Configuring Products in Product Experience Manager (EP PXM)

Creating Products

Prerequisite

• Ensure that you have created at least one price book.

Using locales

You can localize product names and descriptions when creating your products. By default, there are a number of language codes available. You make locales available in Commerce Manager in Settings > Locales. You can select a maximum of 5 languages. You can also add your own custom language codes if the language that you want to use is not available in Settings > Locales. You can do this using the create a product API request. Locales that are added using the Create a product API request are available in Commerce Manager under Custom Product Locales.

Best practises

• Create at least one template with attributes before creating a product.
• Create at least one variation with options and required modifiers to build child products before creating a product.

The following steps provide a high-level procedure to complete a product configuration:

1. In the Product Experience Manager > Products page, click Add Product.
2. In the Product Details tab, enter the product details.
3. In the Product Templates tab, add templates for the product.
4. In the Pricing tab, configure the pricing settings for the product.
5. In the Variations tab, associate variations with the product and build child products with the variations and options.
6. In the Inventory tab, manage the product inventory.
7. In the Media Management tab, upload the product images.

You can use Back and Next buttons to navigate through the tabs and the Save & Exit button to save the changes and exit the window any time.

The following procedures provides detailed instruction on completing each step in Creating products.

(Optional) Step 1 - Configuring locales

1. In the Product Details tab, expand Locale drop-down list. The languages you have configured in Settings > Locale are displayed first. Custom product locales are displayed underneath.

2. Select the language you want to use. If the language you want is not available, perform the following steps.

   1. Go to Settings > Locales to find and select the language you want.
   2. If the language you want is not shown in Settings > Locales then add a custom locale using create a product.

3. Commerce Manager prompts you to enter the product name and description in the language you selected.

4. Type a localized name and description. A flag representing the language you are currently using is displayed.

5. When you have finished, select Global from the Locale drop-down list to return to Product Details. Commerce Manager shows you which localizations are being used for this product.

6. Repeat these steps for each language you want to use.

7. You can go back and edit any localized names and descriptions at any time by selecting the language you want from the Locale drop-down list.

Step 2 - Adding product details

1. In Name: Enter a name for the product.
2. (Optional) Description: A description for the product. Descriptions can be added in plain or rich text.
3. SKU Number: The SKU number of the product.
4. Slug: A label for the product that is used in the URL paths. A slug can contain any combination of letters, numbers, periods, hyphens, and underscores. No spaces or other characters are allowed. By default, the product name is used as the slug.
5. Commodity Type: Whether the product is physical or digital.
6. (Optional) MPN: Manufacture Part Number (MPN).
7. (Optional) UPC/EAN: Universal Product Code (UPC) or European Article Number (EAN) used to scan a product in a Point of Sale (POS) system.
8. Click the Product Status toggle and set the product status.
9. Click Next.

Step 3 - Adding templates to the product

Ensure that at least one template is available.

1. In the Product Templates tab, click Add Templates. The [templates] available for the product are listed.

2. To add a template to the product, click + next to the template you want to add.

   • All templates added to the product are displayed in the Templates list table. This page also provides details of the templates, such as the name and values of the attributes in the templates.
   • You may have products with multiple templates, with each template having multiple attributes. You can select Hide Empty Fields to only view the fields that have values set.

3. Click Next or Save & Exit.

Step 4 - Configuring product price

Use this procedure to configure product pricing details, such as price books associated with the product, sale price and volume price, for a product. You can use volume pricing feature to set a different unit price for the product when shoppers make volume purchase of the product. You can select a price book for the product pricing and specify the new unit price offered when a minimum specified quantity is bought.

You can use the sale price feature and enable selling the product for a sale price during a specific period.

Procedure

1. In the Pricing > Price Books tab:

   1. To associate the product with a price book, in the Select Price Book field, select a price book.

   2. Enter the amount in the available currencies.

      You can configure currencies in Settings > Currencies.

   3. Click Save.

2. In the Advanced Pricing tab, do the following:

   1. To specify the minimum purchase quantity available for the volume pricing, in the Volume Pricing section, select a price book and enter the minimum purchase quantity.
   2. To specify sale price for the product, in the Sale Price section, select a price book and duration and enter a sale name.

3. Click Next or Save & Exit.

Step 5 - Assigning variations and building child products

• Ensure that at least one variation with at least one option is available.

• Ensure that both variation and all option names:

  • Contain only uppercase and lower case letters.
  • Contain digits from 0 to 9, underscore (_), or hyphen (-).
  • Do not contain any other special characters.

You can build the child products only if all variations and the options are named appropriately.

1. In the Variations tab, click Associate Variation.

2. From the Variation drop down menu:

   1. Select a variation.
   2. Click Associate to Product.

   All options within the selected variation are displayed in the Variation Options field.

3. Repeat step 2 and assign all required variations to the product.

4. To add child products, click Child Products.

   The Child Products tab is displayed with a list of existing child products, if any.

