Import Products from your Own Catalog

Merchants often have all their products configured in their own software solution called a Catalog. Mirakl provides a way to enable Merchants to import and update their products from 3rd party software solutions so they can be listed on the Jinius Storefront.

The only requirements are that the 3rd party software must be able to:

• Export the products to a CSV or Excel file.
• The first line the Catalog file must contain the Column Names (will be explained further down).
• The Jinius Storefront Categories have mandatory Product Information fields which vary between each category. This information must also be present in the 3rd party Catalog file.

If these points are met, then you can use the Mirakl Configuration Wizard to import your Catalog. An additional benefit is that the Configuration Wizard “remembers” and updates your preferences so that the next time you want to import products this way, you won’t have to do all the configuration again.

 

Before Exporting your Catalog

Import your Products one Category at a Time

Before starting the process, if you plan to import Products that are in significantly different major Categories, e.g. “Mobile Phones” and “Clothing”, it is recommended that you don’t import them all at once, instead first import Products relative to one Category, import them, then repeat the process for your other major Categories.

The reason for this recommendation is that the process will be significantly easier and less complicated.

 

Product Variants

If you browse our Storefront, you will see that in the details of certain products you have the option of choosing a different product options without leaving that Product Page.

A common example is that in most product in the Fashon Category, you can choose the Size, Color, etc, for the product you are viewing:

Mirakl achieves this by using a “Variant Group Code”. Each variation of a product should be assigned the same Variant Group Code. This way when a product is presented on the Storefront, the system automatically also offers the variation options to the Online Customer.

In the above example, the clothing item is available in 3 colors, and all are available in 4 sizes. This means that you will have 12 product codes. However, when you assign the same “Variant Group Code” to all 12 items when you import your Catalog, they will appear as shown in the image above.

What happens though if the software you use to store your inventory does not have a code to identify product variants? In this case you need to speak with the vendor of the software in which you store your inventory and ask them to point out where you can enter a code that will identify product variants. Then go through your inventory and set codes so that the variants are grouped together.

 

Preparing your Catalog File(s)

The first thing you need to do is export your Product Catalog from the software you are currently using. If you require assistance with this, we recommend you contact the software vendor.

Once you have exported the file to either a CSV or Excel file, open it and check that the first line of the file has headers describing what information each column has. An example is this:

If there is no header line, you must add one manually. If there is, which should be the case for most software solutions, you can proceed to import this file using the Configuration Wizard.

 

Importing the Catalog File using the Mirakl Configuration Wizard

Now that the Catalog is exported, we need to import it into Mirakl:

1. Log into Mirakl and go to Price and stock → “File imports”, then click on “mapping wizard” on the right-hand side of the screen:
   
   
   
2. Upload your Catalog File from the “Select a file...” button and press “Next step”.
   
   
3. Mirakl will read your file and display the headers of your file. Now in the “Categorization” section, you must set which column identifies the Product Category as it is saved in Catalog file.
   After selecting it, confirm that the “Preview of your Categories” section correctly shows all the categories included in your file.
   
   In the below example, the “My_Category” column is the one that identifies each Category, and after selecting it, in the Preview all the categories of the Products I have uploaded are shown.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Once you have selected the correct Category, click “Next Step”
   
   

5. Now that Mirakl knows what Categories you have in your Catalog, it is time to connect each one to the equivalent Categories available in Mirakl.
   The Categories in Mirakl are preset so you cannot add new ones, so if the exact Category is not there, select the closest logical one to it. If you feel that a Category is missing, please contact your Jinius Sales representative.
   
   The way to connect each one of your Categories with the correct Mirakl Category is:

   a) On the right in the “Operator Categories” section, find the Mirakl Category you want to connect one of yours to. You can find it either by using the search bar or by expanding the Category Tree.

   b) Next drag-and-drop your Category to the Mirakl Category you want to connect it to.
   Note: You can assign multiple of your Catalog Categories to the same Mirakl Category.

   c) Repeat this for all your Categories.

   d) Finally, you can press the “Mapping to do” button to review which Mirakl Category you have assigned to your Categories.
   
   
   
   

6. Once all Categories have been connected, press “Next step”.
   
   

7. Next you need to associate the Product Characteristics of your Catalog to the corresponding Mirakl Product Characteristics.
   As with Categories, the Product Characteristics in Mirakl are preset, so you cannot add new ones. If you feel that a Category is missing, please contact your Jinius Sales representative.
   
