Running the Product Catalog Data Import DTS Task

Article
11/12/2009

You use the Product Catalog Import DTS task to import data about the products in your Commerce Server catalog database, including dimensional information such as product name, description, color, and size. (This differs from importing data into the Product Catalog System from outside sources such as Excel spreadsheets. For information about importing catalogs, see Importing and Exporting Catalogs.)

For reports such as Product Analysis and Transaction Analysis to display properly, they require catalog data. If catalog data is not imported into the Data Warehouse, products are identified in reports by their stock-keeping unit (SKU) numbers only.

You use the Transaction Data DTS task to import information about how well products are selling and how much your customers are purchasing. For information, see Running the Transaction Data Import DTS Task.

Notes

For information about importing data for virtual catalogs, see Importing Data for Virtual Catalogs.
You must use the full load option and perform a full import the first time you import catalog data into the Data Warehouse. After you have imported catalog data, use the incremental load option to import only new data that was created since you last imported catalog data.
If one Data Warehouse is supporting multiple sites, the names of the catalogs you are importing data for must be unique.

If there are two sites that have the same catalog name and the same products, but the catalog properties and product definitions are different, then data of the catalog that is imported first will be overwritten when data for the second catalog is imported.
Do not create catalog properties that contain special characters. Special characters cause the Product catalog data import task to fail. For example, catalog properties should not include the following characters: '!', '"', '%', '&', '(', ')', '*', '+', ',', '-', '.', '/', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '\\', ']', '^', '`', '{', '|', '}', '~'. They should not contain any control characters, for example, 0x00 /* NULL */, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07 /* , CONTROL-G <BEL> */, 0x08 /* CONTROL-H <BS> */, 0x09 /* CONTROL-I <HT> */, 0x0a /* CONTROL-J <LF> */, 0x0b /* CONTROL-K <VT> */, x0c /* CONTROL-J <FF> */, 0x0d /* CONTROL-M <PRS_CR> */, 0x0e /* , CONTROL-N <SO> */, 0x0f /* CONTROL-O <SI> */, 1x10, 0x11, 0x12, and so on.
Use the following performance counters for this DTS task:
- CatImport: Total Catalogs imported
- CatImport: Total Categories imported
- CatImport: Total Products imported

To import catalog data for a single site into your Data Warehouse

To import catalog data for all associated sites into your Data Warehouse

To import catalog data for a single site into your Data Warehouse

Run the Configuration synchronization DTS task to synchronize your site configuration with the Data Warehouse. For instructions, see Running the Configuration Synchronization DTS Task.
Expand Microsoft SQL Server, expand SQL Server Group, and then expand the server on which your Data Warehouse is installed.
Right-click Data Transformation Services, and then click New Package.

Alternatively, if you are changing an existing package, right-click Data Transformation Services, click All Tasks, and then select Open Package. In the Select File dialog box, click the package you want to change, and then click Open.
On the Task menu, click Product catalog import (Commerce Server).

In the Catalog Import Properties dialog box, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Description	Type a description for this import task.
Operation level	Select Site level from the drop-down list.
Sitename	Select from the drop-down list the site that contains the data you want to import.
Incremental load	Select this option to import only new catalog data based on a previous import.
Full load	Select this option to import all catalog data.

In the Retry Properties section, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Number of retry attempts	Type the number of times you want the task to retry connection failures to the Data Warehouse. The default number of retry attempts is 10.
Time between attempts (seconds)	Type the amount of time you want the task to wait between retry attempts. The default time interval is 30 seconds.

Click OK.

Note
- You can add multiple DTS tasks to a package, add sequencing or workflow information, and then run all the tasks in the package.
On the Package menu, click Execute.

The Executing Package dialog box appears, showing the progress of your import. When the import process is complete, the Package Execution Results dialog box informs you that it completed successfully.
Click OK, and then click Done.

Catalog data is imported into the Data Warehouse.
Run the Report preparation DTS task to organize the imported data into the designated OLAP cubes. For instructions about running the Report preparation task, see Running the Report Preparation DTS Task.

This data is now available for reports.

To import catalog data for all associated sites into your Data Warehouse

Run the Configuration synchronization DTS task to synchronize your site configuration with the Data Warehouse. For instructions, see Running the Configuration Synchronization DTS Task.
Expand Microsoft SQL Server, expand SQL Server Group, and then expand the server on which your Data Warehouse is installed.
Right-click Data Transformation Services, and then click New Package.

Alternatively, if you are changing an existing package, right-click Data Transformation Services, click All Tasks, and then select Open Package. In the Select File dialog box, click the package you want to change, and then click Open.
On the Task menu, click Product catalog import (Commerce Server).

In the Catalog Import Properties dialog box, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Description	Type a description for this import task.
Operation level	Select Data warehouse level from the drop-down list.
Data warehouse name	Select from the drop-down list the Data Warehouse associated with the sites for which you want to import catalog data.
Incremental load	Select this option to import only new catalog data based on a previous import.
Full load	Select this option to import all catalog data.

In the Retry Properties section, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Number of retries	Type the number of times you want the task to retry connection failures to the Data Warehouse. The default number of retry attempts is 10.
Seconds between retries	Type the amount of time you want the task to wait between retry attempts. The default time interval is 30 seconds.

Click OK.

Note
- You can add multiple DTS tasks to a package, add sequencing or workflow information, and then run all the tasks in the package.
On the Package menu, click Execute.

The Executing Package dialog box appears, showing the progress of your import. When the import process is complete, the Package Execution Results dialog box informs you that it completed successfully.
Click OK, and then click Done.

Catalog data is imported into the Data Warehouse.
Run the Report preparation DTS task to organize the imported data into the designated OLAP cubes. For instructions about running the Report preparation task, see Running the Report Preparation DTS Task.

This data is now available for reports.

Running the Product Catalog Data Import DTS Task

See Also

Additional resources