1, C2 and C3 to allow a particular format to be selected in batch mode
Removed Ask sitemap ping as it no longer supported
Turbo lister format for eBay now includes new required fields
Remove spoon feeder support
Allow blank fields in custom CSV feeds
You can now use include just image name in a feeed (using the !!ProductImageNoPath!! macro)
Google Shopping can now include the fields adwords_grouping, adwords_labels, adwords_publish, adwords_redirect, adwords_queryparam
Suspend level can now be ignored when determining whether a product is out of stock by using the !!InStockTextAbs!! macro for stock values
Feed values are now truncated if they are larger than the allowed length.
Improved error reporting when more than one feed is mashed (it now includes all errors and feed name in error list
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Features introduced in version 4.0.0.3
New Features
Option to exclude products without EANs etc - Amazon
Replaced Actinic line breaks with <br/> where required for - Amazon/Ebay
Improve feedback from product mash when mash is in progress, the current method is not informative enough and often freezes
Updated Consumer Electronics Feed format - Amazon Seller Central
Updated Jewelry feed format - Amazon Seller Central
Bugs Fixed
Single Product Pages still being included in Google Product Search even though unticked in Actinic V11 Google Products if a name is specified but greyed out
Problem with RSS feed and <guid> property - RSS Feed
Features introduced in version 4.0.0.2
New Features
You can now choose to export Single Product Page Urls as the product link (V11 only)
The Actinic flat file export mash now includes an option to export single product page details. (V11 only)
Four new macros have been added :
!!SppURL!! - the URL for the single product page (V11 only)
!!OtherInfoPrompt!! - the other info prompt for the product
!!DatePrompt!! - the date prompt for the product
!!ReportDescription!! - the report description for the product
US Google product feed searches now use US spellings for properties where appropriate
The program has been optimised and should now mash files more quickly
Added flag on the Amazon settings to exclude all products that do not have an EAN/ASIN setup
Add single product page fields to the Actinic flat file export
SPP as an option for Product Link for Google shopping
Add Other Info Prompt� and �Date Prompt Text� as macros (note also add Report Description because this field can be used in a similar way as well)
Replace Google Sitemap and Yahoo Sitemap feeds with a single XML sitemaps feed
Added support for Bing Sitemaps (Yahoo uses Bing now)
Added support for Ask Sitemaps
Added lastmod date to the sitemap, setting it to the date the file was mashed
If you double click a line in the upload dialog, the message is now displayed in a bigger window to make it easier to read.
Bugs Fixed
The sitemap now checks for parent values when user defined variables are used.
The sitemap pagecount has been corrected, previously incorrect counts were sometimes given when extended information pages were used.
The Google product search mash has the correct header name for the item-group-id field, the previous version used underscores rather than dashes.
The upload button is now enable and active for installations that only use the free sitemap products.
All references to Google have been replaced with Google Shopping.
User defined property values are now extracted when set at parent level for sitemaps.
Google Shopping item_group_id variable is now spelt correctly (as item-group-id).
Correct page count now given if extended information pages are included on the google sitemap feed.
Extended info page inclusion does not now give error.
Encoding of Shipping Service field now fixed.
Include in sitemap is now honoured if set any higher than the lowest level section.
Fixed mapping of XML characters in Google Shopping feed.
Amazon Apparel feed now includes product description automatically
Features introduced in version 4.0.0.0
Supports Actinic version 11
Warning messages have been added whgen incorrect shipping details have been specified
Macro !!MinPrice!! will use the lowest price rather than the product price. This will pick up prices from the quantity price breaks
Linked user defined variables can now be used
New Feed added for Moneysupermarket.com
A new feed has been added to allow you to submit your products to the become.eu database. This enables them to be listed on several shopping portals, one of which is moneysupermarket.com. The directories use a pay per click payment model. If you sign up through moneysupermarket.com then you will receive a �50 bonus credit after depositing �100 and listing on the directory for 1 month.
General Options
Description
A new option has been added to the main options screen to allow you to append a products attributes and choices to the description.
Macros
A new advanced macro format is available to allow attribute values to be included in feeds. The format is !!#NAME#!! where NAME is the name of the attribute you want to include, for example to include size you would select text as the value type for the property and enter !!#size#!!
Three new Macros are available
| !!AttributesShort!! | All of the attributes for the current product, one a single line. |
| !!Attributes!! | All of the attributes for the current product, with a carriage return between each set of options and choices. |
| !!InStockText!! | 'in stock' if the product is in stock, 'out of stock' otherwise. |
Feedback during mashing
The feedback counter now increments in steps of 10, it used to increment in steps of 25.
