File Exchange

[keystoneiss]

Why can't you (eBay) just leave things ALONE!!!

File exchange was working, I finally had all the kinks worked out and created macros to help automate ads as I intend to do several thousand at a time.  Due to the season, I hadn't uploaded in bulk for a couple months.  I just went back in and the every thing has changed... AGAIN!!!

Are you intentionally doing this to make it hard to sell on your platform or what?  The columns are now different, some that were useful disappeared. and others changed name. Like shipping time is now dispatch time?  Am I calling for a taxi or a fire truck?  Did I get switched to a server in India? Speakie American on your US server much?

And I continuously get an error when I open your new templates.  I tried re-downloading and also tried a different sub category. Same result. It removes some "features" when I open it.   This template, which I arrived at through your new selection menu, is missing half the fields it used to have for this sub category.

"Excel completed file level validation and repair. Some parts of this workbook may have been repaired or discarded.
Removed Feature: Conditional formatting from /xl/worksheets/sheet3.xml part"

Suggestions?

[shipscript]

With the migration of File Exchange to Seller Hub, the old file exchange format will still be recognized for some time to come by Seller Hub. We should also be able to mix and match File Exchange columns with Seller Hub columns, and the old headings should internally map to the new headings. But with the site updates, the PayPal columns will no longer be needed. If the seller is using Business Policies, then most of the shipping, payment, and returns fields won't be needed.

The biggest change right now is not a File Exchange vs Hub issue. Right now, eBay is making significant changes to Item Specifics, so even though your old File Exchange spreadsheets might have uploaded to the Hub, the item specifics are so stirred up that there would likely be failures.  eBay is changing categories in a big way, eliminating some subcategories, and instead, assigning them item specifics to denote "subcategories". 

Additionally, many item specifics are being renamed, so the C:column headings from an old spreadsheet would need to be relabeled to work with the new required and recommended item specifics.  If you download the new XLSX template for your category, it will provide color-coded headings along with drop-lists of recommended values. This would be a good tool to help update the item specifics from your old templates.

Any other missing columns (non item specifics) can be imported from your File Exchange spreadsheet and should work with Seller Hub as long as the site still supports whatever is in those columns.

[keystoneiss]

I appreciate you taking the time to answer but "it might work for a while"  and I'll have to manually change column headers or import them from the old file as needed and it'll work until it doesn't isn't very helpful. 

Also, as I said: I downloaded the new template and it errors on opening so from the error message I get, at the very least the conditional formatting for color codes doesn't work... What else gets stripped off by the error, who knows?  I've downloaded it multiple times as well as templates for different sub subcategories. All with the same result.  I am using MS Excel 2013. Is this a versioning problem?

[shipscript]

@keystoneiss 

Does Excel 2013 understand XLSX or only XLS? My old computer does not understand XLSX at all, so I have had to rely on users importing their XSLX and sending me the exported XLS so I could see what the drop lists looked like.  The drop lists do work in XLS in my older Excel 97. 

[keystoneiss]

Yes .xsl and .xslx

How do I send you a file here? It says I can't attach and .xls or a .zip file.

Below is the error I get.

When I save it to 97-2003 .xls I get the following:

[shipscript]

@keystoneiss 

I would think that even if "conditional formatting" is removed (whatever that might mean), the spreadsheet itself would still be useful. Can you read the spreadsheet?

[keystoneiss]

I can read it fine.  It bothers me when I download something that obviously has errors or incompatibilities.  I tried this on a different machine running office 2016 and get the same errors.

So now spend a good part of today selectively copy ad paste a couple thousand ads into a spread sheet with different columns. ignoring the columns that apparently might not be supported anymore which that I found useful and for item specifics and hope that it all works. 

Thank you to eBay for adding work to my day but I should be used to it, they done this crap continuously with out regard to backward compatibility over the years.  If they didn't Turbolister would still be alive.  I wish they would just pick a API schema and stick with it. 

[keystoneiss]

OK.. so something new.. I tried down loading a fresh template for a different category and this time it gave a option for a .csv file.  I downloaded it and bingo... its the same old file with the same columns and headers!

