 Online Help |
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Online Help |
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With Miva Merchant you can import customer data into your store via a flat file — a plain-text file containing set types of data, separated by a tab or text character. You can edit a file that you created by exporting customers from your store (customers.dat) or create an entirely new file. This can be a very efficient way to bring your existing customer database into your store.
Enter the customer data in any text editor (not a word processor), or in a spreadsheet program that supports exporting files to comma- or tab-delimited text files. Enter the information about each customer on a separate line. Many address books, contact management programs, or customer relationship management software packages will export your data to just such a file, and from there you can import it into your Miva Merchant store.
If you are starting with a file you exported from your store earlier, customers.dat, there will be a top line of the file, a header row, containing the field names. Make a note of whether this header row is present, or not. There will be an option to deal with it later.
The flat file could include only the basic customer data fields or as many of the additional fields as you need. The minimum fields required to set up a customer are the Login (user name), the customer's Password, and Password Recovery E-mail address. Beyond those three items, you might want to import just contact information, the first and last name, and phone number, or complete shipping and billing information.
Upload the plain text flat file that contains your new or edited customers. To locate and upload the file, follow the same process as you would use for uploading images.
Specify how each data field in a record will be separated from the next. Tab-delimited flat files are common. You can use any character, a comma, or a vertical line ("pipe") character: |. Be aware that if the specified character appears in any other text in the file, in a ship-to address (e.g. "1234 Main Street, Suite A"), that will be interpreted as a break between one field and the next.
If the first line of your customer data file contains the header showing descriptions for each field, select Included in the file. Doing this causes Miva Merchant to disregard the first row. If there is no header row, and the first line of the file contains actual customer information, select Excluded from the file, and that customer record will be imported along with the others.
Once you have specified the data file, delimiter, and how the header row is to be handled, click Next.
The data is now available on the server and ready to be imported.
Select how the customer records from the flat file should be used with respect to those currently in your store. Customer records are identified by the login or user name. Each login must be unique.
Do Not Update Existing Customers
Where a customer login already exists in the store, the import feature disregards any information associated with that login in the flat file. Imports all information for any new customers described in the flat file.
Update Existing Customers
Where a customer login already exists in the store, imports new information associated with that login in the flat file, while leaving other aspects of the existing customer record intact. Imports all information for new customers defined in the flat file.
Replace Existing Customers
Completely replaces all information for any customers you have included in the flat file. This does not delete any other customers from the store. For example, if a customer record in your store contains complete billing and shipping information for 10 customers, and you import replacement records for 3 of them, with only the required fields, plus their phone numbers, the existing shipping and billing information for those 3 customers will be cleared, and only the new required fields and phone numbers will be imported into the store customer list. The remaining 7 customer records would not be affected.
For each column in the table specify the field where that data should be used. The first column may contain the login or user name, the second, the customer's password, and so on. If there are columns you do not want to import leave the header set at <Select One>, and that data will be passed over during the import process.
When you are satisfied that each column is properly labeled, click Import. The customer records will be imported as specified.