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  4. Building the category tree

Building the category tree

This guide builds the category tree, assigns the products to their categories and takes the tree to the right place in the shop. There are two complementary ways to build it: by hand in the Categories area, or from the supplier file, whose category path the import reads along. What every field of a category means is under categories and is not repeated here.

Prerequisites

  • A structure settled before the first click. Where a category hangs in the tree is chosen when it is created and cannot be changed afterwards. The draft on paper is therefore cheaper than rebuilding the tree.
  • For the way into the shop: a channel that has been set up, with a task uploading categories. Whether your system has one is on its page under channels and tasks.

Category tree with the Interior paints category expanded, the Wall paint subcategory selected and the toolbar above it

Step by step

  1. Create the tree. Open the Categories navigation entry. With New you create a category below the selected one. Without a selection a root category is created. The tree sorts by name on every level.

  2. Name and translate. In the detail view the Description section carries the Name, one per language version: a category is called something else in the English shop than in the German one. You create a further language version through Insert at the head of the section. Fill short description, description and the meta description for search engines as far as your shop shows them.

  3. Assign products. That happens on the product, not on the category: in the Categories section of the product page, Edit shows the full tree with checkboxes. Tick where the article belongs and finish with End Edit. An article may stand in several categories. From the second assignment on, each carries its position, moved through Move Up and Move Down.

  4. With an import, let the tree grow out of the file. Where the supplier file carries a category path, the import's transfer plan creates tree and assignment in the same execution. Missing categories are created automatically. The tree is then data rather than handiwork, and steps 1 and 3 fall away for those products. The route is under importing products from a file.

  5. Take it into the shop. The tree goes along the next time the task uploading categories runs. Some systems expect the External Root Category on the channel for that: the branch of the shop below which TRADElube creates the tree. Let this task run before the one uploading products. The product assignment in the shop needs the category to be there.

Checking the result

  • The tree under Categories shows the planned structure. On the product the assigned categories appear in bold with their parent chain.
  • After the execution every category carries its mapping in the Channels section, and the shop shows the tree at the expected place in its navigation.
  • If a product does not hang in its category in the shop, the steps to the cause are under product does not appear in the shop.

Frequent pitfalls

  • There is no re-hanging. The place in the tree is chosen at creation, in step 1. To change the structure you create the category anew, reassign the products and delete the old one. Its subcategories go with it, the products stay and only lose the assignment. The reach of Delete in detail is under categories.
  • What the import assigns, the file maintains. Where a product's category comes from the supplier file's category path, as in step 4, the next execution over the changed row sets the assignment back to what the file delivers.
  • The tree arrives but hangs in the wrong place in the shop. Then the External Root Category on the channel from step 5 is missing or points at the wrong branch. What applies to your system is on its page under channels and tasks.

Further reading