What is a Catalog and Inventory Schema?
For the latest version of Commerce Server 2007 Help, see the Microsoft Web site.
A catalog and inventory schema is a template or "schema" for product catalogs, inventory catalogs, products, categories, and inventory SKUs in the Catalog and Inventory System.
A catalog and inventory schema consists of the following:
Catalog metadata
Inventory metadata
Inventory SKU metadata
Property metadata
Category definitions
Product definitions
Property definitions
Commerce Server Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager let you configure these. You also use Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager to do the following:
Edit the property metadata of the Catalog and Inventory System. For example, add a property to the property metadata.
Edit product catalog metadata, for example, include or remove properties from the metadata.
Edit inventory catalog metadata, for example, include or remove properties from the metadata.
Edit inventory SKU metadata, for example, include or remove properties from the metadata.
Create and remove property definitions. You can also include or remove properties in the property definition.
Create and remove product and category definitions
Note
Product and category definitions are collectively known as catalog item definitions.
Include or remove properties in a product definition or category definition, for example, cost_price.
Category definitions describe the categories in your catalog. Product definitions describe the products in your catalog. For example, a product definition for shirt might include properties such as size, color, style, price, and manufacturer. Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager lets you define the properties size, color, style, price, and manufacturer and create the product definition "shirt" which includes these properties. You can then add many different shirts to your catalog, each using the same product definition. You may want a different product definition for describing pants—a definition that includes properties such as waist and inseam measurements.
After you create your catalog definitions, you can enter data for individual categories and products by using Commerce Server Catalog Manager. Categories are containers that create groups in a catalog. A category can contain other categories or products. This builds a hierarchy between the products and categories in a catalog. Products can have a variety of product variants. Product variants are specific items that you group together with related variants to form a product family.
You can relate a product to one or more categories or to other products.
See Also
Other Resources
How to Add a Category Definition