A spreadsheet import fails
Fenómenus imports by pasting rows into an on-screen table, not by uploading a file. Most failures are a mismatch between the columns in your spreadsheet and the columns on that screen.
How the import decides what to do
Two rules explain nearly every result:
- Rows are matched by exact title. A row whose title already exists in that menu type updates the existing item. A row with a new title creates a new item, published, at the end of the menu order.
- Empty cells are skipped. A blank cell is not applied, so an import can never blank a price or erase a value you left out of the sheet.
Matched items are also moved to the end of the menu order, so re-check the order after any import.
Nothing happens when you paste
- Paste into the first cell of the table. The table reads the clipboard from the cell you are in.
- Copy from the spreadsheet itself, not from a PDF or a rendered web table.
- Copy only the data rows. A pasted heading row becomes an item called "Dish name".
The values land in the wrong columns
Columns are mapped by position, not by heading text. The table on screen shows the exact order expected for that menu type — for example wine name, glass, bottle, Magnum, Benjamin.
Reorder the columns in your spreadsheet to match the screen before copying. Renaming your headings changes nothing.
Items are created instead of updated
Title matching is exact. These all produce a second item rather than an update:
- a trailing space;
- a different capitalization;
- a curly apostrophe instead of a straight one;
- an accent typed differently;
- a vintage or size appended to the name in one place but not the other.
Export the current items first with Download as Excel, and build the import from those exact titles. That single habit removes most duplicates.
Note that matching looks at the menu type, not at status: a title that also exists on a draft item can be the one that gets updated.
Duplicates appeared
Delete the unwanted copies from All items — and remember that deleting there is permanent. Then re-import using titles copied from the export.
The save reports an error
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| No valid data to process / No valid data received | The table was empty, or no row had a title |
| Unsupported post type | That menu type has no bulk table; tasting menus and set menus are edited individually |
| Invalid category selected | The chosen category no longer exists — reload the screen |
| You do not have permission… | The account cannot edit posts, or cannot assign that category |
The category is wrong for the whole batch
An import applies one category, chosen in Assign category before saving. There is no per-row category column. Import one category at a time, or fix the assignment afterwards from All items.
The import was slow, or the page seemed to freeze
Large batches take time and the screen reports the elapsed seconds while saving. Do not paste thousands of rows in one go; work in batches you can review. Bulk saves deliberately purge the site's page cache once at the end rather than once per row, so the public menu updates in one step when the batch finishes.
Prices imported as text
Enter prices as plain values in the sheet. Currency formatting applied by the spreadsheet can travel with the cell and end up stored as part of the price. Use the generator's price prefix and suffix, or the site's own price display, to add symbols — not the source data.
Recover from a bad import
- Compare against the export you took before importing.
- Correct the rows in the spreadsheet.
- Re-import with the corrected values; matched titles will be updated in place.
- Delete anything created by mistake, and re-check the menu order.
Full workflow: A safe bulk update workflow.