There are many ways to manage images for vendor items. Below I will cover the standard practices used within RepDesk. Prior to following any of these steps please watch all current training videos related to images and product files in RepDesk under Training & Support.
Your biggest hurdle is getting images from your vendors. You will need to reach out to them and find out what options you have for getting those images. It is best if those images are named the same as the item name with .jpg as the image type.
Images can also be named the same as the UPC code if that applies. This is not common but an option.
For example, an item called widget2050 would have an image name of widget2050.jpg.
Option One, using the Local Storage.
This option allows you to add images that will be stored in RepDesk. It is best to already have the images you want to use in a folder on your computer.
If the image names do not match the item names you should use option three. Otherwise, you will need to modify the image names in the editor after they fail to match.
The image columns called “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” in the file do not need to be populated using this option when you upload the product file.
You will need to select “load from file” for your vendor in the items section under products to load your product file into the system first.
Then select the vendor and the data file and then hit next. You can leave the preserve image links checked unless you previously had images matched that did not work or need to be changed.
Then select the vendor using image management and hit next.
Select local storage. You will get a pop up confirming you wish to make this change. Enter the code shown on that screen and hit confirm.
Drag and drop your images or select the files from your computer. Let that batch of images finish before adding more if you have more to add. Note the different file formats that are only allowed with the local storage option.
After this is done the images will match up to the items if the image name is the same as the item name. If they do not match the item name you can drag and drop the images to the items by dragging the image in the lower right of the screen to the item number under the matched column to match them together.
Option Two, using a HTTPS in a single location that has all the images or dual HTTPS locations
Part 1 signal HTTPS:
Using this option requires all the images to be in one folder. No other files or folders can be in that folder. Subfolders that have more images will not work.
This location also needs to be fully accessible for the system to access it. Any locations that require a user to log in will not work.
Please follow the steps in option one to upload your product file with the “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” columns empty.
If the image names do not match the item names you should use option three. Otherwise, you will need to modify the image names in the image management editor after they fail to match.
Select the vendor in image management and hit next.
Select HTTPS if not already selected. By default, this option is already selected unless it was changed to something else. You will get a pop up confirming you wish to make this change if another option was previously selected. If this applies, enter the code shown on that screen and hit confirm.
This content provider address (URL) needs to be a secure location, with HTTPS at the beginning of the address, or you will have issues with images not loading correctly. This is due to browsers getting security updates all the time.
Once you have entered the URL in the content provider address field hit test connection.
Once it has a green check box to the left of the test connection hit next.
The system will then process the images and match them to the item name.
Note that when you are looking in the items section of a vendor it may show an image is matched. The system will match what the URL provides for that item. So, if there is no image for that item then a stock no image found image is matched to that item.
Part 2 dual HTTPS
Provides the ability to use multiple images servers:
Once you have your RepDesk Vendor set up to use an image server, go to the vendor profile and change the Image Server link to: “https:” (see image below)
On your upload file, in the image columns, you can provide the complete path of images after the “https:” part to load images from multiple servers. For example:
- //ImageServer1.com/image1.gif
- // ImageServer2.com/image2.jpg
- // ImageServer3.com/image3.gif
The related products will be associated with images from the different image servers provided in the upload file.
Option Three, using a HTTPS location outside of image management.
This advanced option is used for those that have large amounts of images or images that do not match item names. All images need to be in one location and folder but can have other files and folders not related to this vendors images.
This content provider address (URL) needs to be a secure location, with HTTPS at the beginning of the address, or you will have issues with images not loading correctly. This is due to browsers getting security updates all the time.
For this option you do not want to load your product list for the vendor just yet. If you already have, verify that there are no images listed under “image_name” and “image_name_thmb”. If there are this is covered after the next step.
By default, HTTPS is selected for the vendor so the following step will work. If it does not you will need to go into image management and make sure HTTPS is the default. This will only be an issue if you previously selected another option.
Select your vendor in the vendors tab. At the top of that vendor page select edit.
Under image server section enter the HTTPS URL making sure that it is correct and accessible. There is no test connection as this is an advanced option so you should have already verified it is correct.
Then hit save changes. If you are not sure or don’t want to make a change hit discard changes.
After the above has been done and you had no existing image names listed, upload your product list with the image name listed in both “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” columns. See below for a process to populate these fields in your file.
If there are incorrect images listed in the product list, you will need to purge this data out of the system first. Upload the product list with no name listed in the “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” columns. Then upload the product list with the correct names after you confirm there are no longer names listed.
Your images should now match to the item names.
Option Four, listed the full image URL in the product list.
This option will allow you to have the full URL to the image listed in the product file.
If this is the first time doing this for the vendor follow the steps below. If you are making changes to this vendor, you will need to make sure HTTPS is setup with no URL listed in the vendor. See above steps on how to do this if needed.
In the product list under “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” have the full URL listed for the image entered in both sections. The system will use that URL to load the image.
The URL must be configured like this for it to work. There can be nothing listed after .jpg.
This is a good example “https://www.domainname.com/folder/itemname.jpg”.
This is a bad example “https://www.domainname.com/folder/itemname.jpg.ar67fdft.sfgw56ssd”.
If this is the first time loading the product file, then select replacement catalog file. You can check or uncheck preserve image links if this is the first time. If you are adding the image URL to the product file, then make sure to uncheck it. This will remove any custom image matches that may have been done.
The images should match up now.
Option Five, FTP.
With this option you can pull files from an FTP site. You will need to know the protocol, port number and the FTP address. The log in credentials will be based on the security settings for that site.
Populating image names in the file.
This section covers how to populate the “image_name” and “image_name_thmb” columns for the item in the product file.
By default, you should get image names from your vendor that matches the item name. However, sometimes that does not happen, and you need to match them up a different way.
Open your product file. Click on the field for “image_name”. The column letter may be different.
In the “image_name” field type =A2&”.jpg” and hit enter. A refers to the column A where the item name is located.
Do the same for the “image_name_thmb” column.
Now click on the top image name and double click on the small little square in the lower right. Do this for both columns. This will populate the columns with the image name that matches the item name.
If you have different names than the items, you can add that to the script if they are consistent. If they are over the board you will need to decide which path works best for you if the vendor is not able to provide the names of images that do not match the item name.