How to use cobby offline

How to use cobby offline

How can I maintain product data using an "offline" workbook?

In some cases, you can spend days on price calculations, new texts for product descriptions, or other product data that are not supposed to go online the same day or are not yet fully processed. Here we have a helpful workaround for you, allowing you to use cobby conveniently offline without every change being immediately visible in the shop!

Advantages:

• Changes do not go online immediately: You can work on your list for several days without having to upload "incomplete" data.
• Promotions/Discounts: After events like Black Friday, you can quickly upload your old prices again using your saved workbook.
• Employees without access rights for cobby: Allow editing lists offline, review, upload

In the following, we will show you how to:

• enter values in a local ("offline") Excel workbook and later transfer them to your regular cobby Excel workbook

Demo

Go to the English version.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Open workbooks and create your own view

• First, we open our cobby Excel workbook with all the products (on the left) and a blank workbook named "New Price" (on the right).
• For better clarity, we have created our own product view, so that only the attributes relevant to us (SKU, Price, Product Key) are displayed. 
  [Learn how to create your own view here ​
• Additionally, we have filtered for the relevant values. This could be, for example, the category "summer dresses" if the prices of these products need to be adjusted due to the season.
  Recommendation: Save this view as a template if it is used frequently.
  [Learn more about the cobby filter and the Excel filter here ​

2. Transfer values from the cobby Excel workbook to the "offline" workbook

• First, we copy the SKU and Price columns to edit the price next. We need the SKUs as a reference point for the respective prices.
• Right-click to open the menu. Click here on "Copy".
• Then go to the "New Prices" Excel workbook to the first cell where the columns are to be inserted.
• Select the second option "Insert with Value".
• The columns SKU and Price have been successfully copied. 

3. Integrate new values into the "offline" workbook

• Then we create the new column "New Price".
• Since our price is to be increased by 10%, we have entered a formula in the first field that takes the value from the Price column (B2) as a starting point and multiplies it by the factor 1.1 (*110%).
• We apply this formula to all other products. Of course, the new price can also be entered manually for each item. If more products need to be added, you can simply extend the column by the SKU and enter the new price. 

​ ​Attention with duplicate SKUs: Assuming both SKUs are incorrectly labeled as MP01.
​ ​The price will always be taken from the cell that is found first - that is, the value that is at the top of the list.

4. Transfer new values from the "offline" workbook to the correct cobby Excel workbook

• To transfer the data from the "New Prices" Excel workbook to the cobby Excel workbook, we will create an auxiliary column in the cobby Excel workbook. This is the safe option.
  (At the end of the course, we will show you how to do this without an auxiliary column, where the value is transferred directly to the corresponding attribute. However, there are some important things to consider!)
• First, we go to the first cell of the auxiliary column and enter the formula for the XLOOKUP.
  [Learn other ways to use the XLOOKUP here in our course "SKU matching made easy".]
• Then the window with the function parameters opens.
• • As the search criterion, we choose the first SKU MP01.
  • As the search matrix (i.e., what we are looking for), we select column A from the "New Prices" Excel workbook.
  • The return matrix is column C, which is the new price, from the "New Price" Excel workbook.
• Accordingly, the found value is output in the auxiliary column.
• We apply this to all other products.
• We highlight the Price column and transfer the values from the auxiliary column to the Price column using the simple formula = and a click in the "New Price" column.
• cobby has recognized these changes, causing the product status to turn yellow.
• Then we click on "Save Products".
  Accordingly, the job log is also changing, as the changes are now being processed.
  Now everything is green again, which means that the changes are visible online in the shop.

Optional: Adjust values without auxiliary column

As already mentioned, there is also the possibility to do this without an auxiliary column. But be careful! There are some things to consider.

• We start with the price 60 in the "New Price" column in the "New Prices" Excel workbook.
• Here we are now raising the price to 120.
• Now you see that the price in the cobby Excel workbook has automatically increased due to the formula.
  Note: This only works as long as the products in cobby have not been reloaded. Once the products are reloaded, the formula will disappear from the function bar.
• As can be seen from the green product status, cobby did not recognize the change from 60 to 120. As a result, you have to click on "Load Products" to refresh the data. Only then does cobby recognize that a different value has now been entered there.
• Then you can click on "Save Products" and the change will be applied.

   💡 It is always important to check whether the product status has changed to yellow if you want to work without an auxiliary column.

Excellent! 🎉

Now you know how to easily change values such as prices using an offline Excel workbook.