Importing Product Reviews
The Upload Reviews screen imports product reviews from a spreadsheet, so you do not have to enter them one at a time. Use it to bring review history across from another platform or review service, or to seed a new item with feedback you already have.
To open it, edit an item, go to the Reviews tab, and click Upload Reviews next to new review. You need the Edit Items permission.
Before You Start
Each row in the spreadsheet becomes one review, attached to the item named in its Item ID column. That is true even though you opened the screen from one item's Reviews tab, so a single file can load reviews for many items at once.
The import runs in two steps:
- Validate uploads the file and checks its structure: that it can be read, that every required column is present, and that it has at least one review row.
- Start Import processes each row in the background. Rows with problems are skipped and listed in a summary when the import finishes. The rest import normally.
Preparing the Spreadsheet
Save the file as CSV (.csv) or Excel (.xls or .xlsx). A single file can hold up to 100,000 review rows.
Column headers are matched by name, so column order does not matter. Matching ignores letter case, surrounding spaces, and repeated spaces, so Item ID, item id, and ITEM ID are all treated the same. Columns the importer does not recognize are ignored, and completely blank rows are skipped.
Click Download a sample spreadsheet on the Upload Reviews screen for a file containing every supported column, filled with example rows. Replacing its rows with your own data is the quickest way to get the headers right.
Required Columns
Every file must contain all six of these columns, and every row must fill them in.
| Column | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Item ID | The item the review belongs to. It must match an existing item ID on your account. | HNS |
| Status | Approved, Unapproved, or Rejected. Case does not matter. | Approved |
| Featured | Yes, Y, True, or 1 to feature the review. Anything else, including a blank cell, means not featured. | Yes |
| Review Title | The review's headline. | Great value |
| Review Content | The full text of the review. Line breaks inside a quoted CSV cell are kept. | Very happy with the purchase. |
| Product Rating: Overall | The overall rating as a number. Decimals such as 4.5 are accepted. | 5 |
Optional Columns
Include any of these when you have the data. Leave a cell blank to use the default.
| Column | What to enter | Default when blank |
|---|---|---|
| Submitted | The original review date, as YYYY-MM-DD or MM/DD/YYYY. | The date and time of the import |
| Reviewer Nickname | The name shown with the review. | No nickname |
The reviewer's email address. The header can also be Reviewer Email. | No email | |
| Recommend To Friend | Yes, Y, True, or 1 if the reviewer would recommend the item. | No |
| Helpful Yes Votes | A whole number of "helpful" votes to carry over. | 0 |
| Helpful No Votes | A whole number of "not helpful" votes to carry over. | 0 |
| Awaiting Screening | Yes, Y, True, or 1 if the review still needs screening. | No |
| Review Media | The full URL of one image to attach to the review. | No media |
Carry Submitted across whenever you are migrating. Without it, every imported review is dated the day you ran the import.
Linking Reviews to Customers
When a row has an Email, UltraCart stores it on the review and looks for a customer profile on your account with that email. If it finds one, the review is linked to that customer. If it does not, the review still imports, just without the link.
Attaching Review Images
For each Review Media URL, UltraCart downloads the image and stores its own copy, so the review keeps its photo even if the original URL later goes away. The URL has to be reachable from the internet at the time of the import.
Only images are supported, up to 25 MB each. Video URLs, invalid URLs, and files that cannot be downloaded do not stop the row: the review imports without media, and the summary lists the row so you can add the image by hand if you need it.
Uploading the Spreadsheet
- Edit the item, open the Reviews tab, and click Upload Reviews.
- Click Choose File and select your spreadsheet.
- Click Validate.
- Read the result. A good file shows Spreadsheet structure looks good. with the number of review rows and the columns UltraCart found. Check that list to confirm your headers were matched as you intended. If you included an email column, a line confirms it will be used to link reviews to customer profiles.
- Click Start Import.
- Keep the page open while the progress table updates. It shows the records processed, the percentage complete, elapsed time, and an estimated time remaining.
- When Review import complete. appears, review the summary described below.
- To load another file, click Upload another file. When you are done, click Return to Item Review Settings.
Reading the Results
When Validate Rejects the File
If the structure is wrong, the screen shows The spreadsheet could not be imported: followed by the reasons, and nothing is imported. Fix the file and click Validate again.
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Missing required column: name | Add that column header. One message appears for each missing column. |
| The spreadsheet contains a header but no review rows. | Add at least one review below the header row. |
| The file is empty. | Choose the correct file. The one you uploaded has no content. |
| The file could not be read as a spreadsheet. | Save the file as CSV, XLS, or XLSX and upload it again. |
| The spreadsheet contains N rows. The maximum is 100000. | Split the file into smaller files and import each one. |
The Import Summary
When the import finishes, a summary shows:
- Total Rows: the review rows found in the file.
- Reviews Imported: the reviews created.
- Skipped (already imported): rows that match a review already on the item. This line appears only when there are some.
Below it, any rows with problems are listed by row number, where row 1 is the header. Common reasons a row is skipped:
- The Item ID is blank or does not exist on your account.
- Status, Review Title, Review Content, or Product Rating: Overall is blank.
- Status is something other than Approved, Unapproved, or Rejected.
- The rating is not a number, or a helpful-vote count is not a whole number.
- The Submitted date is not in
YYYY-MM-DDorMM/DD/YYYYformat.
Rows listed only for a Review Media problem were still imported, without the image.
Fixing Rows and Importing Again
Correct the listed rows in your spreadsheet, then upload the whole file again. You do not need to delete the rows that already imported.
UltraCart recognizes a review it already has by its item, title, content, reviewer nickname, and email. Rows that match an existing review are skipped and counted under Skipped (already imported), so a second upload only adds the reviews that were missing. The same check stops two identical rows within one file from both importing.
Because a match needs all five of those values to be identical, editing a review's title or text in the spreadsheet makes it a different review. Uploading that row again adds a second review rather than updating the first. Edit existing reviews on the item's Reviews tab instead.