Loading data from a spreadsheet.
WHEN
Bulk-loading products, customers or reference data Migrating from a system that exports CSV
PREPARING THE FILE
Column order must match the destination table, or you must map them.
Remove the header row, or tell the importer to skip it.
Check for commas inside values, which must be quoted correctly.
Save as UTF-8, or accented characters mangle.
IN PHPMYADMIN
Select the table, Import tab, choose CSV as the format.
Set the field separator, the enclosing character, and whether the first row contains names.
THE SAFER ROUTE FOR APPLICATION DATA
Use the application's own importer. It creates the related records that a direct table insert misses.
Importing products directly into a table, bypassing the application, leaves metadata and relationships absent, and the products behave oddly.
BEFORE IMPORTING
Back up. Test with a few rows first rather than the whole file.
AFTER IMPORTING
Check the row count and inspect several records.
