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Using product reports to keep a product catalogue up to date

Purpose and scope

Your product catalogue contains products that you wish to sell, either in a B2B or B2C capacity. Its quality, in terms of completeness1, consistency2, conformity3, accuracy4, timeliness5 and integrity6 is vital for you to run a successful business. The Product Administration section within Management Interface aids in maintaining product catalogue quality by providing you with a set of features that allow you to create, update and maintain your product data.

1

Completeness

All products you wish to include in your product catalogue have been included.

2

Consistency

The product information is the same across all systems.

3

Conformity

The product information uses the same format and rules for identical data elements.

4

Accuracy

The product information describes the physical product precisely.

5

Timeliness

The product information is kept up to date and reflects current reality. For example, stock amounts are kept up to date.

6

Integrity

The product information is stored in such a way that it and the relationship it has with other data elements are logically valid. For example, a product that has a description but no product code is not a valid product.

In particular, identifying products which may not have appropriate images, keywords or metadata can be difficult to locate in large product catalogues. It may also be difficult to find products that are not in a category. The Product reports feature allows you to identify these products, and then you can take remedial action to improve the completeness of your catalogue.

Step by step

Step 1: Log into Management Interface

Log in

Log into Management Interface using your username and password. This opens the dashboard of your Management Interface.

LogIntoManagementInterface.jpg

Step 2: Open Product Reports

Open
  1. Click Import Products from the Quick Access button on the top menu.

    ProductReports-OpenImportProducts.png

This opens the Import & Export screen, as shown:

ProductReports-ImportExportscreen.png
  1. Click the Export tab. This lists the data that you can export.

  2. Click Reports to open the Product Reports page.

    ProductReports-List.png

You can determine how to maintain your product catalogue by looking at the Product Reports screens.  Product Reports are only listed for download if issues with specific products are identified.

Key points

The Product Reports page provides a list of reports that you can download:

  • Uncategorised: products that are not associated with any category

  • Without images: products that do no contain any images

  • Without keywords: products that do not have any keywords

  • Without meta description: products that do not have any metadata

  • No parent products: product options that have non-existent parent products. We recommend that here are deleted.

  • Deleted options: options that are no longer valid for a particular product. For example, you may no longer stock red shoes, so the red product option should be removed.

  • Malformed options: product options that are missing elements. For example, a shirt needs a colour and a size, and only the size is provided. We recommend that you correct the product options so that all missing elements are included in the product description.

  • Orphaned kit products: Uniform management only - kits that can no longer be found in the product catalogue.

  • Non-unique URLS: categories and CMS pages that have duplicated URLS

The product code and product name for all Active products is downloaded.

Step 4: Download product catalogue data

Download

Click Download beside the report you wish to download. This downloads a spreadsheet containing the product code and name for all Active products that meet the criteria for the report you have selected. For example, if you select to download the product report called “Without Images”, the product code and name of all Active products that do not currently have images are downloaded.

Step 5: Clean up your product catalogue data

Data clean-up

Either

  • If Digital Commerce is integrated with your ERP, use the information in the spreadsheet to update your products in your ERP and the changes are uploaded to our platform during your regular sync.

  • If you are using EDI or a file-based integration, use the information in the downloaded spreadsheet to update your products directly within the Management Interface.

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