FAQ

Find quick answers to common questions about managing your account, data imports, product updates, formulas, and channels in SmartFeeds.

How do I give a consultant access to my SmartFeeds account?

You can easily add external consultants to your account by registering them as a new client in our system.

Steps to add a user:

1. Open the Admin Form
2. Choose "Create SmartFeeds (or Audience Flow) License" from the Category dropdown menu.
3. Fill in the required fields (name, contact details, and account settings).
4. Review your entries and click submit.

Learn more about right management →

Note: The system will create the profile inside your Users section within 24 hours.

Why is my import alert still active after I fixed the issue?

If an alert does not disappear after you fix an error, your file may have another hidden issue. For example, columns that contain only blank spaces or comment notes can trigger alerts.

Steps to resolve:

1. Refresh your browser page: Sometimes the dashboard needs a manual refresh to clear the alert and display the updated status. If the alert remains, follow the steps below.
2. Open your raw product file.
3. Check your column headers and rows.
4. Remove any fields that contain only notes or comments.
5. Re-upload the clean file.
6. Contact our support team: If you have tried all the steps above and the alert is still active, please reach out to us using our Contact Us page.

Learn more about Product Flow alerts →

Concrete Example: You corrected a broken image URL in your catalog, but the red import alert remains. You inspect the spreadsheet and find a column named "Internal Notes" containing only text hashtags. You delete this column, and the alert disappears.

Why are my product feeds not updating automatically?

Automated updates stop for five main reasons:

• The ProductFlow status is set to "Inactive".
• The client is not uploading the source file correctly to the server.
• The source file has not changed in the last 30 days. (Our system stops processing static files to clean up resources).
• There is a connection error with the mct api channel.
• A critical file error triggered a blocked import alert.

Steps to resolve:

1. Go to your dashboard and verify that your ProductFlow is active.
2. Check the timestamp of your source file to ensure it is updated regularly.
3. Verify your file transfer settings.
4. Clear any "blocked import alert": Check your dashboard for active alerts. If you see a "blocked import alert", resolve the critical file error to resume updates.

Learn more about product flow alert →

Concrete Example: Your Google Shopping feed did not update this morning. You check the dashboard and see that the client's FTP file has not been modified for 35 days. You ask the client to push an updated file, which restarts the updates.

My SFTP or FTP feed is showing a connection error. How can I resolve it?

The most common connection errors are caused by IP firewall blocking or incorrect folder directory slashes.

Steps to resolve:

1. Whitelist our IP: Ask your IT team to whitelist the SmartFeeds static IP on your server's firewall.
2. Fix folder slashes: Always use a starting slash for your folder paths (use /catalog/ instead of catalog/).
3. Use the upload folder: For sending exports, make sure your directory path is set exactly to upload.

Learn more about SFTP & FTP connections →

Concrete Example: Your automated feed fails with a "Connection Error". You check the settings and see your directory path is written as feed/. You change it to /feed/ and ensure your server whitelists our transfer IP. The connection works immediately.

My custom formula or price calculation is breaking. How do I fix it?

Formulas usually break because of a math error (like dividing a number by zero) or a syntax error (like mixing different data types, such as text and numbers).

Steps to resolve:

• The Easy Way (No Code): Skip the manual steps! Use our visual Formula Editor to build rules safely without writing any code.
• The Manual Way:
  1. Locate the formula causing the issue.
  2. Use the SAFE_DIVIDE function to protect your calculations from division-by-zero errors.
  3. Use the SAFE_CAST function if you need to convert text columns into numbers.

Learn more about using maths formulas →

Concrete Example: You calculate discounts using: (Price - Sale_Price) / Price. If a product has a price of 0, the system crashes. You change the rule to SAFE_DIVIDE(Price - Sale_Price, Price) to prevent the error.

Why does my feed have more products than expected after a join?

If your product count suddenly multiplies, your join settings are incorrect. This happens when your join key is not unique, which creates duplicate rows for every matching item.

Steps to resolve:

You can easily resolve this directly inside SmartFeeds using our dedicated Deduplication module:

1. Open your flow configuration in ProductFlow.
2. Add a Deduplication module step right after your join step.
3. Select your unique product identifier (such as product_id or sku) as the deduplication key.
4. Save your configuration. The module will automatically scan your joined data and delete all duplicate entries.

Learn more about data join →

Concrete Example: You join your main product list with a store inventory file using product_id. Because some products have multiple store locations, this join duplicates your items. Instead of manually cleaning your source files, you add our Deduplication module after the join step, select product_id as your key, and the system automatically cleans your catalog down to unique products.

How do I speed up updates for a large product catalog?

Large files take longer to process. You can optimize performance by using simple formats and reducing unnecessary details.

Steps to resolve:

1. Use CSV files instead of XML or Excel files. CSV files load much faster.
2. Remove unused columns from your source file to shrink the file size.

Learn more about data imports →

Concrete Example: Your feed contains 1,000,000 items and takes an hour to update using an XML format. You switch the input format to a clean CSV file, which reduces the processing time to 15 minutes.

I need to create filters to segment my products. How do I configure them and fix errors?

Creating and modifying filters is easy within the SmartFeeds interface. If you run into any errors with your filters, review the syntax of your rules and ensure that all the fields you are using actually exist.

Steps to resolve:

1. Check your fields: Open your filter configuration and verify that all columns used in your rules exist in your imported file.
2. Review syntax: Check spelling, casing, and basic punctuation in your filter syntax.
3. Use the Formula Editor: If you are not comfortable creating or editing filters manually, our visual tool can simplify the process without coding.

Learn more about product filters →

Concrete Example: You create a filter rule to segment products where status = "instock". If the filter fails, check your file. You might find the column is actually named availability instead of status. Changing the field name in your rule fixes the filter instantly.

How do I manage special characters in my feeds?

Accents (like é, à) or HTML symbols (like &) can break your exports.

Steps to resolve:

• In Advanced Formula mode: Wrap your text strings in double quotes. Ensure your file encoding is set to UTF-8.
• In Formula Editor mode: Turn on the built-in option to automatically clean special characters.

Learn more about our Formula editor →

Concrete Example: Your product description contains HTML code like <b>New!</b>. In Formula Editor mode, you turn on the character cleanup switch to change this to plain text: New!.

How does SmartFeeds calculate my product limit?

Your product limit is calculated using the total rows in your mapping file after the join step, but before any filtering.

Three simple rules to remember:

• Filter Upstream: If you filter your feed before uploading it to SmartFeeds, your counted product volume decreases.
• Channel Filters Do Not Help: Applying filters inside SmartFeeds channel settings does not reduce your billed product volume.
• Watch Out for Duplicates: Bad joins create duplicate products, which count as separate rows and can push you over your limit. Learn how to clean them in our Deduplication Guide.

Note: You can check your active count in your channel's denominator or inside the join module.

Concrete Example: You import 10,000 products. If you filter out 3,000 items inside a channel, you are still billed for 10,000 products. To reduce your count to 7,000, you must filter them before uploading. Additionally, if a bad join duplicates 2,000 items, your count increases to 12,000.

I have a specific question about SmartFeeds and I can't find the answer in the FAQ. Where can I get help?

If you have a question that isn't covered in this FAQ, our support team is ready to assist you, you can contact us