Export VirtueMart 2 products

Requirements

• CSVI 4.0+
• VirtueMart 2.0.2+
• Joomla 2.5+
• PHP 5.3+

Creating the template

First we will create an export template in which we can store all our preference. Let's call the export page:

1. Go to Components
2. Go to CSVI / CSVI Pro
3. Click on Process

Now you are on the process page, this is where the import and export takes place.

It's time to tell CSVI what you like to do, under the Manual import/export set the following options:

• Export
• VirtueMart
• Product Export

finally click on Go.

You have now told CSVI that you want to do a product export for VirtueMart and CSVI loads the settings for this specific export.

Click on Save as new to save your template and give your template a name. There is a separate tutorial that explains how to manage your templates.

The template has now been created.

Setting the file options

The next step is to tell CSVI something about the file you want to import.

• Filename for exported file
  A specific filename can be set here, if left empty, CSVI will generate a filename automatically.
• Export type
  Here you can choose the type of file you want to export. For this tutorial we leave it at CSV.
• Field delimiter
  This field must be filled with a single character. This can be a unique character but also a character that is in your data but in that case the text enclosure must be filled out as well. A comma or a semi-colon are common values.
• Text enclosure
  This must be used if your field delimiter also appears in your data. It is best to always set this to double-quotes.
• Combine character
  If fields are to be combined on export, the character used to combine the fields can be specified here.
• Include column headers
  If set to Yes, the first row of the exported file will contain the fieldnames that are being exported
• Excel CSV
  If set to Yes, CSVI will add a BOM to the beginning of the file so Excel will read the file as a UTF-8 file.
• Export frontend
  If set to Yes, CSVI will allow you to use this template in the frontend for export
• Collect debug information
  This is a very important option. Setting this to Yes will tell CSVI to create a detailed log of all steps taken during export. This is a very useful report to find any potential problems. Whenever you post a question on the forum, make sure you post this file also. It is the only way to help you out. The How to collect debug information article explains this in further detail.

Now that the file options are set, CSVI knows how to export your file. Click on Save to save your changes in your template and make sure they don't get lost.

Adding the fields

In this tutorial we are going to export the following fields:

• product_sku
• product_name
• category_path
• product_desc

To know what these fields represent have a look at the Visual Available Fields category.

Let's tell CSVI which fields you want to export.

1. Under the Field name column, select the first field in your file, product_sku
2. The other options we leave empty as they are fine
3. Click on the + symbol
4. Repeat step 1 - 3 for all the other fields

When you are done you have 4 fields here. To make sure we don't lose anything, click on Save again to save your template.

Fine-tuning of the options

The last step is to fine-tune our export settings.

The export options page has many options to filter your results. Move your mouse over each option to see what it can be used for. The most important option is the Language option. Since VirtueMart 2.0.2 it is necessary to choose the language for which you want to export your product descriptions. Before you can do this, make sure you have set in VirtueMart which languages you want VirtueMart to support. You can do this in the VirtueMart configuration.

Category separator

The default value is to separate categories and sub-categories with a /. In case you are using something else, you can change that here.

This completes setting up the template, click on Save 1 more time and now your template is ready for export.

Creating the export file

To create the export file, click on Process button:

Depending on your browser you might get a Save dialog or the browser saves the export file directly in your default download folder.