Big Import

In this project, we wrote custom VBA code in Excel to parse and format the data for over 10,000 products for import into a BigCommerce site from an Excel spreadsheet.
For almost all of these products, we had to first download a product image, rename the file, then upload it to the BigCommerce server. Modification of the Excel data was hardly trivial: some fields had to be scrubbed of a number of special characters, and we had to build compatible URLs for all the images. Our client was thrilled: for several days of our work, we saved them weeks of tedious manual product entry.

BigCommerce Export to Google Adwords

Here we built an Excel workbook with VBA to reformat data from our client’s BigCommerce-based site. Our utility turned the data into a compatible Google AdWords CSV feed with “AdGroup” records, “Ad” records, and 4 “keyword” records for each product. Imagine trying to manually build all this information in Excel for hundreds or thousands of products – it would be a HUGE task. Our cost effective script saved our client an substantial amount of work.

BigCommerce Export for Order Fulfillment

This client’s BigCommerce site sells products for another company and they need to regularly send that company a fulfillment order.

We provided a utility that automates the creation of a fulfillment order to be sent to a supplier. We used the BigCommerce API to export the data which is in XML format. We then wrote macro code which took care of all of the grunt work of converting the XML to neat
column delineated data for individual orders on a BigCommerce site.

Score 3 for 3 in the time-saving department! Now its just a few clicks to send the data on its way.

Need Help with Big Commerce?

Get in touch – we are glad to quote you for projects like this which will save you time and money.

Their existing procedure involved several steps:

(1) importing an order file from each of several sources into an Excel 2004 spreadsheet
(2) sorting to find duplicate addresses
(3) generating a new worksheet with orders combined from all sources
(4) constructing new columns such as the total cost and a barcode
(5) saving the resulting spreadsheet as a source for mail merges in Word 2004 to generate invoices and labels

The procedure was partially automated — they already had a template spreadsheet with formulas for the new columns, along with some VBA macros. Our task was to refine the process and make it more robust.

We first developed a VBA macro to automate the entire process. Under the new scheme, we store the order
files with fixed names, in a folder based on the date. We then run this new macro which does all the necessary importing, sorting, combining and saving.

Here are some specific changes and improvements that we implemented:

(1) Data Validation: The existing spreadsheet imported zip codes as numbers, with the result that leading zeroes were
dropped. The new macro explicitly imports the zip code column as text.

(2) Code Optimization: The existing spreadsheet had formulas to build the new columns, presuming a certain maximum
number of rows. The new macro builds the needed columns for just as many rows as are actually present.

(3) Error Trapping: Some orders are paid with PayPal and have authorization but no transaction ID. If the client didn’t catch this omission, he doesn’t get paid for that order. The new macro counts the PayPal authorizations and transaction IDs, with the transaction ID count highlighted in red if it doesn’t match the authorization count.

(4) Error Trapping: For international orders, the country name is found by looking up the country code in a table. We added an error trap to the macro in case the country code is not found.

(5) The existing procedure involved saving the worksheet as tab-delimited text to generate a file to be uploaded to mark orders as shipped. This worked fine except that the last line was missing the end-of-line character (CR). He had to edit the file manually and insert a CR at the end, or else the last line wouldn’t be processed. The new macro solves this problem by building the file directly with VBA file I/O.