How do I fix this category merge mess?

[moonstonecircle]

Since the category merge my items are a mess. I add my online items to various categories to make my website more shoppable. Since the merge when I edit an item online and try to assign multiple categories (which I have been doing for years) it takes me to 'category page' which is not helpful at all. The only workaround I have found is to select the category then manually add that item to each category. The issue is I have over 20k items and this is insanely time consuming.

Before the merge- if you went into a category edit -the newest products were at the top- this is no longer the case- they appear in alphabetical order. Why did this need to happen??

Why is there no Category merge option either?? I would like to merge my online vs. dashboard categories so my reports are accurate. 

(Most of us have multiple categories that are essentially the same from our dashboard edit and online site.

This needs to be fixed immediately imo. I do not have the time to manually add each item to 5+ categories when I add dozens of items daily. HELP!! 

[Donnie-M · Accepted solution]

@moonstonecircle Pretty much all of your online categories should have came over to the dashboard as they were.  The items would have a reporting category and then the online category.  You can set each category to be available or not online.  so I have items in multiple categories now.

You can edit at the category level where you add and remove items:

Click on the category --->  add remove ---> Then there is a triangle where you can filter and just click add, search a name, and then bulk click to categorize.

The other way is you can download your item catalog as an excel, do bulk edits if your handy, and then import it back.  But I only recommend this if you have a good working knowledge of excel.

The only mental change you have to make is that "reporting category" is the old way...and the other categories are the online categories.  You can limit each item to visibility or even a whole category.

Hope this helps.