Adding products

Adding turns a supplier’s product into a draft catalog product. You can add one at a time or hundreds at once.

Browsing supplier products

Go to Suppliers > Supplier products for all feeds, or open a feed under Suppliers > Feeds and choose Products for just that one.

Note

The list starts filtered to New and No longer supplied. Products already in the catalog and ignored ones are hidden until you change the Status filter.

Useful filters:

Filter	Use it for
Status	What is waiting, what is in the catalog, what is ignored
Supplier’s category	The feed’s own category tree. Picking a branch includes everything below it
Supplier	One feed (not shown on a feed’s own Products page)
Same item elsewhere	Also from another supplier, or A preferred supplier has it
First in the feed	A date range, to see what is recently new

View on a row shows the product with its categories, its catalog product if any, when it was first and last in the feed, and The supplier’s record: the data exactly as the feed sent it.

Ignoring what you will never sell

Ignore (on a row, or for a selection) hides a product from the default list and stops it being added. Syncs leave it ignored. Un-ignore puts it back to the status its data calls for. Some XD Connects models the business does not sell start out ignored.

Add to catalog

Use Add to catalog on a row or on the product’s page. To add many, tick them and use the bulk Add to catalog. Under Place in, choose one:

Choice	Fields	What happens
These categories	Primary category (required) and Also appears in	Every selected product goes in the same categories
Our categories mapped to their supplier categories	Products with no mapping go to	Each product goes where its supplier categories are mapped. With no fallback category, unmapped products are left out and listed

The primary category gives the product its URL and breadcrumb on every site.

The work runs in the background. Follow it in the notification opens its background task, and the bell tells you when it is done. One product failing does not stop the others. The run also appears in each feed’s Sync history as Added to catalog, with what was added, what was not, and why.

What a new product gets

Each product is created as a draft, with:

• its name from the feed’s text rules (or the supplier’s own name if the feed has no rule set);
• its variants, one per supplier SKU, with their costs;
• its branding options and print prices;
• its description, details, brand and certifications where the feed gives them;
• the field set its supplier category names, and any custom field values that set can hold;
• the feed’s supplier company and gallery style;
• its “From” price.

Photos and documents download afterwards, in the background, following the photo download rules. The Photos column and the Photo status filter on the product list show how each is going.

Split rules apply as products are added, so some may arrive with a split-off product, also a draft.

What can go wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
Skipped: not New	It is already in the catalog, ignored or no longer supplied	Nothing, or un-ignore it
Skipped: already in the catalog through another supplier	See below	Nothing: one product per item
Skipped: another supplier comes first	See below	Add that supplier’s product, or ignore it first
Left out: no category mapping	You placed by mapping, with no fallback	Map the category and add again
Failed: no name	The text rules give it no name	Fix the rule set, or give it a name with Exact names by supplier code
Failed: its prices or print data could not be read	The supplier’s feed could not be read, so nothing was added from it. XD Connects allows one download per feed per 15 minutes, so this also happens straight after a sync	Add them again later

Publishing

A draft is hidden from visitors. To publish, open the product under Catalog > Products, check it, and set Status to Published. It then appears on each site whose content rules include it.

Check at least:

• the name, photos and categories;
• that it has branding options. The Branding to be confirmed filter on the product list finds products that can be branded but offer nothing yet, usually because a supplier method isn’t mapped;
• that it has a price. A feed with no margin set, or prices out of date, shows “price on request”: see per-feed settings.

There is no bulk publish in the admin panel. To publish a whole feed’s drafts in one go for a first import, a technical person can run a command: see commands.

The same item from two suppliers

Several suppliers can sell the same maker’s item, such as the same branded T-shirt from two clothing wholesalers. Smooth spots these where a feed gives the maker’s brand and style code. The Also from column shows the other suppliers, marked (preferred) when another supplier comes before this one.

A product has one supplier, so:

• an item already in the catalog through one supplier cannot be added from another;
• when several suppliers have it as New, only the first in the order on Suppliers > Feeds can be added. The others have no Add to catalog button, and are skipped in a bulk add;
• if the preferred supplier’s product is ignored or no longer supplied, the next supplier’s can be added.

The check only knows items with a maker’s code. Two feeds’ products with no such code are not matched, however alike they look.