Major upgrade to product feed framework.

[chrisg]

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Dear affiliates,

Affiliate Window are launching a major upgrade to the product datafeed framework, ShopWindow.

A new link is now available from within your accounts called 'Beta Datafeeds'. As before you will be able to download feeds from the interface and via a URL address. The address is changing so please see the new Beta Datafeeds page where you will see the URL that you will need to use in the future.

We have now included a new feature called 'Merchant Metadata', downloading this file will give you useful information about each programme, including:

• Strapline and description of the site.

• Logo URL (88x31). This would be useful if you wanted to make a shopping
  directory within your site.

• Product feed last update time.

• Number of products in feed.

• Feed version number (which auto increments everytime a feed has been sucessfully updated).

The feeds themselves have different category id's and the deeplink has changed to a 'pclick.php' as opposed to 'awclick.php'. This will allow us to report more effectively in the future on which individual products are being clicked and purchased from a product feed. A new category list is available from the bottom of the Beta Datafeeds page.

As before you can download zipped and unzipped files in either XML or CSV format. We have also added tab and pipe delimited options to the CSV download.

The existing system will be replaced by the new system on the 26th July 2006. Affiliates must ensure that they have updated their own systems to the new framework by this date.

The Shop Window system provides a platform for new features that will be launched over the coming months so watch this space!

We hope you find these changes of use, as always we welcome your feedback, if you have any queries about this do not hesitate to raise a support ticket.

Kind Regards,

[drivetowin]

Hi Chris

Will any links that use the current awclick.php continue to work after 26th July 2006 ?

Some of my sites have links 'borrowed' from product feeds which direct through awclick.php and tracking all those down could take a while....(no problem for the bulk of my sites which update dynamically...but those manual links are pesky little blighters!!)

[chrisg]

Hi Keith,

Yes the awclick.php links will still work after 26th July.

Thanks,

[Rich]

First few points: -
The download page doesn't work in Firefox (neither does the existing one)
The manual download instructions don't show how to get uncompressed data (remove &compression=zip) and also aren't fully shown on the screen, atleast in firefox.

Downloading the Phones4u feed (first test as I've just been working on the old format today) as CSV results in the following problems: -
The file is corrupt as the description fields contain "s and newlines
The brand column isn't set (it is in the current format)
Many fields, including deeplinks, are now htmlencoded (e.g. & replaced by &, £ replaced by £, etc) they wern't before.
The deeplinks all go to the home page.

Can you make it so the new feeds are identical to the existing format (other than the download url and deeplink urls) as otherwise they are going to take a lot of work to switch to. I'm sure that is your plan but currently they need some work.

Also, couldn't the old feed request url's be mapped to the new feeds after the 26th July? If the data format is the same this could be a switch that needs no effort by many affiliates.

[phildarv]

I think the merchant categories need to be looked at if the mechant meta data file is to be used to its full potential

just a couple of examples:

Prezzybox in games (gifts may be better)
Eurobet in sporting books (Gambling may be better)
E2save & mobiles.co.uk in business services (mobile phones would be a little better suited !!)

just my 2p worth

[CompareStore]

Firstly well done AW on providing more functionality and options for us to choose from especially the last update date - I have been asking for this from all networks for the past 18 months - fantastic!

BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE allow the old URLs to work as well and simply carry on serving up the old format. Then we can swap over at our own pace. It's holiday season and I for one do not want to introduce changes just before I go away! PLEASE!!!!!

[Steerpike]

I have just been looking at the new format feeds and for example, Royal Doulton have 20,000+ products all categorised as "Tableware and Serving" which is true I suppose, but how can these be split into their relevant sub categories sensibly? I would suggest doing as many other affiliate networks do and include the vendors own category layout as well.

I currently parse a diy merchant with over 50,000 products and these all carry the additional vendors categories eg tools>screwdrivers>phillips or tools>screwdrivers>flat as opposed to just "tools"

Another thing is what does the "contact merchant for update" mean - do we now have to manually contact a merchant to have the feed updated ?

One last thing, when I try to use a link to download the feed manually it fails (Not authorised to use datafeeds) - do I need to re-apply to make this work ?

Steer,

[pricethat]

Just a pretty please, but can you just leave the old download links and things how they are, i appreciate you will not be developing it but after spending two years to work with the feeds the way they were moving to your new system is just a load of hassle to me to be honest.

Of course i will change but when i want to and when it suits me, did i read your response to keiths question correctly? the old urls will be still be available for download past that point in July? I sincerely hope so as i think the networks as whole have made a good job of keeping me in tasks that i dont really want to or have to do this year already, would be a shame if awin add to my workboard

pretty please.....with cherries on top...promise to make loads of sales as well type beg

[chrisg]

Hi All,

Rich - We are working on your issues. What version of Firefox are you using? The feed format should be the same as before.

The old feed request/download URLs will still work after the 26th July by changing the sub domain in the download URL from products.affiliatewindow.com to shopwindow.affiliatewindow.com

Phildarv - We have made a small change to make the Categories in the meta data file more relevant. We do rely on the merchant to select which categories they appear in and the first category that they choose will be in the meta data file. If you think it is incorrect then let us or the merchant know.

CompareStore - The click URLs in the old feed system will always work. The download URLs will work after 26th July with a slight change mentioned above.

Steerpike - Additional categorisation is in the pipeline. We didn't want to add this now as it would change the format of the files and increase the work load on affiliates.

'Contact merchant for update' means if the merchant doesn't have a file available or if the file is old then we have given you the option to contact the merchant to ask them to update it. I will get this made a bit more clearer on the page.

Steerpike - Please raise a support ticket so I can check that your account is enabled URL download of product feeds.

pricethat - Just to confirm. The old URLs will work but with the small change mentioned above (changing the subdomain).

Any other questions please let us know.

Thanks,

[Rich]

Rich - We are working on your issues. What version of Firefox are you using? The feed format should be the same as before.

It's 1.5.0.4. I'm sure someone has posted about it not working in firefox before.

[CompareStore]

Thanks Chris, that puts my mind at ease!

I assume the feed format will be IDENTICAL to the current one?

[pricethat]

Cool, thanks for that, nice to see the changes etc but we already parse the category structure in the feed and already have all the data and information that the new feeds provide anyway so their is not really any use to us spending even a few mins time on it. We will, i promise but it would be nice to just do it whenever i cant be bothered to do any proper work.

Which reminds me, never changed buy.at's urls when they changed all that time ago and they still all work fine.

Nice one AWIN, cheers

[CompareStore]

Chris,

You say the new feed system is in beta but we must swap the links over by the end of July. By saying it's a beta you are implying that it's not ready to use yet in a live environment so can you be sure the system will be as reliable as the current (very stable and excellent) system by the end of July?

Surely the point of "beta" is that you get people to test it out for you and only when you are as confident as you can be that all the bugs are ironed out you will put it live. It's a bit dangerous to set a live date when you have only just released the beta.

Sorry to be pedantic but after working in software houses for 15 years I have seen so many occassions where over confident project managers have made false promises only to release a system that isn't ready and end up with egg on their faces! This release effects my own business so as a client of yours I want to be sure the new system is solid.

[chrisg]

Hi Chris,

It is called Beta purely to differentiate between the old and the new system.

Thanks,

[Jeff]

The new version won't allow me to put mid=all to download all the feeds, I just get a file with the column headers but no data.

Will this feature be added?


One of the benefits of the current AW feed is that I know I can just run my update script to pick up all my feeds without having to change anything when a new feed is added. Removing this feature would be a step backwards.