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Updating Product Catalogs

Updating Product Catalogs

EP Product Importer Introduction

EP Product Importer can import product catalogs (SKUs, images, description, and so on) maintained in either Elastic Path or third-party PIM/MDM systems. EP Product Importer can group products in AEM according to business needs. For example, in Elastic Path Commerce Engine you can organize your products under a category and the imported products will be grouped in AEM nodes according to the Commerce Engine implementation.

EP Product Importer Features

EP Product Importer supports Full Import and Incremental Import. Full Import either creates a new product catalog or overwrites the existing product catalog. Incremental Import only updates the products that were changed since the last Full Import or Incremental Import.

Use Full Import for the following scenarios:
  • The first time you import the product catalog into AEM.
  • When you make changes that impact products groupings. For example, a product moves from one parent node to another.
  • When you delete a product or a SKU from your product catalog.

Use Incremental Import for the following scenarios:

  • You updated a product or a SKU that you want to bring into AEM.
  • You created a new product that you want to bring into AEM.

EP Product Importer Limitations

EP Product Importer has the following limitations:
  • As EP Product Importer is created using AEM Commerce Integration Framework, customers need to understand the Adobe Commerce API's limitations and be able to work around them.
  • Product changes made in AEM are overwritten during import. EP Product Importer assumes product catalogs maintained in either Commerce Engine or another PIM/MDM system are the master catalogs.
  • EP Product Importer does not come with the component required to export data from Elastic Path Commerce Engine or another PIM/MDM system. Exporting data from EP or PIM/MDM is a customer project implementation.
  • EP Product Importer is created to import a product catalog with a structure similar to the Geometrixx Outdoors product catalog. Therefore, a catalog with a different structure will require EP Product Importer customizations to properly import the catalog.
  • Multi-language product catalogs are not supported.
  • AEM Touch-Optimized UI is not supported.
  • Multi-node author environment is not supported.
  • Products will not import if the product does not have an image.

Importing a Product Catalog

Always update the product catalog in Commerce Engine or the PIM/MDM system and then import the product catalog into AEM. Any product catalog changes made in AEM will be overwritten by EP Product Importer.

To import a product catalog:

  1. In your browser, navigate to http://localhost:4502/etc/importers/elasticpath.html.
  2. Type the Catalog Code of the product catalog to import. For more information on Catalog Code, see the Commerce Manager Client User Guide. If you are using a PIM/MDM system, you will need to consult its documentation for the Catalog Code.
  3. Select the Incremental Import check box or leave unselected to run a Full Import.
  4. Click Import Products to import the catalog.

Once import completes, generate the catalog pages for your site following these instructions: Generating Site Catalog Pages

Where Products Import

EP Product Importer creates the product catalog in /etc/commerce/products/<catalog code>. For example, /etc/commerce/products/geometrixx. Product images are served from /content/dam/<catalog code>. For example, /content/dam/geometrixx.