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Product Catalog Walkthrough: Renaming Products in Bulk

Hands-on. The main exercise is the real job: correcting many product names at once from one spreadsheet. Do it on the test company pair first. Read Updating the Product Catalog before you start if you have not.

Before you begin

  1. Open Main, then Items.
  2. Look at the banner at the top. It names the QuickBooks company and the HubSpot portal you are about to work with, each with a tier. For practice both should say test tier and be green. If not, pick the test company in the selector, or ask before going further.
  3. Check the four settings at the bottom of the left column. For this walkthrough all four should be off.

1. Rename products in bulk

Get a sheet with names only

  1. Press Export Items from QBO. The status line ticks while the list is read; when it finishes, the download dialog opens on its own. If you want it again later, press Download Latest Export.
  2. Under Rows, leave All rows. Under Columns, tick Item Name and nothing else.
  3. Press Download. The file has four columns: Item ID, SKU, Item Name, Export ID. That is the whole sheet, on purpose: with only the name column in it, this sheet cannot change anything except names.

Edit it

  1. Open the file in Excel or Sheets. Change as many names as you like. Do not touch the columns marked DO NOT EDIT, and do not add columns.
  2. Rows you do not change are harmless: the app compares every row with the live value and only writes the ones that differ. You do not need to delete the rows you left alone, though you may.
  3. Save as CSV (UTF-8 if you are asked). Keep "item" in the file name.

Apply it

  1. Drop the file on Drop item CSV here. The status line says it is staged.
  2. Press Apply. The review opens and, after a few seconds, the live comparison fills in. For a bulk rename it reads, for each system, "change Item Name on 27 rows; 364 unchanged", with a few before-and-after examples.
  3. Check three things before you tick the box: the two company names at the top are the ones you expect; the only column named is Item Name; and the number of rows changing is the number of names you edited. If it is higher, a name changed on the other side since your export and the review lists it as a rollback; cancel and look at those rows before continuing.
  4. Tick the box and press Apply to 27 rows. Watch the status line until it says "Updated 27 rows."

Check it

  1. Open Reconcile and press Compare now. Tick Name differs. After a good rename it shows no rows: QuickBooks and HubSpot agree on every name. Untick it and search for one of the SKUs you renamed to see the new name on both sides.

2. Undo the whole rename

  1. Back on Items, press Undo an apply….
  2. Your rename is at the top: when, the sheet name, "27 rows, Item Name", and a table of exactly what will be put back, SKU by SKU, old name and new name. Below it, anything that cannot be put back; for a rename there is nothing.
  3. Press Build the undo sheet. The review opens as if you had uploaded a sheet, marked as the undo of that apply, and the live comparison shows the 27 names going back.
  4. Tick the box and apply.

The undo is itself an apply, so it also appears in the undo list.

3. Rename a handful of products

Same as exercise 1, but under Rows choose Only the rows I pick and type part of a name or a SKU to add each product. The sheet has as many rows as you picked and the review says so. Use this when you know exactly which products you mean.

4. What a refusal looks like

  1. Export, and download all rows with Item Name.
  2. Apply a different sheet first, for example a one-row rename.
  3. Now drop the file from step 1 and press Apply. It is refused: the sheet was exported before the last apply, and the message names both times. This is the app protecting you from a sheet that is older than the list.
  4. If you really meant it, turn on Allow stale product sheets, press Apply again, and read the rollback warning: it says how many values would go back to the export moment. Turn the setting off afterwards.

5. Take a product out of use, then bring it back

  1. Export and download one row with the Active column ticked.
  2. Set Active to false. Drop, Apply. The review shows a separate line: "QuickBooks: deactivate 1 product; HubSpot: flag inactive 1 product".
  3. Apply. Open Reconcile, Compare now, tick Inactive in QuickBooks. Your product is there.
  4. Back on Items: export again with Include inactive items ticked, download that one row with Active, set it to true, drop, Apply. The review says "reactivate 1 product" on both sides.

Do not try this with "Archive inactive products in HubSpot" on unless you mean it. Archiving is not reversible from a sheet, and the review says so before you confirm.

Before a warehouse count

Counts are the one case where timing matters, because an order that ships between your export and your apply would be overwritten by an old count.

  1. Turn Allow inventory count updates on.
  2. Export, download all rows with Quantity On Hand ticked, fill in the counts, apply. Do it in one sitting.
  3. Turn the setting off again.

If the review shows something you did not expect

Press Cancel. Nothing has been written. Open Reconcile to see your sheet next to the live values, or use Submit an Issue and quote the review.