Using the ContentDirect system:
To load the ContentDirect page, in order to create your data set, you need to select the link entitled "Content Direct" under the Promotional Tools section of the left navigation menu, as shown here:
Fig. 2.6.5.1.1: The "Content Direct" link from the left navigation menu:
This will load the "ContentDirect" page, shown below:
Fig. 2.6.5.1.2: The "Content Direct" page from which you can create new ContentDirect Data Sets:
The ContentDirect page has a number of initial fields and some 'advanced settings fields' which are not displayed unless you click the button labeled 'advanced settings". For the purposes of this section we will ignore the advanced settings (these are covered off in the next section of this manual), instead focussing on the basic options on this page:
Who do you want to generate content for?
This drop-down selector is where you can select the person to whom sales, using this set of Content Direct data about to be generated, should be attributed to. If, for example, you plan to use the ContentDirect data yourself - on your own site(s), you should select "My Partner Account" from the drop-down list. If, however, you have a particular affiliate for whom you are producing this data (and so, to whom you would like to pay the 10% commission for every sale resulting from this ContentDirect data set) then you would need to select that particular affiliate from the drop-down list.
Note: The drop-down selector only appears if you have created at least one affiliate account.
Search Criteria:
First Category
This is the first category from which you would like to generate content. Remember, you can only have up to 50% of the titles within any one category. Also, you can only have up to a maximum 100 titles generated in one session. For your convenience, the total number of titles in each category is displayed in brackets next to the category name in the drop-down box. You do not have to choose more than one category if you do not want to.
Second Category
As above, this is the second category from which you would like ContentDirect to generate your titles.
Third Category
As above, this is the third and final category from which you can generate your titles.
Number to generate
This field contains the value of the number of titles you would like in your ContentDirect output. As has been mentioned above, this figure can be no more than 100 titles in one session, and cannot represent more than 50% of your chosen category.
Advanced Settings button
Clicking this button expands the page options to include the more 'advanced' selection options, described in the following section of this manual.
Generate Content button
Clicking this button begins the process of generating your content. ContentDirect delivers three different versions of the data on completion, from which you may select in accordance to your preference.
Generating the Data Set:
When you have selected your desired category/categories and also entered the number of titles you require in the ContentDirect output, you should click the button labeled "Generate Content" and after a few seconds the webpage will 'refresh' and when it reloads a set of three hyper-links will appear immediately beneath the button you just clicked. The three links are:
Download CSV File (Raw data - no formatting or layout)
Right-clicking this link and selecting "Save target as..." from the resultant pop-up menu will bring up a 'Save as' window. Select a convenient location on your computer to which to save this file, then click 'save' in the window. Downloading the file in this manner avoids the possibility of your browser trying to open the file, rather than download it. Once the CSV file has finished downloading you may access the file as required.
Download XML File (Raw data - no formatting or layout)
Again, to download this file, right-click the link and select "Save target as..." then browse to the location to which you would like to save this file and click the 'Save' button. This will then download the XML file to your computer.
Download Zipped Pages (formatted HTML pages)
Right-click the link, select "Save target as..." and then click the save button when you've browsed to the location to which you would like to save this zip file. Once the file has downloaded, you need to unzip the file (using Windows XP's native file decompression feature - by right-clicking the zip file and selecting "Extract all...", or by using a suitable unzipping application: Winzip, for example. You will notice, when you have unzipped the file, that there are many HTML files now on your computer - each of these pages represents one product page, and can be imported (singly, or en masse) into your web-authoring package of choice. The individual HTML files are the 'lowest common denominator' insofar as they can be imported into pretty much any web authoring application. If you are unsure in any way as to which file format you should download, then go straight for the HTML pages, as you are less likely to have any difficulty using this data thereafter.
In the next section we'll take a look at the advanced settings we can apply, prior to generating the Data Set.