Tag Archive for: feed manager

Update Woocommerce product feed manager 2.0.5

/0 Comments/in , /by

Woocommerce product feed manager v2.0.5 is now available via automatic update and the downloads page.

Version 2.0 of our WooCommerce Product Feed Manager plugin is a major upgrade from its previous version in which the feed generation process has been overhauled and converted from a real-time process to a background process. The main reason for this important update was that the old versions had difficulties handling feeds with very large product quantities. Switching to a background process also has the advantage that you can continue to work on your feeds whilst the selected feed is being updated in the background.

We recommend users update as soon as possible in order to keep your product feeds up to date with the latest bug fixes, security enhancements, and feed requirements.

Improved performance

The feed generation process has been overhauled and remodeled from a real-time process to a background process. As soon as you start your manual feed update, the correct product ids are stored in a queue and the feed update process will start updating the feed file in the background so you can close the Edit Feed page and work on other feeds or even select other feeds to be added to the feed queue. Whilst in the previous version you had to wait until the feed generation was finished, you now can work on your other feeds as the feed generation work is done in the background. In the feeds list, you can see what feed is being processed and what feeds are in the queue to be processed.

Added new WordPress filters

We added the “wppfm_category_mapping_exclude”, “wppfm_category_mapping_exclude_tree” and “wppfm_category_mapping_max_categories” filters. You can use these filters to limit the number of categories in the Category Mapping list on the Edit Feed page. Shops with very large numbers of categories can have issues with this Category Mapping list. By using one or more of the mentioned filters you can limit the number of categories and thus prevent issues with the Category Mapping list.

Read more about using filters on wpbeginner.com. To use the first two filters you can return an array or a comma-separated string with category id’s that you want to be removed from the Category Mapping list. The “wppfm_category_mapping_exclude” filter will only remove the categories with the given ids, the “wppfm_category_mapping_exclude_tree” filter will also remove the children categories from the list. With the “wppfm_category_mapping_max_categories” filter you can return a number to the filter that will limit the number of categories in the Category Mapping list.

Eg. If you want to remove the categories with ids 10, 12, 14 and 16 from the Category Mapping, including their children categories, you could use the following code in your functions.php file:

Third party attributes

We also fixed an issue where attributes from third-party plugins, with a name that started with an underscore, would show up in the WooCommerce Source list as an empty line.

In connection with the previous fix, we changed the way third-party attributes show up in the WooCommerce Source list. In the previous version the name of this attribute would be cleaned from underscores, but as of version 2.0, the name will not be cleaned anymore.

Changelog

  • Fixed an issue where when the user had not selected the “include variations” option, the non-product specific variation data like min_variation_price or max_variation_price would not be included in the main version of the variation product.
  • Changed the feed processing process so it can handle feeds with large number of products
  • Fixed an error that would cause the feed process to fail with product variations that included sale dates
  • Changed the way the variation data was accessed that caused some messages in logging files
  • Fixed an issue where third-party attributes that start with an underscore would show up as an empty row in the Google Source pulldown list
  • Changed the way third-party attributes are shown in the source list. They now keep their original name
  • Fixed a few security issues
  • Added the WooCommerce version check
  • Improved the auto feed update timing
  • Added the wppfm_category_mapping_exclude, wppfm_category_mapping_exclude_tree and wppfm_category_mapping_max_categories filters that allow the user to influence the category mapping list
  • Fixed an issue where the Stock count would show a wrong number when the actual Stock account was 0

Setup a basic Google shopping feed

/0 Comments/in , /by

Setting up the feed

In this post and video we want to show you how to setup a basic Google shopping feed with our Woocommerce Google feed manager.

First step we create a feed and give it a descriptive name, choose the Google channel, the country we want to target, and the default Google category for our products.

Next we set the Update schedule witch is the time when you want the plugin recreate the feed so it wil contains the right products and the right product data like prices and removed or new products etc.

Category mapping

woocommerce google feed manager category mapping

Category mapping

After setting the ‘Update schedule’ we start with mapping the shop categories to the relevant Google categories. The select all the categories from the products we want to include in our feed. After that we can map the products to a google category. By default it is connected to the earlier choose default category.

With the dropdown you can easily choose the right Google category the products belong to. You will find all available categories from Google in the dropdown. When mapping a Google category to a top level product category the child categories are mapped to the same google category.

Remember, the products from the product categories you did not select will not be included in the google feed. So you must select at least one category in order to create a feed with products in it.

This is basically it. You can save your feed and start using it.

Special feed settings

There are settings that in some cases can cause a feed to generate errors in Google Merchant center. For example if you do not have a SKU for each product you would need to change the id to post_id in stead of the standard SKU.

An other example is that you need to have a unique identifier like a GTIN number, MPN and Brand. If you miss these identifiers you can set the identifier exist’ to False. Please note that Setting it to ‘False’ for products that do have an identifier will not work; Google will disapprove those products or even suspend your account.

Under ‘Highly recommended’ you find the Product_type field This field represents your webshop product category and i always set it to Product Category String. The ‘Product category string’ shows the product categories with arrows formatted like this: Mother category > Child > Grandchild

Try to set as manny Highly recommended fields as you possible can like the MPN and is_bundle field. This will give Google some vital data so it can match your products way better.

Save and view the feed

woocommerce google feed manager feed list

Feed List

Next step is saving your feed and check the feed in the feed list. It will show you the feed url, how many products there are in the feed, the status of the feed and action links.

When you click the ‘View’ button you can view the feed in your browser. Note that every browser shows the feed different and you should get familiar how to see the xml code in your particular browser. For example the Chrome browser will display the xml feed without a problem but Firefox you will need to add ‘view-source:’ for the url in the adres bar.

Activate your feed

The last step is to activate your feed. This will make the plugin renew the feed with the earlier set Update schedule of the feed settings.

Watch the video to see creating a feed in action. There will be video’s with more advanced setup of the feed and will show you what you can do more with Woocommerce Google feed manager.

Please let us know if you have any question about using the plugin and get te best out of it.

Manage Channel templates

/0 Comments/in /by

Add, remove and update channel templates

We have updated the google channel template and i wanted to to take this opportunity to show you how the “manage channel section” works ie installing, updating and removing channels.

First of all visit the “manage channels” section of the plugin.
You will find the installed and Uninstalled channel templates we support.

You will need to install a Channel template before you can use him in the Feed manager. So when you just started with our plugin the first thing you will have to do is to install the Channel of your choice.

Installing and Uninstalling is really easy Just Click on the install or Remove button to either install of remove the channel from the feed manager.

Updating Channels is important

Updating the channels is really important. We will always update channels as soon as the channel makes any changes in their feed requirements. By updating your Channel templates you are sure your feed will be approved by the Channel.

A channel will show a red version alert when there is a new update. Click the Update button to start the update. It is that easy.

Unsupported channel?

When your missing a template where you would like to show your product on. Please request the channel in our Feature request forum and we love to add the channel to our list of supported channel templates.