01First steps
Bring in your catalog for the first time
How the products you already have on your channel come into Koalab.
Your products aren't loaded by hand: they come in from the channel you connected. Koalab reads them as they are —variants, prices, stock, categories and images— and stores them in your catalog, the single list it then uses to update your channels. Importing writes nothing to your channel: it only reads. And Koalab doesn't publish to another channel on its own: that only happens when you publish.
Channel first, catalog second
Without a channel there's nowhere to bring anything in from. While you have none, Koalab takes you to the welcome screen, whose second step is “Connect my first channel”. Any of the available channels will do.
From the welcome screen, the first one imports on its own
If you connect your first channel from the welcome screen, the import starts on its own as soon as you choose its role (or “Not now”): it's the “Bringing in your catalog” step. You can close the tab: it runs on the server and the bell tells you how many products came in, how many were updated and how many changes wait in “Pending approval”. WooCommerce is the exception: it connects in Channels and nothing starts there; request the import with “Import”, in Products.
The four stages of progress
A bar shows four stages: “Reading products”, “Reading variations”, “Saving to your catalog” and “Checking what changed”. Variations are the slowest part if your products have sizes or colors: that's where each variant's SKU (its code), price and stock live. The last stage looks for what was published on that channel and no longer appears. If the product was born on that channel, or the channel leads, it takes it out of your catalog; if it reappears, it comes back on its own. If it came from another channel, it only unlinks it from this one and lets you know. It deletes nothing on your other channels.
Mock-up: the import progress bar with its four stages When it finishes
A notice appears with the count —“Catalog updated: 128 products (128 new, 0 changed)”— and the list fills itself in. The Products subtitle then says how many there are. If something fails, the notice says so.
How Koalab recognizes each product
To avoid duplicates, Koalab looks for each product in this order: first its link (the tie it already keeps between the product and its listing on that channel); if there's none, the SKU, to match it with the one you brought in from another channel. A product with sizes or colors is recognized by its variants' SKUs, and a new variant is added to the same product. Whatever it doesn't recognize comes in as a new product, including a product without a SKU: check Products afterwards for repeats. If the SKUs point to two different products, Koalab doesn't guess: it leaves it in “Unmatched”, which you resolve on its own screen. New products come in up to your plan's cap; the ones that don't fit are left out, the notice says how many and Koalab tries them again on every import.
Bringing it in again
To import right away, click “Import” in Products (it doesn't appear if your role is viewer); with several channels, it asks which one. Koalab also reads your channels again every six hours (a newly connected one, as soon as it has a role), so what you add there shows up on its own. What you edit on the channel only goes straight in if it leads or is independent; otherwise price and stock wait in “Pending approval”. If an import is already running for that channel, it shows you its progress or tells you “An import is already running for this channel. Wait for it to finish.” If an import fails, we write to you once per problem, according to the “Failed uploads, sources and imports” row in “Your profile” → “Notifications”.
Details worth knowing
- What's already in Koalab isn't overwritten. If a channel that neither leads nor is independent brings a different price or stock for a product you already had, the difference waits in “Pending approval”. Its name, description, categories and images don't come in, and the next save in Koalab replaces them on the channel: change them in Koalab or on the channel that leads. A field that arrives empty never erases what Koalab has. An independent channel leads its own catalog.
- Images take a bit longer than the rest: a separate task copies them into Koalab every few minutes, without holding up the import. If you see products without a photo at the end, give them a few minutes. If your plan's image space is full, those photos keep pointing to the store.
- There are two brakes so a channel that answers badly doesn't damage your catalog. If a channel Koalab already had products from suddenly brings more “new” products than there were (and more than 25), the import stops without saving anything and those products go to “Unmatched”. If a channel that had published products returns none, Koalab takes nothing out and asks you on the dashboard: “It was the channel” changes nothing; “I deleted them” asks you to type the channel's name and takes out of your catalog the products that were born on it.