Documentation
Managing Feeds
Uploading Feeds
Supported Formats
Managing Templates
Creating Templates
Template Wizard
Index Page Templates
Product Page Templates
Managing Jobs
Creating Jobs
Job Configuration
Site Builder
CSV Export
SQL Wizard
PPC Assistant
Syndicator
Using Filters
Filter Configuration
Strip HTML
Search and Replace
Record Discard
Decimaliser
Price Range
Duplicate Removal
URL Encoder
Running Jobs
Downloading Job Output
Appendices
Appendix A: <index> Tag Attributes
Appendix B: Mutli Tier Index Page Templates
Managing Feeds
Uploading Feeds
To add a feed to your account, go to your Feed Summary page (My Feeds) and click "Add Feed". Enter an appropriate name for the feed, and then select the source type ("File" or "URL") and Data Representation Format ("Autodetect" recommended). When you have completed the required fields, click Next to go to the Upload Feed page.
If you selected to upload the feed from a File, click Browse and then navigate to the feed on your local computer. Large feeds may take several minutes to upload from a file. If you selected to upload the feed from a URL, enter the full URL to the feed. The URL may be any valid HTTP, HTTPS or FTP location. HTTP and FTP authentication may be used in the URL using the standard format, for example:
"http://username:password@www.example.com/data/feed.xml"After your feed has been uploaded it will be analysed by the system. When the analysis has completed, you will be returned to the Feed Summary page (My Feeds), from where you can see how many records were detected in the feed. If no records are shown, click Inspect to study the raw feed data and check for any problems, otherwise you can click Browse to navigate through data records in the feed.
^TopSupported Formats
You can upload any XML or CSV variant text format feed (e.g. Comma, Tab or Pipe separated values). Please note that proprietary spreadsheet formats are not supported. If you only have access to a particular feed in spreadsheet format, you should use your spreadsheet's export function to convert the file into comma separated values format. The system automatically detects ZIP, GZip and RAR format compression algorithms, so you should try to upload compressed files where possible as this greatly reduces the time taken to upload feeds.
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Managing Templates
Creating Templates
To create a new template, go to your Template Summary page (My Templates) and click "Add Template". Enter an appropriate name for the template and click Submit. This function will add a blank template to your account. You can then either edit the template online, or upload the template from a file on your local computer by selecting the appropriate action from your Template Summary page.
Please note that a Site Builder job requires two separate templates - one for the index pages and one for the product pages. See the sections below for detailed information about template design for each type.
^TopTemplate Wizard
The fastest way to get started with the template system is to use the Template Wizard, which will automatically create starter Index and Product page templates for any feed in your account. To run the wizard, go to your Template Summary page (My Templates) and click "Template Wizard". Choose the feed you wish to create templates for, then click Next. You can now select which fields from the feed correspond to each of Product Name, Product Description and Product Link (affiliate URL). When you have completed the required fields, click Finish to create your templates, which will then appear on your Template Summary page.
^TopIndex Page Templates
Index page templates are HTML documents containing a special <index> tag. The contents of the template that exists between the opening and closing index tags is the "mini-template" that is used to generate the index entry for each product. Within the mini-template, the same %n% style field placeholders that are used on product page templates (see below) may be used. This feature enables you to create content-rich index pages that can contain far more than just links to the product pages, and in some cases may be all you wish to use to create a site, discarding the product pages from the output of your Site Builder job. The content of the mini-template that is contained within the special <link> tag is hyperlinked to the corresponding product page. An example minimal index page template, which would generate an index using field 4 from the source feed, is shown below:
<html> <body> <index> <link>%4%</link> </index> </body> </html>The <index> tag supports a number of attributes that enable you to control various aspects of how the Site Builder tool generates index pages from your feed. These attributes are documented in Appendix A. It is also possible to nest <index> tags in order to create a multi tier (categorised) index. This feature is documented in Appendix B.