I went back and down loaded the templates for the other subcategories I was working with and again, now .csv shows up and they are also the same old columns and headers.

This .csv option was not available earlier.  I really don't see why the templates are diffident between the .xlsx and .csv versions.  There's no reason for them to be.   The main difference should be .csv just would not permit conditional formatting and drop-downs.

Hopefully this will A: work and B: not change for a while.

[shipscript]

@keystoneiss 

The main difference between a CSV (comma separated values) file and an XLSX (Excel) spreadsheet file is that the CSV file is a plain text file (accessible from notepad) with readable fields separated by commas; whereas, the XLS or XLSX files are binary and may contain programmatic information and additional formatting information, such as colors, font styles, column widths, data formats, and actions (such as those really useful droplists I mentioned previously).

I tried to find the category that you displayed in your original post image (Duck Stamps) and was unsuccessful. I had assumed this was a philatelic category, but eBay has no such category, so either that category has been discontinued in the recent category toss-up, or I guessed wrong. If the Duck Stamps category was eliminated while you were trying to use it, and if the entire philatelic category is in motion, that could be the root of your earlier problem. It may mean waiting a few days for the dust to settle.

[keystoneiss]

The Field / Column list between the .xlsx and .csv is different. the .csv has 49 columns and the .xlsx has 43 columns. Many of those missing from the .xlsx are of use to a stamp ad (C: ...)

And why is .xlsx store category not available? I can see them cutting the others if they don't understand the topic but to cut store category out? Same with subtitle?  Similar disparities like this exist in other sub categories under stamps.

In any case I will continue with the .csv for now.

*Action(SiteID=US|Country=US|Currency=USD|Version=1193|CC=UTF-8)	*Action(SiteID=US|Country=US|Currency=USD|Version=1193)
CustomLabel	Custom label (SKU)
*Category	Category name
StoreCategory	Title
*Title	Relationship
Subtitle	Relationship details
Relationship	P:UPC
RelationshipDetails	P:ISBN
*ConditionID	P:EAN
*C:Certification	P:EPID
*C:Grade	Start price
*C:Place of Origin	Quantity
*C:Quality	Item photo URL
C:State	Condition ID
C:Topic	Description
C:Denomination	Format
C:Color	Duration
C:Year of Issue	Buy It Now price
C:Cancellation Type	Paypal accepted
C:Modified Item	Paypal email address
C:Modification Description	Immediate pay required
C:Country/Region of Manufacture	Payment instructions
C:California Prop 65 Warning	Location
PicURL	Shipping service 1 option
GalleryType	Shipping service 1 cost
*Description	Shipping service 1 priority
*Format	Shipping service 2 option
*Duration	Shipping service 2 cost
*StartPrice	Shipping service 2 priority
BuyItNowPrice	Max dispatch time
*Quantity	Returns accepted option
PayPalAccepted	Returns within option
PayPalEmailAddress	Refund option
ImmediatePayRequired	Return shipping cost paid by
PaymentInstructions	Shipping profile name
*Location	Return profile name
ShippingType	Payment profile name
ShippingService-1:Option	C:Certification
ShippingService-1:Cost	C:Grade
ShippingService-2:Option	C:Place of Origin
ShippingService-2:Cost	C:Quality
*DispatchTimeMax	C:State
PromotionalShippingDiscount	C:Topic
ShippingDiscountProfileID
*ReturnsAcceptedOption
ReturnsWithinOption
RefundOption
ShippingCostPaidByOption
AdditionalDetails

Missing from .xlsx:	New Columns from .xlsx
StoreCategory	P:UPC
Subtitle	P:ISBN
C:Denomination	P:EAN
C:Color	P:EPID
C:Year of Issue	Shipping service 1 priority
C:Cancellation Type	Shipping service 2 priority
C:Modified Item	Shipping profile name
C:Modification Description	Return profile name
C:Country/Region of Manufacture	Payment profile name
C:California Prop 65 Warning
ShippingType
GalleryType
PromotionalShippingDiscount
ShippingDiscountProfileID
AdditionalDetails