BAM! includes the ability to build some types of assets that deliver special functionality.  The list of builders will grow over time, as new features and enhancements are added.  Not all builders are included with a standard license — see your Account Manager for more information about builders, comparison, and licensing.

Comparisons

The Product Comparison Builder creates a Comparison asset, which allows Mobile Sales Tool users to select two products from a list of options and compare their features and specifications side by side.  While most BAM! Builders are designed to create image-based assets with additional functionality, Comparison assets are more data-driven and the process for creating them is significantly different.  This guide will describe the process of editing the Comparison Template File for the Comparison Builder. Part 2 will describe uploading the file and using the Comparison Builder.

Comparison Template File - Introduction

The Comparison Template is a tab-delimited text file which may be edited in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, or in a text editor like Notepad. In most cases, it's easier to enter and edit the comparable information in a spreadsheet.  The template file is available within the Comparison Builder in BAM! or via the 'Comparison Template File' article located within the 'Builder Assets' section of our support portal.

In a text editor, the template file looks like this:



The tab-delimited format of the file makes it much easier to read in a spreadsheet application: 



Items to note about the template file:

  • The "#" character is used at the beginning of a line to indicate a comment, and none of the lines that begin with that character will be imported into the final Comparison asset. These comments can be very useful for describing comparison data or adding notes that would help others edit the file later.  It is not necessary to use any comments or to keep the instructions at the top of the template, but our customers have found this to be useful.
  • After editing the file, it must be saved as a Tab-Delimited text file.  This process is described below for both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets since these are the most common editors used.  
  • BAM! will validate the file when it is uploaded into the Comparison Builder and display an error message if the file does not match the required format.  If you encounter this issue, please re-try saving the file following these instructions and contact BAM! support if you continue to have problems.
  • While there are no technical limits on the number of products or attributes to compare, please consider usability on mobile devices with small screens.  Scrolling through hundreds of attributes may not be the best user experience.
  • When editing the file in Excel, some characters may alter the formatting.  Single and double quotes (' and "), and commas in the fields can cause Excel to add other characters to "fix" formatting errors.  This may be avoided by omitting these characters or using another editor to enter/correct the data before uploading it to BAM!  Google Sheets may be a better tool for editing the Comparison file, since it is less likely to make these format changes.

Opening the Template File

After you download the template file, it's time to add your comparable information.  Most text editor applications should open it directly, but editing won't be as easy as within a spreadsheet application.  To open the file in Excel or Google Sheets, follow these steps:

Microsoft Excel

NOTE: While there are visual differences between versions of Excel, the steps described here should apply to all commonly-used versions.

Start Excel by clicking the desktop icon or from your Start Menu. Click File, Open and browse to the folder where your template is stored.  Be sure to change the file type to All Files or the template may not be visible:




Excel's Text Import Wizard window should open to guide you through the process.  On the first screen, make sure the button for Delimited is checked, then click Next.




Be sure only the Tab box is checked for Delimiters and click Next.




Make sure the Column Data Format is set to General and click Finish.  



These should all be default settings in the Text Import Wizard.  If so, just click Finish on the first step during future imports.

Once these steps are complete, the file contents should be displayed in Excel.

Google Sheets

The process to open the template in Google Sheets is simpler than in Excel. Create a new spreadsheet by opening a browser and typing 'sheets.new' into the address bar or by clicking on the 'Blank' icon from the Google Sheets homepage. (you may be prompted to sign in to your Google account).  In the new spreadsheet, click File, then click Import:



In the pop-up window, select the file location - you can import the file from online storage or from your computer.  In the Import File dialog, select Replace Spreadsheet for import location, Tab for Separator Type, and No for Convert text to Numbers and Dates:



After importing the file, you should see the template file displayed in Google Sheets.

Adding Data to Your Comparison File

The template file contains instructions and examples of comparison data to help enter the appropriate information for products. While it may look confusing initially, the structure is not complicated.  For this article we will start with the sample data included in the template and add a new product and more attributes.

There are three mandatory rows in any comparison, which should be at the top of the first column of a Comparison:

  • itemName - This is typically a model name, number, or other unique identifier.  Remember that people will be viewing this information on a mobile device screen and long model numbers or names may not fully display.  
  • classification - The most common use for this field is to display the manufacturer or selling company.  It may be used for any purpose, but this has an effect on how the comparison choices are presented when the Comparison asset is built.  (See Part 2 of this guide for information about how this field is used.)
  • itemImage - By default, this field is blank when a new asset is created.  Once the file is uploaded to BAM! the system will prompt you to select an image asset from the Library.  If you download the file for a completed asset, this row will be populated with an asset identifier.  A good rule of thumb is that the ItemImage row should never be manually edited.

NOTE: these fields are case-sensitive and start with a lower-case letter.  Please use them exactly as provided in the template!

In the template file, you may notice that the mandatory fields appear to be listed twice. In the first instance, these items appear at the top of the sample data, and those lines will not be processed by BAM! unless the # comment symbol is removed from the leading value. In the second instance, the values are not preceded by the # comment symbol and those fields are included as a default starting point for any new comparison you create:



To begin processing the sample template, remove  # comment symbol at the start of the relevant lines. and delete the three rows of default metadata from the bottom of the spreadsheet (those rows are redundant once you've removed the comment tags from the metadata at the top of the sample file):



Below these first three items, are attributes for comparing one product against another.  These can be any criteria you choose, but remember that it is preferable to limit the length of the text in any particular field to ensure it will be displayed on the smaller screens used for mobile devices.

The second column is used to assign categories to attributes.  In the template file, Weight, Height, and Width are all categorized as Dimensions.  Categories will allow further filtering and sorting of attributes and can be used to group together items with similar attributes.  

NOTE: the three mandatory attributes (ItemName, Classification, and ItemImage) are categorized as meta to indicate that they are metadata to be used by the system.

Adding Attributes

For our sample Comparison, let's add a few more attributes for consideration.  Maybe we want to highlight the power requirements for our robots:



Here, we added three items in the Power category and entered the relevant data for the products in our comparison.  We can also add products by creating new columns to the right:



These new products will be included in our comparison asset when we build it. Once you are finished editing the file, it's time to save it.

Saving the Comparison File

As with opening the template above, it is important to save the file in the correct format to import it into the Comparison Builder.  While a text editor should save the file in the correct format after editing, the spreadsheet apps will require some additional steps to maintain the formatting.

Microsoft Excel

If you imported the template file using the steps above, you can save the file by clicking File, Save As and use the save dialog to save as Text (Tab delimited):



Depending on the version of Excel, the saved file may have a .txt file extension.  The file extension will not affect the file's ability to be imported into BAM!

Google Sheets

In Google Sheets, click File > Download > Tab-separated Values:



The file will be downloaded to your computer's default downloads folder.

Once you have saved the file, move on to Part 2: Creating a Comparison Asset.