The following global placeholders can be used anywhere on your index page templates:
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Placeholder Description Name of the feed being processed by the job. Relative URL prefix from the page being generated to the site root. For example, if the Site Builder tool is creating a page that is 2 levels deep, this placeholder will be replaced with "../../". Creates a navigation panel for the current index containing previous and next page links as well as direct links to each index page. The current category if using multi tier categorised index templates (see Appendix B for more information). Product Page Templates
Product page templates are simply HTML documents containing placeholders of the format %n%, where n corresponds to the field number to use in substitution. For example, %7% would be replaced by the contents of field 7 from the source feed. To find out what placeholders to use for a particular feed, use the feed Browse function (see above). An example minimal product page template is shown below:
<html> <body> <h1>%4%</h1> <img src='%7'> <p>%5%</p> <p><a href='%6%'>More Information</a></p> </body> </html>The following global placeholders can be used anywhere on your product page templates:
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Placeholder Description Name of the feed being processed by the job. Relative URL prefix from the page being generated to the site root. For example, if the Site Builder tool is creating a page that is 2 levels deep, this placeholder will be replaced with "../../". The product category if using multi tier categorised index templates (see Appendix B for more information).
Managing Jobs
Creating Jobs
To create a new job, go to your Job Summary page (My Jobs) and click "New Job" from the sub-menu. Choose a suitable name for the job, select the source feed you wish to work with and which tool you wish to use. When you have completed the required fields, click Next to create the job and go to the Job Configuration page.
In the first instance, a Job Configuration page contains 3 panels. The top panel contains generic configuration parameters, such as the job name, source feed and Run Mode. The second panel enables you to add filters to the job configuration (see below), and the bottom panel contains tool specific configuration parameters.
Run Mode (top panel) can either be "Preview" or "Full Feed". Because processing a job can be a resource intensive operation, you should "dry-run" your jobs against a limited number of records until you are happy with the results. To do this, set the Run Mode to "Preview" so that when you run the job only the first 5 records of the source feed will be used. When you are happy with the results, return to Job Configuration page and change the Run Mode to "Full Feed". The next section describes job configuration parameters specific to the selected tool.
^TopJob Configuration
^TopSite Builder
This tool generates a complete, page-per-product website from the source feed, based on the contents of the index and product page templates selected. For more information see the template system description above.
By default, the Site Builder tool creates output files using the extension .html. You change this to a file extension of your own choice by editing the "Output File Extension" parameter (advanced settings).
The Site Builder tool can generate Google (sitemap.xml) and Yahoo (sitemap.txt) format sitemap documents along with your website. To generate both sitemap files, check the "Generate Sitemap Documents" (advanced settings) and enter an appropriate URL prefix. The URL prefix must contain the full URL (beginning http://) to the directory into which you are going to publish the website.
CSV Export
This tool exports records from the source feed into a plain text file. Simply choose the field separator you wish to use (comma, tab or pipe), and text delimiter. There are no advanced configuration options for this tool.
SQL Wizard
This tool exports records from the source feed into a plain text file containing a sequence of SQL statements (including table definition) for importing into any SQL 92 compliant database server, such as MySQL. Enter a suitable table name into the "Table Name" parameter, and then choose appropriate field name and SQL data type values for the fields that you wish to import into your database. There are no advanced configuration options for this tool.
PPC Assistant
This tool exports records from the source feed into a plain text file, where each line is formatted according to the "Output Line Template" parameter. The Output Line Template uses the same placeholder values as the Product Page Templates for use with the Site Builder tool, so %7% in your Output Line Template will be replaced with the value of field 7 from the source feed. There are no advanced configuration options for this tool.
Syndicator
This tool exports records from the source feed into either RSS or Atom syndication format, for publishing directly from your website or for use with other tools. Select the Syndication Format from either "RSS 2.0" or "Atom 0.3", and enter a link value (normally just your website URL). Then, select the fields from your feed that correspond to the product name, description and link (affiliate URL).
The Syndicator tool can split products across multiple files. To do this, enter the maximum number of records you would like in each output file in the Max Records per File setting (advanced settings).
Using Filters
Filters let you modify the value of fields from each record in the feed being processed by the job. You can add any number of filters to a job configuration. They are applied in the order in which they are created, enabling you to create a filter chain where each filter in that chain operates on the record as modified by the previous filter.
