AutoDirector forum

Can someone explain to me how the Auto Trader Import Profile works please?

The example_profile.ini file in /import/profiles contains a brief summary of how it works. Essentially, AutoDirector can import any CSV-like data - the only stipulation is that every row contains information for one vehicle only.

The [data_mapping] section controls how the data is imported, e.g. in autotrader_profile.ini, the vehicle year is obtained from the 7th column. You can use any PHP string or regex functions to extract data, e.g. if 'manual' cannot be found anywhere within column 15, the gearbox is set to "automatic".

The [image_files] section contains a regular expression which should match the image filenames for the vehicle, e.g. VINxxx-01.jpg, VINxxx-02.jpg etc.

When you import, you choose a profile then select the data file. All going well, your data should be imported.

its useful if you receive feeds from 3rd party firms that photo your car stock and get dvla details, they then supply a spreadsheet which can easily be imported.

alternatively you can manage your stock on a straight spreadsheet and update the website direct from that file.

Is it possible to get the files via ftp

I'm afraid not at this moment. AutoDirector needs to retrieve all the file names and it does that via a local folder. FTP should be possible if there's enough demand for it?