Work with catalogs and categories

Current version: 10.1

A catalog is a container for one or more categories and is typically the first item you create in the business tools. A catalog contains sellable items that you can organize into categories and subcategories.

Important

How you structure your catalogs can impact performance when you access a parent item (for example, when you expand the parent node in the Content Editor). To avoid this issue, minimize the number of child items contained within any one parent item.

Add a catalog

The catalog is at the highest level of the catalog structure. You must add a catalog to contain categories or sellable items.

Note

The Merchandising dashboard displays the list of catalogs in alphabetical order.

To add a catalog:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click + on the section header.

  3. In the Add Catalog dialog box, enter a name, display name, and an optional description, and then click the check mark.

Add item definitions to a catalog

You can optionally add item definitions to your catalog to make them available to sellable items. Item definitions provide a mechanism that facilitates sharing custom schema properties defined using the Composer template across multiple sellable items.

To add item definitions to your catalog:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools, and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the name of a catalog. The Catalog details page opens.

  3. In the Details section header, click the Edits a catalog icon.

  4. In the Edit dialog box, in the Item definitions field, enter the item definition (in a string format), and then press Enter.

    Note

    You must press the Enter key for the item definitions to appear in the field. You can add as many item definitions as needed.

  5. Click the check mark to save your configuration.

Add a category or subcategory to a catalog

Categories and subcategories in your catalog give you more granular control of sellable items. For example, if you have a catalog for personal electronics, you might want to have a parent Appliances category that contains subcategories of Microwaves and Refrigerators.

To add a category or subcategory to a catalog:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the name of a catalog. The Catalog details page opens.

  3. In the Categories section, from the drop-down list, click Add.

  4. In the Add dialog box, enter a name, display name, and an optional description for the category, then click the check mark.

  5. To add a subcategory, in the Categories section, click the name of the category and, in the Category details page, from the drop-down list, click Add.

  6. In the Add dialog box, enter a name, display name, and an optional description for the subcategory, and then click the check mark.

Associate an existing subcategory with a different category

Subcategories can be associated with multiple categories. For example, you might want to associate the subcategory of Microwaves with a Featured category, in addition to the subcategory already being associated with the Appliances category.

To associate a subcategory with a parent category:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools, and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the name of a catalog.  The Catalog details page opens.

  3. In the Categories section, click the name of the category.  The Category details page opens.

  4. In the Categories section, click the name of the subcategory and, from the drop-down list, click Associate.

  5. In the Associate dialog box, start typing the name of the category you want to associate.  A list of matching names is displayed.  Select the category name you want and click the check mark. 

Disassociate a subcategory from a parent category

If you disassociate a subcategory from a parent category, that subcategory and any subcategories or sellable items contained in it are removed from the catalog, unless the subcategory is already associated with other categories or the top level of the catalog.

For example, if you have a subcategory of Refrigerators contained in the Appliances category, and a subcategory of Mini that is contained in the Refrigerators subcategory, and you decide to disassociate the Mini subcategory, that subcategory and all sellable items contained in it will be removed from the catalog. However, you can associate a subcategory and the sellable items it contains to a different parent category, or the top level catalog.

To disassociate a subcategory from a category:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools, and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the name of the relevant catalog.  The Catalog details page opens.

  3. In the Categories section, click the name of the relevant category. The Category details page opens.

  4. In the Categories section, click the relevant subcategory and, from the drop-down list, click Disassociate.

  5. In the Disassociate dialog box, you can either proceed with the disassociation or you can re-parent the subcategory (and sellable items it contains) to a different parent category:

    • To disassociate the subcategory from the category, click the check mark.

    • To associate the subcategory with another parent category, select the Re-parent check box and, in the New Parent Id field, enter the name of the existing parent category, then click the check mark.

Delete a category or subcategory

When you delete a parent category, the subcategories it contains are also deleted. The sellable items are untouched and remain in the database. Only the associations to the category or subcategory are removed.

Important

When you delete or disassociate a category, the sellable items contained in the category are orphaned if the sellable items are associated with only one catalog. Use the Reparent children to another category or catalog option to associate the orphaned sellable items to another category or catalog.

To delete a category or subcategory:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools, and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the name of the relevant catalog.  The Catalog details page opens.

  3. In the Categories section, click the name of the category or subcategory you want to delete.

  4. In the Categories section, from the drop-down list, click Delete.

    Categories section drop-down menu
  5. In the Delete dialog box, from the Delete Option list, click one of the following options and then click the check mark:

    • Delete category - to delete the category or subcategory. In this case, you are removing the associations to the category or subcategory from the sellable items it contains. The sellable items themselves are not deleted from the catalog and remain in the database. They are, however, orphaned if they are associated with only one catalog until you reassociate them to another catalog or category.

    • Disassociate category - to disassociate the category from the catalog or parent category. In this case, you are disassociating the category from the catalog or the parent category but the sellable items themselves remain in the database. If the sellable items are associated with only one catalog, they are orphaned until you associate them to another catalog or category.

    • Reparent children to another category or catalog - to add the children of the category or subcategory you are deleting to another category or catalog, which ensures no items are orphaned.

Note

A deleted category or subcategory might come up in search results until the Purge Categories minion runs or you run it manually through Postman.

Delete a catalog

You can delete catalogs that are no longer using the Merchandising tool.

When you delete a catalog, the following occurs:

  • Categories associated with the catalog are deleted. (Deleted categories might come up in search results until a process running in the background purges them from the database.)

  • Sellable items that are associated with other catalogs keep their relationships with those catalogs and remain in the database.

  • Sellable items that are only associated with the deleted catalog are also deleted and purged from the database by a process running in the background. (Deleted sellable items can come up in search results until the background process purges them from database.)

    Important

    To avoid permanently deleting sellable items from the database, before you delete your catalog, you can create a temporary catalog and then, in the primary catalog, delete each category using the Reparent children to another category or catalog option to associate the sellable items with the temporary catalog.

To delete a catalog:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, in the Commerce section, click Business Tools, and then click Merchandising.

  2. On the Merchandising dashboard, in the Catalogs section, click the Display Name of the catalog you want to delete (the line is highlighted), and then click the X button (delete button).

    The delete catalog button.
  3. In the Delete dialog box, click the check mark to confirm.

    Note

    A deleted catalog might come up in search results until the Purge catalog minion runs and removes it from the database.

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