To add a filter to a job, go the job's configuration page and click "New Filter". A drop-down menu will appear. Select the filter type that you to add and then click "Add Filter". A configuration panel for that filter will then be added to the job configuration page.
Common to all filter configuration panels is the field selection field. Select the field that you wish the filter to be applied to, and then proceed with any additional filter configuration parameters as described below.
^TopFilter Configuration
^TopStrip HTML
This filter removes HTML markup from the selected field. There are no additional configuration parameters.
Search and Replace
This filter performs a simple search and replace function on the selected field. Enter the text you wish to be replaced into the Search field, and the replacement text into the Replace field. The Replace field may be left blank if you wish to use this filter for text removal.
Record Discard
This filter selectively removes records from the job by comparing the selected field with the text entered in the Search field. Use the Match Type field to specify how the comparison should be applied, selecting from "Equals","Contains","Does Not Equal" or "Does Not Contain".
Decimaliser
This filter strips any non-numeric characters and rounds the selected field to two decimal places. For example, a price field that contains "USD 29.99 (incl tax)" would be re-formatted to just "29.99".
Price Range
This filter selectively removes records from the job by comparing the decimal value of the selected field with the minimum and maximum range values entered.
Duplicate Removal
This filter removes duplicate records based on the value of the selected field. There are no additional configuration parameters.
URL Encoder
This filter encodes the selected field such that it will be suitable for inclusion within the query string of a URL. There are no additional configuration parameters.
Running Jobs
When you are happy with your job's configuration, either click "Run" from the Job Summary page, or "Save and Run" if you are on the job's configuration page. Your job will then be submitted for processing. If the run mode is set to "Preview" your job will be processed immediately, otherwise your job may be placed on an internal processing queue.
After running a job you will be automatically returned to the Job Summary page, which should now show the status of the job as either "Running Preview", "Running" or "On Queue". Refresh the page to update job status values for all jobs. The job status will change to "Completed" when processing has finished.
^TopDownloading Job Output
When the job status has changed to Completed you can click "Output" to view the list of files created by the job. If an error occurred the output page will display an informative error message instead of a file list. Currently, all jobs deliver their output as a zip archive, so there will only ever be 1 file in the list.
If the run mode for the job was set to "Preview", you should check the output to see if you are happy with the results. If you are happy with the results, click the link to automatically re-configure the job into "Full Feed" mode and run the job again.
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Appendices
Appendix A: <index> Tag Attributes
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Attribute Description Maximum number of products per index page (defaults to 100) Create index using the specified number of columns (defaults to 1) Text or image URL to be used in the link to the next index page Controls how the value of the more attributed is interpreted, either as "text" (default), or "image" if the more attribute contains an image URL. This parameter may also be set to "none" if you are making use of the navigation bar feature and want to supress the basic "More..." link on index pages. Text or image URL to be used in the link to the previous index page Controls how the value of the prev attributed is interpreted, either as "text" (default), or "image" if the prev attribute contains an image URL Limit the number of characters used in substitution within the mini-template. Defaults to no limit Derive product page filenames from the field specified Sort products in the index by the field specified Controls how the field specified in sortField is sorted. Possible values are "natural" (default), which means by alphabetical or numerical value, or "length", which sorts fields by text length, e.g. A,CC,BBB Controls the sort direction, either "asc" for ascending (default) or "desc" for descending order Appendix B: Multi Tier Index Page Templates
If the source feed contains product category information, the Site Builder tool can generate a multi tier (hierarchical) index by using an index page template with nested <index> tags. In addition to the attributes documented above, higher level <index> tags support the following attributes:
Attribute Description The field number on which to create this level of the index (required). This is normally a field containing category or sub-category information. Please note that the only field available for substitution within a category level mini template is that specified in the field attribute of the containing <index> tag. If you wish to sort a category level index you must still provide the sortField parameter, however the value must be the same as the field parameter (i.e. the current category field). An example multi-tier index template, where product category is in field 8 and sub-category in field 9, is shown below:
^Top<html> <head> <title>%FEED%</title> </head> <body> <index field=8> <link>%8%</link> <index field=9> <link>%9%</link> <index> <link>%4%</link> </index> </index> </index> </body> </html>