5. Click Build Child Products.

   Child products are generated by combining the variations and the options within each variation. If you click Build Child Products without assigning a variation to the product, a message prompting you to select a variation is displayed.

For example, assign the following variations for the product, shirt:

Variation	Option
size	small, medium, large
color	green, yellow, red

When you build the child products, products with the following SKU are created:

The child products are indicated with the Child type. After deleting variations and options, you must rebuild the child products for the changes to take effect.

Step 6 - Managing product inventory

Inventory is the quantity of each product that you have in stock.

1. In the Inventory tab, click Manage inventory.

   The following details are displayed:

   • Product Name
   • SKU
   • In stock
   • Allocated: The amount of reserved product in stock.
   • Available: The amount of product available in the stock minus allocated product. (Available = Total - Allocated).

2. In the Manage inventory > Actions field, select one of the following options, and in the Qty field, enter the appropriate quantity:

   • Allocate : Reserves a number of inventory items so that you cannot sell the allocated items.
   • Deallocate : Reduces the number of allocated items so that you can sell the items again.
   • Increment : Adds stock to the total inventory.
   • Decrement : Reduces the specified quantity from the total inventory.

   After you update the stock, the activity is added to the log and the Inventory log tab displays the details of each activity.

3. Click Next or Save & Exit.

Step 7 - Managing product media

1. To add a media for the product, in the Media Management tab, do one of the followings:

   • Drag and drop the file from your local directory.
   • Click Choose File and browse and add the file.
   • In the add by URL field, add the URL for the media.

2. Click Done.

   You can add multiple media for a product. All media that you upload are listed in the Media upload table.

3. To assign an image as the main image for the product, select the Use as main image field next to the image name.

4. Click Next or Save & Exit.

Viewing Product Details

1. In the Product Experience Manager > Products page, click a product.

   The following details about the product are displayed:

   • Name: The name for the product.
   • Slug: The label for the product that is used in the URL paths. By default, the product name is used as the slug.
   • SKU Number: The SKU number of the product.
   • Type : The type of the product. The type Product indicates that the product is a parent product, and the type Child indicates that the product is a child product of a product.
   • Status : The status of the product, such as Draft of Live.

2. Click the Product Status toggle and set the product status.

Searching Products by Product Name, SKU and, Slug

You can search products using product name, SKU, or Slug.

1. Click Products.

2. By default SKU is selected. Click SKU to display a drop-down list.

3. From the drop-down list, select either:

   • Name
   • Slug

4. From the drop-down list, select either:

   • is. Type search criteria that matches the product you are searching for. The products that match the criteria you have entered are automatically displayed.
   • is like. Start typing your search criteria. The products that contain the criteria you have entered are automatically displayed.

Filtering Products

You can filter your products. You can filter using the SKU, Product Name or Product Status.

Filters are cumulative, meaning you can apply multiple filters to narrow down your results. For example, you might want to search for SKUs that contain 104347 and whose status is Live.

1. Click Products.

2. Click Filters.

3. In SKU, type the filter criteria you want to filter on. Elastic Path Commerce Cloud checks to see if any SKUs contain the specified filter criteria.

4. In Product Name, type the product name you want to filter on. The product name must match exactly or no results are returned.

5. From Product Status drop-down list, select Live or Draft, depending on your requirements.

6. Once you have configured your filter, click Apply Filters. Filters is updated to show that your filter is applied.

   

7. You can remove your filters at any time either by removing an individual filter or clicking Clear All to remove all filters.

Editing Products

After editing a bundle, ensure that you republish all catalogs that contain the bundle to reflect the changes.

1. In the Product Experience Manager > Products page, do one of the following:

   • Double-click the bundle product.
   • Click the ... icon and click Edit.
   • You may have products with multiple templates, with each template having multiple attributes. You can select Hide Empty Fields to only view the fields that have values set.

2. Update the details as required.

   For the changes to appear in the store, republish the catalogs that contains hierarchies with this product.

Deleting Products

Deleting a product removes the product information and the associated media files from the database. However, the product references are not deleted from the price books that consist of the product information. You must republish the catalog to update the catalog release with the changes. If you want to keep your hierarchies and price books up to date, remove the deleted products from those resources.

Even after deleting a product, an order history that has the product still keeps the product information of the deleted product, such as, the product SKU, product ID, and price. However, clicking the product does not take shopper to product details.

• In the Product Experience Manager > Products page, click the ... icon and click Delete.

tip

To remove products from the catalog and still keep them in the database for audit purposes, set the product status to draft instead of deleting it. Additionally, remove the product from hierarchies, and republish the affected catalogs so that it does not appear in the storefront.

Related Resources

Concepts

• Product Templates
• Product Attributes
• Product Hierarchies
• EP PXM Variations
• Price books
• Catalog

APIs

• EP PXM
• Create a template
• Create an attribute
• Create a hierarchy
• Create a variation
• Products
• Build child products

Demos

• EP PXM products
• Configuring a product
• Configuring sale price