Understanding Products
A Product is any item or service that you want to sell. Products can be created in the global catalog or any specific sales catalog. When created in the global scope, you can import them from the global catalog to a sales scope catalog. Because a product is using a unique identifier, inheriting catalogs are notified that the product characteristics have been modified at the global scope level.
To create a product, you must use a product definition.
About Product Definitions
A product definition is a set of default,
For example, the set of attributes required would be different for a clothing retail business and a grocery business.
About attributes
There are various attributes types in Orckestra Commerce Cloud with different purposes. The following explains how attributes are used in the platform.
Base Attributes
Products share a set of common characteristics known as base attributes: name, description, created date, and so on. However, products are also enhanced with custom
Base attributes are system attributes required by Orckestra Commerce Cloud.
Custom Attributes
Custom attributes are characteristics of a product. They are created and defined by the Orchestration Console administrator to meet your business needs. Custom Attributes can define any product or service that you want to add to a catalog.
For example, to define the characteristics of shoes, you could define the following custom attributes: Designer, Manufacturer, Season, Heel Height and so on.
Custom attributes can also be used to define Meta Keywords (for SEO) or other technical customization that your business may require
Variant and Key Variant Attributes
When adding variants and key variant attributes to a product definition, you can create products that share common custom attributes (base product or product family) but have variations that make them unique.
When creating variants of a product, you will need to attach SKUs and attributes that are unique to this combination.
Orckestra Commerce Cloud allows you to create custom attributes and defined them as variant or key variant attributes.
| • | Key variant: when a key variant attribute is added to a product definition, it allows you to create a base product and add as many variant combinations as you require to create a unique product. |
| • | Variant: Variants are custom attributes that apply to specific combinations of key variants. |
You cannot create a Key Variant from any of the following attribute types:
| • | Currency |
| • | Date and time |
| • | Lookups |
In this situation, the Key Variant Attribute toggle is dimmed and cannot be used.
Key Variant Attribute values are mandatory. A product cannot have an empty Key Variant Attribute value. When there is an empty Key Variant Attribute the following validation error message is displayed:
Key Variant Attributes cannot be empty for a variant ID
When trying to save active products with variant drafts and the product definition changes with the addition of a mandatory attribute, then a validation error is displayed, stating that the attribute is mandatory.
Using these 2 types of variant attributes avoid creating multiple products that only have small differences.
For example, if you want to create a product definition for shoes, the product you want to create has the following characteristics:
| • | Designer: Dolce and Gabbana |
| • | Country: Italy |
| • | Heel Height: 2 inches |
| • | Material: Leather or suede |
| • | Size: 8, 9 or 10 |
| • | Color: Black, Charcoal or Red |
| • | Care instructions: For leather and for suede. |
The Designer, Country and Heel Height do not define the product uniqueness. They are common to all variations of the product that you will create. These attributes will be defined as custom attributes.
The Material, Size and Color are key variant attributes. Their combinations define unique products. For example, a Dolce and Gabbana shoe from Italy, that has a 2-inch heel, made of red leather and size 9. This combination of attributes creates a unique product. This product combination can then be linked to a SKU.
Depending on the combination, your product variant can require specific information. For example, a leather shoe won't require the same care as a suede shoe. The care instruction attribute will then be configured as a variant attribute. A variant attribute is also considered as a custom attribute. A default value is defined for the base product but you can change the value and customize this value at the variant level.
| Custom Attribute | Variant Attribute | Key Variant Attribute |
| Designer | Care Instruction (Leather) | Color (Black, Charcoal, Red) |
| Country | Care Instruction (Suede) | Size (8, 9, 10) |
| Heel Height |
Material (Leather, Suede) |
|
| 1 combination | 1 combination |
Color x 3, Size x 3 and Material x 2 18 combinations |
Possible combinations
Considering that custom attributes do not influence the number of combinations and that the Care Instructions (variant attribute) depend on the Material type but not the color or size, the list of combinations follow:
| • | Black leather shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
| • | Charcoal leather shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
| • | Red leather shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
| • | Black suede shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
| • | Charcoal suede shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
| • | Red suede shoe available in size 8, 9 and 10. X 3 combinations |
Total of 18 possible combinations.
However, it is possible that a shoe size and color combination is not available in a particular size. All you need to do is create the color, size combinations required by your inventory.
By default, you can only add a maximum of 10 custom attributes as variant attributes for a product definition. This limit does not include attributes used for all product definitions or key variant attributes. The number of attributes that can be configured as variant attributes can be modified as required.
REFERENCES
| • | Managing Products |
| • | Working with Attributes |
| • | Managing Attributes |