Google Shopping Feed
Custom Properties
When you add a custom property you can now specify whether it should be included in the xml file as a custom tag or a global tag.
Image Link Property.
The image link property is now required.
New Properties
The properties below have been added to the property list, these will be required in September.
| availability (required) - note this property replaces the 'in stock' property | Defaults to 'in stock', can be 'in stock', 'available for order', 'out of stock' or 'preorder'. Use the macro !!InStockText!! to set this to 'in stock' when Actinic indicates that a product is in stock and 'out of stock' otherwise. |
| additional_image_link (Recommended) |
If you have additional images for this item, include them through the additional image link property |
| product category (Required for products listing in certain categories recommended otherwise) |
The Google variable product_category should be chosen from a list available at http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160081. You can enter a global, site-wide value here but, if your store has products which fall into more than one product type, you will need to set up a custom variable, within Actinic, and enter each product?s value within there. You can then link this to the product_category property within the Product Mash. Required for items in these categories :
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Properties for Variants
If you have products with different options you can now enter one line for each product option available. This is optional at the moment but will probably become required in the future.
To enter variants products via Actinic at the moment, you have to create a hidden product for each of the valid variations on the product in the same section as the product and choose to include hidden products in the feed, assign the appropriate price, image and attributes to each hidden product and include details of the parent product to the hidden product as item-group-id.
The variables below can be included for variant products, you should include only 1 value for each variable for each variant.
You variant products must have the correct price and an image that shows the product variation or google will reject them.
| item group-id | The id for the parent product for this variant |
| color | the color of the item |
| size | The size of the item |
| pattern | The dominant pattern for the item |
| material | The main material(s) for them, separate multiple entries with '/' |
| gender | Male, Female or Unisex |
| age group | Adult, Kids |
Retired Variables
These variables have been retired, you can include them in your feed still but they will not be used in the google shopping results. We will remove these from the product mash shortly.
quantity,
feature,
manufacturer,
genre,
featured product,
year,
author,
edition
product review
product review count
You may still include these attributes in your feed, but the information will not be used in Google Product Search. In particular, please note that the 'quantity' attribute is no longer an acceptable method of indicating "out of stock" products - you must use the 'availability' attribute instead.
Bug Fixes
The error message displayed when gtin and brand have been specified but mpn has not has been improved.
If you include the 10 of a particular property type, the correct heading is now included in the google xml file.
Features introduced in version 2.1.0.26
Google Feeds
A new google shopping feed is available that conforms to the google requirements. This feed is initialised with settings from the google base XML feed. Manufacturer code. Shipping options can be selected. Root to path is now available when specifying the details for the server upload.
Ebid Feed now available
Ebid is an eBay style selling platform. A new feed has been added to the product mash that allows eBid Seller+ members to list their Actinic products easily on eBid. eBid Seller+ members pay a one of feed of between �50 and �75 and can list then their products without listing or selling fees forever.
Twenga Feed now available.
Twenga is a shopping search engine and price comparison site. Shoppers can search for products at www.twenga.com and the site often receives good results in standard search engine results. Mole end customers can list their products on Twenga on a pay per click basis and will receive 500 free clicks so that they can check the feed out for free.
Amazon Seller Central Feed
Amazon seller central now supports the following additional listing formats :
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Changes to Macros
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| !!SectionImage!! | The URL for the image of the products parent section |
| !!ExtInfoImage!! | The URL for the image specified in the extended information details for the product |
| !!ExtInfoImageOrImage!! | The URL for the image specified in the extended information details for the product OR the products image if an image is not specified in the extended information section |
| !!PriceForMinQty!! | Price based on minimum orderable quantity, as set up within Actinic (ie price x min qty) |
| !!ExtendedInfoURL!! | The URL for the extended information page |
| !!InfoLink!! | The link URL as set up within Actinic on the �Links� tab |
| !!AltWeight!! | The product's alt weight (as defined within Actinic) |
| !!AltWeightIfDefined!! | The product alt weight if defined, otherwise the product weight |
| !!InStockYN!! | If the item is in stock use the valueY1, otherwise use N |
| !!ParentSectionTree!! | Uses the section hierarchy of the parent section (e.g. VIDEO->VHS-> ) |
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Product Mash Batch Options
A new option has been added to batch mode to allow you to specify whether tax should be added to prices when the feeds are created.
-T <option> Specifies whether to add tax to the prices in the created feed, Y = add prices, N = do not add prices.
Three new feeds have been enabled in batch mode :
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| Googleshop | - specifies the google shopping feed |
| Ebid | - specifies the ebid feed |
| Twenga | - specifies the twenga feed< |