Categories Export
The action hands your category tree out to the ERP system. It is the route for everyone who maintains their categories in TRADElube, or pulls them in from a shop, and needs them in CAO-Faktura, for instance to sort articles there.
What gets transferred
What is handed out is the subtree below the Root Category from the channel's configuration. With nothing in it, that is every category on the top level and everything below.
The tree goes out from the top down. A category's turn only comes once its parent has arrived on the other side, so that it can refer to the parent's identifier. Within one level the order is alphabetical.
Which products sit in a category goes along too. For that the ERP system gets each product's identifier, not the product itself. It collects the product data through Products Export.
On the first call the whole subtree goes out, after that only what is new, has changed or did not get through last time. A category deleted in TRADElube is reported as a deletion, so the ERP system can strike it out as well. When something counts as changed is under tasks.
How the transfer plan is built
The plan sits in the channel, in the Transfer Plans section under Categories and there in the Export tab. It has three sections.
| Section | What sits in it |
|---|---|
| Common | The identifiers for the ERP system, plus Sort Order and the two timestamps Added Date and Modified Date |
| Descriptions | The texts per language: Name as a mandatory assignment, Heading Title, Description and the three meta fields |
| Products | The single assignment Product Id, through which the ERP system learns which products sit in the category |
Sort Order takes a fixed value, not a source. A category in TRADElube carries no sorting, so there is nothing to assign here. The ERP system does need the field though, and gets the value you enter.
Descriptions has one tab per language of your client. Which languages those are is decided by the Languages tab in the channel's Mappings section: only what faces a language identifier of the ERP system there is handed out.
Special features and limits
The ERP system decides when it asks. A change to a category does not go out by itself, it lies ready until the next call comes.
What the category carries in the tree hangs off the Root Category. Change that setting and the range handed out changes with it, and categories that belonged before drop out without having disappeared in TRADElube.
A category image does not go along. The Image URL assignment sits in the plan because the ERP system knows the field, but it cannot be filled.
Further reading
- CAO-Faktura: login details, configuration, mappings and the other eighteen actions
- Categories Update: the other way round, out of the ERP system into TRADElube
- Products Export: the products the Products section only refers to
- Categories (reference): the category tree in the client and how you maintain it
- Tasks (concepts): when a record counts as changed and is transferred again
- Transfer plan (concepts): plan, section and assignment, plus the three ways to determine a value