The Catalog Manager lets business managers import, export, create, and manage online catalogs. Catalogs provide a way of organizing the products you want to sell. You store catalog and product data in a database. You define catalog data in groups of categories and products. Catalog data contains descriptions and pricing information for products and services.
Catalog Data
You manage the following through the Catalog Manager:
Base Catalogs. A grouping of categories and products that you use to organize and present information on a Web site.
Catalog sets. A group of catalogs that are jointly assigned to a group of customers.
Categories. A group of products in a catalog.
Inventory Catalogs. A type of data storage that holds inventory data for the products and variants for single or multiple product catalogs.
Products. A single item defined in a catalog corresponding to either a physical product or service item. You use product definitions, product variants, and product families to manage products.
Virtual Catalogs. An aggregate of one or more base catalogs with pricing, language, and other properties assigned to provide variations of catalog information on a Web site.
Features Overview
The following table summarizes the tasks that you can accomplish by using the Catalog Manager.
Feature
Description
Manage data
Create, edit, and delete catalog data. Define and modify base and virtual catalogs, inventory catalogs, catalog sets, categories, and products.
Copy a product. Create a new product by starting with the definition of an existing product.
Catalog creation wizards. Use the following wizards to create new objects in the catalog:
New Catalog Set Wizard
New Product Catalog Wizard
New Virtual Product Catalog Wizard
New Category Wizard
New Inventory Catalog Wizard
Add an Existing Virtual Catalog Item Wizard
Search
Free-text search. Find products by full or partial name or property.
Property search. Find products based on a property value, such as the price is less than $10.
Specification search. Refine a search request until the product is found.
Expression-based search. Find products or categories based on Boolean expressions by using any combination of object properties.
Sequence data
Set the sort order in the application. Define the hierarchy of base and virtual catalogs, catalog sets, categories, and products. Use Move Up, Move Down, Move to Top, and Move to Bottom controls to re-sequence items.
Select fields for sequencing. Select the fields to use for sequencing.
View
Select fields for sorting. Select the fields to use for sorting a list view.
List views. View search results or data objects. Sort objects based on a selected property.
Preview pane. View the properties of an object selected in the List View.
Status. View the summary of information for the selected object.
Tree view. View and explore the catalog hierarchy. Display objects alphabetically or sequentially.
Task view. View and select tasks available for the selected object.
Import/export
Import catalog data. Import and validate catalog data in XML format. Select to perform incremental or full imports.
Export catalog data. Export existing catalogs in XML format. Perform full, incremental, or expression-based catalog exports.
Import/export wizards. Use the following wizards to import or export catalog:
Export Product Catalog Wizard
Import Product Catalog Wizard
Export Inventory Catalog Wizard
International
Create international catalogs. Create multilingual and multicurrency virtual catalogs.