How to associate multiple categories to products via csv?

[alwayspaws]

I want a tee shirt to be in Home, Dog Tee Shirts, We Love Dogs

Using a csv, what format do I use in the category field to associate a product to more than one category?

I tried:

Home, Dog Tee Shirts, We Love Dogs

Home,Dog Tee Shirts,We Love Dogs

They do not get associated with those three categories when I upload one test combination product csv.

The screenshot shows where the associations are if I do it manually, but I need to use a spreadsheet.

[jnsgioia]

@alwayspaws I don't think you need to have the item in Home for it to show up in your Home category. I just list the end category and the items show up on every category page above it.

I use ~ as my separator so in my file your categoryfield information would be: Dog Tee Shirts~We Love Dogs

[alwayspaws]

@jnsgioia I don't even know why the Home page is there. I'm going to try your method but I need more than one sub-subcategory associated with the subcategory, so would I do this, for example?

My First main category is Dog Clothing. Subcategory is Dog Tee Shirts. Under the Dog Tee Shirts I need two and sometimes more sub-subcategories so We Love Dogs is one and Patriotic is another. In other instances I need to associate products like these with Dog Birthdays, etc.

Dog Clothing~Dog Tee Shirts~We Love Dogs~Patriotic

[alwayspaws]

@jnsgioia I tried it with just Dog Clothing~Dog Tee Shirts~We Love Dogs and it won't show up anywhere but the home page. Screenshot of We Love Dogs subcategory:

[spidawebs]

If your fields are separated by commas you need to use something other than a comma to separate the categories and then select that in "Multiple value separator" when you do the import. So use a semi colon for example:

Dog Tee Shirts;We Love Dogs

[jnsgioia]

@alwayspaws You don't need to put Dog Clothing in your upload, just the subcategories. Also if you are using the ~ you need to change it on the TB import page from a ,

[alwayspaws]

@spidawebs said in How to associate multiple categories to products via csv?:

If your fields are separated by commas you need to use something other than a comma to separate the categories and then select that in "Multiple value separator" when you do the import. So use a semi colon for example:

Dog Tee Shirts;We Love Dogs

This works! Thanks! It's in all three categories now.

I did it like this:

Dog Clothes;Dog Tee Shirts;We Love Dogs

products and combos import:

field sep is comma mult value sep is semicolon

[alwayspaws]

@jnsgioia That is a very good point, which I would have tried if I hadn't seen the earlier post. Thank you!

Dog Clothes is only one of my main categories.

How do I get rid of the home category?

[Havouza]

I thought that home category only means that the products can show up on frontpage. I show random products on firstpage have set the category to 2 which is Home

[alwayspaws]

I just viewed blockcategories configure and see that I have the choices for the category root of of Home, Current, Parent, etc. I tried "parent" but that didn't work.

Is Root category (0/1) supposed to be zero or one, please?

[jnsgioia]

@alwayspaws Root category should be 0. I have my blockcategories set to current. Why do you want to get rid of the home category? I mean where do you not want it to show?

[alwayspaws]

OK, so my root category is correct. I changed the blockcategories to current, although I don't see any difference.

I don't want to get rid of home because I need it but on my test site, it shows "home" and it doesn't need to be there.

HOME DOG CLOTHES COLLARS AND LEASHES HARNESSES

[jnsgioia]

@alwayspaws You mean in the breadcrumbs? In the breadcrumbs on my site if you click on Home it takes you to the home page.

[alwayspaws]

The actual menu on the home page.

Here's my live site home page top menu, which is the way it should be:

Here's my test site home page top menu:

[alwayspaws]

Back to category assignments again:

If I want to associate a dog treat with my dog clothes/dog birthdays is this correct?

Dog Treats;Dog Clothes;Dogs Birthdays;We Love Dogs

[spidawebs]

@alwayspaws That will make the product appear in 4 categories:

• Dog Treats
• Dog Clothes
• Dogs Birthdays
• We Love Dogs

[alwayspaws]

These particular treats are birthday cakes for dogs which go in Dog Treats but I also want them in Dogs Birthdays and We Love Dogs. Do I have to point these last two to the main category they are in - which is Dog Clothes / Dog Tee Shirts?

[spidawebs]

@alwayspaws If you just want a product in those three categories then just use Dog Treats;;Dogs Birthdays;We Love Dogs

[alwayspaws]

Use a double semicolon? And that's how to handle other products that go in related but not directly-related categories? Thanks!

[spidawebs]

Sorry that was a typo. It should be Dog Treats;Dogs Birthdays;We Love Dogs

Yes, you just need to specify whatever category you want the product in. You don't need to include the parent category unless you want it in there too.

[alwayspaws]

That's fine. Good thing for the typo because I had one, too. It's Dog Birthdays, rather than Dogs Birthdays.

Makes things a lot easier. Thank you!

[nickz]

10 hours ago, rivermore said:

Also

The last post is from 2017. 
Unlikely that the author needs your advice almost 9 years later. 

[DRMasterChief]

We’ll probably have to get used to this well-crafted type of spam.  AI can do that.

[the.rampage.rado]

I took few days off.... 😉

[wakabayashi]

16 hours ago, DRMasterChief said:

We’ll probably have to get used to this well-crafted type of spam.  AI can do that.

Yes. That will be a huge issue soon. It's very hard for small forums/plattforms to manage that. I believe we will see more closed communities where access will be restricted in some ways.