Overview
Upload store CSV files, understand how imports are processed, and review importer results.
Overview
ProConnect store importers keep your B2B store in sync with your back-office systems. Five importers each accept a CSV file covering one resource, and the invoices importer delivers PDF files straight to the storefront:
Customers
Storefront login accounts, contact details, delivery addresses, and the customer ID that links pricing and account data.
Categories
The category tree used for storefront navigation, including ordering and category images.
Customer pricing
Customer-specific prices, product descriptions, and per-customer product hiding.
Products
The product catalogue: pricing, VAT, stock, pack sizes, images, categories, and search keywords.
Accounts
Account balances, overdue amounts, and payment history shown on the My Account page.
Invoices
PDF invoices shown to signed-in customers on the storefront, delivered as individual files rather than a CSV.
The rest of this page describes how the CSV importers work. Invoices are individual PDF files with no import job or validation step — see the invoices guide.
Uploading files
Upload files from the Store importers page in the admin panel. Each upload replaces the previous dataset for that importer.
If your ERP produces feeds on a schedule, files can also be delivered automatically instead of uploaded by hand. Contact your ProConnect account manager to set up an automated feed.
How imports are processed
- A background job picks up uploaded files: customer, category, and account files about every 5 minutes; product and customer pricing files about every 15 minutes.
- Only the newest pending file per importer is processed. Older pending files are discarded without being imported, so never upload several incremental files in a row - every file must contain the complete dataset.
- Pending files that have not been processed within 7 days are deleted.
- After an import completes, storefront caching can delay visible changes by another 10-20 minutes.
Full snapshots
Every file is a full snapshot of the data it manages:
- Rows in the file are created or updated.
- Active records missing from the file are deactivated.
- Deactivated records keep their stored values and are reactivated if a later file includes them again. Nothing is permanently deleted.
A file that is valid but empty, or contains only a header row, counts as an empty snapshot and deactivates every record that importer manages for the store. Always send the complete dataset.
Validation
Imports are validated before anything is applied, and validation is all-or-nothing: if any row fails, nothing from that file is imported.
When validation fails, the Import log shows a failure report listing each rejected row with its line number, the failing column, the reason, and the offending value.
File format
All importers share the same CSV rules:
- Files must be UTF-8. A leading UTF-8 BOM is allowed. Other encodings are not converted and will corrupt text.
- Values are comma-separated. Wrap values containing commas, quotes, or line breaks in double quotes, and escape a double quote by doubling it (
""). - The first row must be the header row. Header names are case-insensitive, but there are no aliases - use the exact names from each guide.
- Unknown columns are ignored. Duplicate headers are rejected.
- Blank lines are skipped, and every cell value is trimmed of surrounding whitespace.
- The file name must end in
.csv. Files over 300 MB are never processed.
Import log
The Store importers page shows the latest 20 importer files with their status:
- Pending - uploaded and waiting for the next import run.
- Success - validated and applied.
- Failed - rejected by validation. Open the report to see exactly which rows failed and why.