The Order Manager can send information about your products and your Web pages to Froogle, Google's shopping system. Once you establish a Froogle account, you can configure the Order Manager to send your data to Froogle with just one button click.
Before you can send data to Froogle, you must set up product levels, product web page and image names, and the appropriate system parameters in the Order Manager:
Froogle allows you to assign a category to each product, such as "Men's Clothing" or "Computer Components". To work with this feature, you create a 3-level hierarchy of Categories, Subcategories and Groups in the Order Manager. Collectively, these are called "Levels". You assign each product to one or more levels.
When you send product data to Froogle, if you have the system parameter FroogleCategorySource set to Any Assigned Level, the Order Manager looks for each products Group assignment. If it finds one, it sends the Category, Subcategory and Group to Froogle. If it does not find a Group assignment, it looks for a Subcategory assignment. If it does not find a Subcategory assignment, it looks for a category assignment. Note that you only have to create levels and assign products to them if you are using Any Assigned Level as your category source.
Froogle must know where to send shoppers who are looking for your products. Therefore, you must specify which fields in the product table contain a products web page name and its image or graphic name in the system parameters FroogleFileNameField and FrooglePageType (web pages) and FroogleImageField and FroogleImageType (images).
The easiest way to set this up is to use each products SKU as its web page name and its image name. For example, a product with the SKU ABC123 would have a web page called ABC123.html and an image called ABC123.jpg or ABC123.gif. Alternatively you can use other product attributes as web page and image names. See the chart below for more information about Froogle system parameters.
Here are the system parameters that you must set before you can send data to Froogle:
|
Parameter Name |
Notes |
|
FroogleCategorySource |
Where to get the Category that is sent to Froogle. The options are Category, Any Assigned Level, Path and Text1 through Text 5. If you select "Any Assigned Level", the program will select one of each product's page assignments from the Levels screen, and send Category, or Category > Subcategory, or Category > Subcategory > Group. If you select any other option, that field will be used for the Category. |
|
FroogleCharsAllowedInFileNames |
When the program builds file names from SKUs or item names it normally only allows letters, numbers, underscores and dashes (and slashes if Allow Slashes is True). To allow other characters (e.g. ! or . ) in file names, enter those characters here. Just enter the allowable characters - nothing else. |
|
FroogleDescriptionField |
The name of the field in the Inventory table that should be sent to Froogle for product Descriptions. The choices are Description, Item Name, Header, Footer, Headline and Text1 through Text 5. |
|
FroogleFileName |
The file name for your text data feed, as assigned to you by Froogle. This will usually be your Froogle user name or a slight variation of it. |
|
FroogleFileNameField |
Field to use for sending Froogle the paths to your product pages. If you select SKU, the program will combine the FroogleWebPagePath, the SKU and the FrooglePageType, remove any invalid characters, and send the result to Froogle. The choices are Path, SKU, Code, Text1 through Text 5, File Name and Item Name. |
|
FroogleHostName |
The host name of the FTP server assigned to you by Froogle for uploading your data feed. DO NOT include "ftp://" in front of the host name. Example: yourstore.google.com |
|
FroogleImageField |
Field to use for sending Froogle the paths to product images. If you select SKU, the program will combine the FroogleWebImagePath, the SKU and the FroogleImageType, remove any invalid characters, and send the result to Froogle. The choices are: Image, SKU, Path, Thumbnail, Text1 through Text5 and Item Name. |
|
FroogleImageType |
Usually .gif or .jpg. Include the leading "dot". This extension will be added to any image names that do not already have an extension. |
|
FroogleISBNField |
Field that will contain ISBN numbers for your products. Only needed for books. The choices are None, SKU, Barcode, Code, ID and Text1 through Text5. |
|
FroogleLowerCaseURLs |
If TRUE, paths for pages and images sent to Froogle will be converted to all lower case. |
|
FroogleOutputLoc |
Path where the program should create the Froogle feed files. |
|
FrooglePageType |
Usually .htm or .html. Include the leading "dot". This extension will be added to any product page names that do not already have an extension. |
|
FrooglePassword |
The password assigned to you by Froogle for uploading your data feed. |
|
FrooglePriceLevel |
Price Level (1 to 10) to use when sending prices to Froogle. |
|
FroogleReplaceSpacesWith |
Select _ or - to replace spaces and other invalid characters in automatically generated file names with that character. |
|
FroogleSendParentSKUs |
If TRUE, the program will include Parent SKUs in Froogle product feeds. |
|
FroogleSendSubSKUs |
If TRUE, the program will include Sub SKUs in Froogle product feeds. |
|
FroogleUserName |
The user name assigned to you by Froogle for uploading your data feed. |
|
FroogleUseSalePrices |
If TRUE, the program will check the Sale On field for the price level specified in FrooglePriceLevel for each of your products, then send Froogle either the standard or sale price. If FALSE, the standard price for the selected price level will always be sent and the sale prices will not be used. |
|
FroogleWebImagePath |
The full path on your website where product images are located. |
|
FroogleWebPagePath |
The full path on your website where HTML product pages are located. |
Go to the Main Menu>Maintenance Menu>Import/Export tab.
Click the Froogle Feed button. The Order Manager creates a text file with your product information and FTPs it directly to Froogle.
See Also