Import Configurable Products in Magento

This article is a part of the tutorial chain below. It's suggested to go over the previous posts in order to complete this tutorial.

1. Fast Magento Product Imports with Magmi
2. Magento Raw Product CSV Creation & Basics
3. Configurable Product Imports
4. Import Multiple Images, Product Attributes and Sub-/Category
5. Custom Options, Tier Pricing, Related Products & other Product Types
6. Creating Products in Bulk via Spreadsheet (Pending)

Configurable Product Importing with Magmi

Importing Configurable Products is another great feature that comes with Magmi, but it can be a bit confusing for some, due to configurable and simple product having different columns and column count.

Start by creating a configurable product manually via the admin to assure that the super attribute and simple product relations are set-up correctly and working. After you successfully created a configurable product to go by, you can start with your configurable product spreadsheet, which requires less column headers due to most coming from the simple products. In a duplicated version of the simple products spreadsheet, cut down the values to the following (but do leave the columns you may require, such as page layout or custom designs if you intend to use them):

store,websites,attribute_set,product_type_id,category_ids,type,configurable_attributes,simples_skus,sku,has_options,name,product_name,description,short_description,meta_title,meta_description,url_key,url_path,cleaning_instructions,image,small_image,thumbnail,image_label,thumbnail_label,small_image_label,options_container,msrp_enabled,msrp_display_actual_price_type,gift_message_available,price,special_price,weight,msrp,status,is_recurring,visibility,enable_googlecheckout,tax_class_id,is_imported

You may notice that there are a few new column headers above, which are configurable_attributes and simples_skus.

The following are just suggestive notes, of how to successfully import simple/configurable products:

• SP (Simple Product) CSV: Include the super attribute as a column header, used when you manually created your test configurable product.
• CP (Configurable Product) CSV: Add the super attribute to this spreadsheet, under the configurable_attributes column.
• SP CSV: You should not include the categories or category_ids column in your simple products spreadsheet, or just leave them empty.
• CP CSV: Instead, list the categories in your configurable products CSV.
• SP CSV: Set the value for the visibility column to Not Visible Individually or to Search if preferred (you can change this after importing simple products if missed, within Magmi configuration for configurable products).
• SP CSV: The type column should be set to simple.
• CP CSV: The type column should be configurable on the configurable product spreadsheet.
• SP & CP CSV: Both spreadsheets should have the same value under attribute_set.
• CP CSV: List the simple product SKU's under the simples_skus of the corresponding configurable product, comma separated. These will be the products you intend to link the CP with.
• Lastly, import the simple products first, then follow with the configurable product imports.