Frequently Asked Questions About the Catalog Microservice
Q) Can a catalog collection have only the Master catalog?
No. A catalog collection will have a default Master Catalog and any number of Sales Catalog which can be created manually.
Q) How does the Master catalog data feed into the Sales Catalog?
The merchant user defines feed rules and runs those rules to feed data from the Master to the Sales catalog. When new products and stock keeping units (SKUs) are entered into the Master catalog, the rules need to be run again to be able to feed the data into the Sales catalog. All changes to the Sales catalog, including the feed have to go through a project workflow for approval.
Q) How many catalogs can be created in one Catalog collection?
There are no limits on the number of catalogs in a collection; however, typically two (2) to four (4) catalogs should be more than sufficient.
Q) Do I always need a product for a SKU?
While a SKU can be created and maintained in a catalog independent of a product, the storefront is only presenting a product in the Product List Page (PLP) and the Product Detail Page (PDP) so for most practical purposes, a product will be required with a SKU.
Q) Do I always need a SKU for a product?
A product may be created without having a SKU. In that case, the product will be presented in the PLP and the PDP; however, since there is no SKU available for the product, there is nothing to “Add to Cart” and therefore no transaction can take place.
Q) In the project approval workflow, can I submit the relationship between SKU and product for approval concurrently with the individual SKUs/products?
The Product-SKU relationship can be associated with any of the following methods:
- Method 1: If the Product and SKU are created in the same project, then Product-SKU relationship can be associated and approved in the same project.
- Method 2: If the Product and SKU are approved via different projects, then Product-SKU relationship should be associated and approved in a new project.
Q) In the product and SKU detail administration screens, I am not seeing the button “Save” to save my changes. Why is that?
All product and SKU data edits must be done only when a project is open and selected. If a project is not selected, the Save button to save changes will not appear.
Q) If I am adding a SKU for product, that would need to be done in the master catalog – correct?
Yes, you can add a SKU to a product in the master catalog.
Q) When products are fed into the Sales Catalog, do the related products such as up-sell and cross-sell products also automatically get fed into the Sales Catalog?
No. The related products do not automatically get fed into the Sales Catalog from the Master Catalog when a product is fed into the Sales Catalog. When importing data into a Sales Catalog, the related products, such as up-sell and cross-sell products must also be included in the rule definition. Otherwise, the storefront will be unable to show these related products. In case the related products are not imported into the Sales Catalog, the up-sell and cross-sell product IDs will show in the product data when viewed in the Admin screens and will also show when the product data is exported. However, the up-sell and cross-sell products will not be available when the shopper browses the product in the storefront. Similar care must be exercised for complex products such as Bundles, Collections, SKU Kits, and Grouped products.
Revision History
2020-03-18 | JP – Minor copyedits
2019-09-17 | Mary – Updated content for September 2019 release.
2019-06-08 | PLK – Minor copyedits.
2019-05-02 | AM – Updated content.
2019-01-21 | PLK – Page created and content uploaded.