   The way you associate the Product Characteristics is:

   a) On the right are the Mirakl Product Characteristics of the Categories you chose in the previous step. Expand all tree items in the menu to have a clear picture of all the Characteristics.

   b) The Mirakl Product Characteristics are color-coded:

   • Red: mandatory characteristics, that must be associated

   • Yellow: recommended characteristics, that are considered popular and important for the selected product categories

   • Black: optional characteristics

   c) First Identify the Red/Mandatory characteristics.

   d) For these, decide which Characteristics from your Catalog, which are listed on the left, correspond to the Mirakl Characteristics

   e) Drag-and-drop each one from Your Catalog Characteristics over to the corresponding Mirakl Characteristic.
   Note: you can associate your characteristics to more than one Mirakl Characteristics!

   f) Repeat steps “c” to “e” for the yellow/recommended and black/optional characteristics.

   g) The minimum requirement is to associate the mandatory ones, but adding as many as possible will make the product appear more appealing.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

8. Once you have mapped the characteristics you want, press “Next Step”.
   
   

9. In the previous step you informed Mirakl how to associate your Product Characteristics with the Mirakl ones. Because though Mirakl, for some Characteristics, expects certain values, you are now asked to associate some values you may have in your own catalog that don’t exist in Mirakl, with similar ones that Mirakl expects.
   
   To do this:

   a) Expand each category on the left

   b) Select the first value

   c) Once you select a value, a list will appear on the right

   d) Select which value is the closest one to what you selected on the left

   e) Repeat these steps for all value on the left side

   Note: after mapping each value, they disappear. If you make a mistake or want to review what you already mapped, press the “Unmapped values only” option at the top.
   
   
   
   
   

10. Once you have mapped all values on the left, press “Next Step”.
    
    

11. (Optional) The last step is to tell Mirakl if there are any specific requirements that you would like to set on how to present the Product Information on the Jinius Storefront. A few examples are:

    • Capitalize the first letter of the Product Name.

    • If your catalog stores some information in HTML, remove all HTML references and keep only the text.

    • If you have an EAN code for your products, present in in the current format with the spaces and dashes.

    • etc...
    
    

    If you want to add such rules, what you need to do is:

    a) Select an Attribute you want to set a formatting rule for on the left

    b) From the options that appear on the right, select the rules you want (you can add more than one for each attribute)

    c) Repeat this for all attributes you want to set formatting rules for

    Note: If you are unsure whether you need to add any rules, skip this step. After you import your products, you can check the format and if there is something you want to change, you can repeat the process and add the rules you want. This will update the existing products with the new rules you select.
    
    

12. Once you have finished setting the formatting rules for your Attributes, press “Next step”.
    
    

13. In the final step, Mirakl validates whether all required fields have been filled in. If there are any errors, Mirakl will tell you in which step it is and allow you to go back and correct it.
    
    
    After you correct any errors, press ”Import my products”:
    
    
    

14. Mirakl will now attempt to import the products from your Catalog based on your configuration. Press the “Product Import Tracking” button that appears on the popup screen to check if the import happened successfully, or if there were any errors.
    
    
    

15. If there are any errors, they will appear here. What you need to do in this case is:

    a) Click on the “Download transformation error report” link next to the Import you just did (it should be first one on the list).

    b) Open it in Excel.

    c) For each error line, select the value in column B which will reveal details of the error in each case

    d) Repeat the process described in steps 1 – 15 to re-import the catalog file and correct the errors you identified.
    Important: Don’t worry about repeating the process, all the options you selected are saved, so you won’t have to do everything from scratch.

    In the following example, we forgot to associate the ‘My_Attribute’ values of the Catalog to the Mirakl Catalog values (step 9):
    
    
    Once you correct any errors and repeat the steps, a successful product import will look like this:
    
    
    

16.  Now if you go My Inventory → Catalog Management, you will see all the products you imported in the “Pending” status. Once a Jinius staff member reviews and approves your products, they will change to “Published”.

 

Updating and Adding Additional Products

After you have imported your first Catalog into Mirakl, at some point you will want to either update certain products you have already imported or add additional products.

The process of doing this is the same as what is described in section “Preparing your Catalog File(s)”, so all you need to do is repeat those steps.

Every time you run the Configuration Wizard, the options you choose each time are saved and Mirakl “learns” how to interpret your Catalog. This means that every time you run it, it should require less time and configuration options from your side. Eventually, Mirakl will fully learn your preferences and adding/updating products will be extremely fast and easy.

 

Adding Offers for your Imported Products

In order for your products to appear on the Storefront, there needs to be at least one Offer for each one. The Offer contains the available stock for each product, the price, as well as other relevant information.

To add Offers to your Products, read the instructions available in:

• “Add/Update/Delete Products Manually to Mirakl” in section “Add Additional Offers Manually”

or

• “Add/Update/Delete Products Using Mirakl Template Files” in section “Add Offers”

 

Deleting Imported Products

In order to de-list a Product from the Jinius Storefront, you need to delete any Offers you have associated with that product.

For instructions on how to do this, you can refer to:

• “Add/Update/Delete Products Manually to Mirakl“ in section “Delete Offers Manually”.

or

• “Add/Update/Delete Products Using Mirakl Template Files” in section “Add Offers”.