[intro]If you want to add either the Text Box or Text Area Product Options to lots of the Products on your EKM online shop at once, then the quickest way to do this would be to use the Import/Export System feature and spreadsheets.[/intro]

Before you begin, you need to ensure that you have created a Text Area Product Option manually by following the steps within this Guide. You then have to have exported your Products to a spreadsheet and deleted any rows that contain Products where you don’t want to add the Text Area, but keep the rows containing the Products (and their Variants) you want to add Options to, and your guideline Product where you've already added the Product Option manually.

In this example, I’m going to add a Text Area Product Option to one of my existing Products. I have exported all of my Products to a spreadsheet and then deleted all of the Products I don’t want to add Product Options to from it. This is my test shop, so there’s only a handful of Products on it - you may have many more that you want to add a Text Area onto.

Before I exported my spreadsheet, I created a Text Area Product Option on one Product (‘Sleeveless Basic Tee’) using the steps in this Guide. I have not deleted this Product from my spreadsheet yet as I’ll be using this as a guideline and will delete it before I upload the spreadsheet back onto my EKM online shop. 

1. The first thing you need to do is create an empty row beneath the Product that you want to add the Text Area onto. You can do this by right-clicking on the far left-hand side and clicking Insert:

2. On the Product row for the Product you’re adding the Text Area to, amend the Action column to read ‘Edit Product’ and if there are any Product Variants, amend their rows to read ‘Edit Product Variant’:

3. In the blank row you have created, you need to put ‘Add Product Option’ in the Action column:

[tips]Colour the row containing the Product Option for your template Product a bright colour, to make it easily identifiable when using it for reference against your other Products. [/tips]

4. Now you need to scroll to the right on your spreadsheet until you find the columns OptionName, OptionSize, OptionType, OptionValidation, OptionPlaceholder, OptionItemName, OptionItemPriceExtra and OptionItemOrder, as these all list the different details required for your Text Area:

  • OptionName - This is the name you have given to your Product Option.
  • OptionSize - This is the maximum number of characters which can be used when creating this Product Option. 
  • OptionType - This is the kind of Product Option you’ve chosen.
  • OptionValidation - This area is blank as I did not enforce Option Validation on my Text Area. If I did want Option Validation, I would need to add ‘NotEmpty’ in the relevant cell for my Text Area. 
  • OptionPlaceholder - In this field, you add some example text which is visible within the field before your customer completes the field on the Product Page with their text.
  • OptionItemName - This is the name given to each of the Options a customer could choose, separated by a colon. As this example is only one Product Option, the fields need to remain blank. 
  • OptionItemPriceExtra - This is the price each choice is, in the order the choices are displayed, again, separated by a colon. As this example is only one Product Option, the fields need to remain blank.
  • OptionItemOrder - This is the order the different choices are displayed. ‘1’ is the first choice. As this example is only one Product Option, the fields need to remain blank.

5. Your next step is to copy the contents of the Product Options cells for your guideline Product into the Add Product Option row, like this:

6. If you need to make any amendments to the Option to suit a different Product, make sure that you retain the format of that of your original guideline Product. When you have finished adding the Text Area to your other Products, you need to delete your guideline Product - both the Product, Product Variant (if there are any) and Product Option rows - and then copy the CategoryPath, ID and Name cells from the Edit Product row into those on your Add Product Option row: 

7. This will attach the new Product Option to the Product. You now need to save your spreadsheet and upload it onto your EKM online shop by following the steps in this Guide. 

[caution]You cannot edit Product Options. You can only Add or Delete them using spreadsheets. If you wish to edit any aspect of an existing Product Option, you will need to duplicate the Product Option rows for the Product on your spreadsheet and copy these to the rows below. For the first instance of the Product Option, amend the Action column to read ‘Delete Product Option’, and then for the second copied version, amend this to ‘Add Product Option’ and change the details of the Product Option accordingly.[/caution]

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]