Importing creates new listings instead of updating existing listings

Hi @skrinks

For CSV imports, the main thing to keep in mind is that if you upload a new CSV each time you want to add listings, then new listings will be created. To UPDATE listings, you will need to have the Sequence ID for each listing. 

The only way to get the sequence ID for a listing is to do an export from the current directory. So, as long as you can match up the new file to the old IDs you will be fine. You can choose that option when doing the export. 

Depending on whether the directory is continuously growing or whether the listings be stable and occasionally updated will make a difference in how you handle things — you may decide to do your imports with two files — one with existing listing updates and one with new listings.

You can change and update all kinds of information using the Export-Change-Re-import method. For example, you can change fee plans for a large number of listings. That would look like this:

1. Export the listings with the Sequence ID
2. Change the fee plan in the CSV file
3. Re-import the listings.?

I’m hoping you came across the Import/Export documentation here, as I think it may be a helpful reference going forward: https://businessdirectoryplugin.com/knowledge-base/csv-import-export/

I hope that helps.?Please let me know if you have any other questions or issues!

Best regards,

Thank you Garret for the comprehensive reply. Sounds like that will resolve the issue so I will go ahead with that method. I had gone through the documentation but I must have missed the part about exporting with the Sequence ID when planning to update listings.

Cheers,

Steve