Catalogue Associations File

Owned by Oliver Fraatz
Last updated: Sept 15, 2017
Index

Catalogue Association File Concept

A Catalogue Association File can be used to group products together for display purposes on the website There are two types that can be configured, related products or those with colour or size variations.

Associating Products Together

A Catalogue Association File can be used to assign Child Products to a Parent Product for the purpose of creating related items or assigning items with size variations.

  • Related Products (Addons)
    • Catalogue Association related products (Addons) can be utilised where there is a requirement to display other products related to the product being viewed. Each item in your catalogue may be configured to display up to eight other related products against it. The related products are shown against a product on the details page.

  • Colour or Size Variations (Options)

    • Catalogue Association colour or size variations (Options) can be utilised where there is a requirement to display a single product with multiple options or variations, these are most commonly either colour or size differentiation. It is important to note that each variation that can be displayed must be a product code e.g. each size of T-shirt has an associated product code in your catalogue. Where this is not the case default Product Association ‘Options’ functionality cannot be utilised

Catalogue Association File Management

An example Catalogue Association File with the above information can be viewed here. Once open, use the highlighted icon in the image below to download and open file in Excel.

You can download a template for the Catalogue Association File from the Download Tab under Administration > File Upload/Download.

Select Catalogue Association File from the second dropdown menu and click the Download Header File link to download it.

  • Open your Catalogue Association File in Microsoft Excel and fill in the fields with relevant information outlined below
    • Choose option for creating a file for product options (child products)
    • Choose addon when creating a file for related products
  • Save the file as a Tab-Delimited Text File (not a Microsoft Excel Workbook) as this is the format the Control Panel understands when reading the file

Note: For non 2017 version websites: If using Product Options, set the “Child Products” to “Hidden” in CatalogueLINK so that these products do not appear on the website both against the parent and separately.

Catalogue Associations File Fields

Field

Summary

Example

ParentProductCode

The code of the product that will contain the child product(s)

12345

ChildProductCode

The code of the product(s) that will appear against the parent product

12345_child

Type

option: for product option menus

addon: for related products against a parent

option

addon

ChildPriority

option: the order in which options appear (highest number appears first)

addon: the order in which related products appear (highest number appears first)

1

1

Upload a Catalogue Association File

The Catalogue Association File upload process allows you to upload the associations between products you made in the file.

  • Click the Upload Files tab and select Catalogue Association File from the dropdown menu
  • Click Browse and select the file and click Open
  • Check or uncheck the Would you like to remove any old records checkbox
    • Checked: All product association records will be deleted prior to the upload, recommended only if new file contains all past and present product associations
    • Unchecked: The current product association records will be appended with the records in the file
  • Click Upload
  • Once the Catalogue Association file is uploaded it will become scheduled to be processed
  • Click Refresh Upload Messages to see the status of the upload process.