This is the first of a new segment I’ll be doing on our blog that highlights real support questions we’ve received from our members. I’ve chosen questions I think many people will benefit from knowing the answer to, and will keep all identities anonymous.

Here’s the first question:

This user also sent us a copy of the csv file they were attempting to upload, which is always extremely helpful when investigating mass create errors!

Here were the specific errors they were running into:

“There were problems with your import file: Category is missing descriptor Category, Category is missing descriptor Total Qty, Category is missing descriptor Condition “

This is actually 3 different errors, which I’ll break down:

“Category is missing descriptor Category” – this error shows up if you have a “Category” column in your csv, but also select a category from the list in step 1 of mass create. To avoid this, just check the box for “this import contains multiple categories” (it works even if all the products on the csv are from one category). In fact, I find it faster to check this box and use a “Category” column on all mass create imports, whether the products are from multiple categories or just one.

“Category is missing descriptor Total Qty” – “Total Qty” isn’t a valid column header. Instead you’ll want to use one of the following:
Qty – to replace your existing quantities
Add Qty – to add to your existing quantities

“Category is missing descriptor Condition “ – this error showed up because there is a space at the end of the word “Condition” on the csv. The fix here is to delete the extra space at the end of the word. Any time you see an error that doesn’t quite make sense because the column in question is supposed to be there, check your csv file for extra spaces.

I hope you found this helpful! I’d also recommend checking out our knowledge base article for using mass create:
http://help.crystalcommerce.com/en/articles/1296813-inventory-mass-create-tab-overview

And our troubleshooting guide for mass create errors:
http://help.crystalcommerce.com/en/articles/1389615-troubleshooting-common-mass-create-errors

And for anything else, remember that we have a variety of answers in our knowledge base as well that you can search for:
http://help.crystalcommerce.com/en/