Products
The Products area holds the article master: the list of all products and the detail view of a single product. You reach it through the Products navigation entry. What a product is in TRADElube and how it relates to variants, categories and manufacturers is described in the data model.
Overview / list
The list shows four columns. Variants appear as rows of their own next to their parent article, because a variant is a full product.
Three buttons sit above the list. New opens an empty product. It exists only once you use Save, and until then it appears in no list. Edit opens the product in the detail view, Delete removes it after a confirmation. Both require a selected row.
A deleted product takes no order down with it. Order items referring to it keep their quantity, their price and their description, they only lose the reference to the product. That is deliberate: an order is a record of something that happened in the past, and it must not change because an article drops out of the range today.
| Column | Content |
|---|---|
| Product Number | The number under which TRADElube carries the product |
| Manufacturer Product Number | The number under which the manufacturer carries the article |
| EAN | The European Article Number |
| Name | The article's designation, from the Description section |
Sorting is fixed to the product number, ascending. There is no sorting through the column headers: clicking Product Number or Name does not change the order. To narrow the list you use the Filter field and the Filter By button instead.
The Filter field searches Product Number, Manufacturer Product Number, EAN and Name in one go, and a partial match is enough. It is the quick search for when you know what you are looking for.
The two ways of searching exclude each other. As soon as you set a condition through the Filter By button, the Filter field disappears. Having both would mean two restrictions, one of them sitting invisibly in the form, and that combination cannot be explained later when a list is unexpectedly empty. Remove the last condition and the field is back.
Filter By
The Filter By button opens a menu in which the conditions sit sorted into groups. Every entry in it adds one condition to the list as a row of its own.
| Group | Filters by |
|---|---|
| Product Type | Default, Parent or Variant, that is, by the role the product plays in a variant family |
| Field | A single field of the product, from Active through Manufacturer and Tax Rate to Created At. Category sits here too |
| Price | A price group. The filter works on that group's price on the product |
| Stock | A store. The filter works on the product's stock in that store |
| Property | A property of the product. Properties without a group sit directly in the menu, properties of a group in a submenu carrying its name |
| Channel | A channel. The filter works on whether the product is mapped to that channel |
Which entries the groups Price, Stock, Property and Channel offer depends on what exists in your client. A second price group appears here by itself, without anyone having to extend the filter. Conversely a group is missing from the menu as long as there is nothing for it to filter by, Property in a client without product properties for instance.
Editing a condition
Every condition you set sits as a row of its own above the list, with three parts: the field it applies to, an operator and a value. Which operators are available depends on the field:
| Kind of field | Operators |
|---|---|
| Text | Equals, Not Equals, Contains, Starts With, Ends With |
| Number and date | Equals, Not Equals, Greater Than, Greater Than Or Equal, Less Than, Less Than Or Equal. For a date, Equals and Not Equals drop out |
| A choice from a list, such as Manufacturer or an option property | Equals, Not Equals |
| Yes/no | Equals |
If the field may be left empty, Is Empty and Is Not Empty are added. The bin button at the start of the row removes the condition again.
From the second condition onwards a choice appears above them, between Match All Conditions and Match Any Condition. With a single condition there would be nothing to combine, which is why it is not shown there.
Selection and paging
Clicking a row selects it, clicking a different one moves the selection there. At most one row is selected at any time, and clicking the same row again does not clear the selection.
Below the list sit the pager, the Items per Page choice with the values 25, 50, 100 and 200, and the total number of products matching the current filter. That number is the quickest way to check a condition: it changes with every filter you set.
Detail view
The detail view shows a single product. At the very top sits the save bar with the Save and Discard buttons, below it the Active field, and after that the collapsible sections Common, Description, Categories, Images, Prices, Stocks and Shipping, Measures and Packing, Properties, Orders and Channels. The Properties section only exists if any are set up for products.
All sections can be open at the same time, so you do not have to collapse one to see the next.
If you leave the page with unsaved changes, TRADElube asks with the Save Changes message rather than discarding them silently. There you choose between Save, Discard Changes and Cancel, where Cancel keeps you on the page.
The Active field marks whether the product is carried. What a connected system makes of it is up to the channel: with an online shop it usually becomes the article's publication status, so an inactive product is not visible there. What your channel does with it is listed under Channels and tasks.
Common
The section carries the numbers the article is held under, and its manufacturer. The image shows it on a variant, which is why two reference blocks sit below the fields that a product without variants does not have.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Product Number | The number under which TRADElube carries the product | Mandatory and unique within the client. A channel can use it as the identifier by which it finds the product again in the connected system. Product number, manufacturer product number and EAN are the available choices |
| Manufacturer | The manufacturer from the area of the same name | May be left empty. See Manufacturers |
| Manufacturer Product Number | The number under which the manufacturer carries the article | A second possible identifier next to product number and EAN |
| EAN | The European Article Number | A third possible identifier |
| Release Date | When the article reaches or reached the market | May be left empty |
If the product belongs to a variant family, two reference blocks sit below the fields:
- Parent Product names the parent article when you have opened a variant.
- Product Variants lists the remaining variants. Seen from a parent article those are its own variants, seen from a variant they are its siblings. Every entry is a link and leads straight there.
Both blocks are absent on a product without variants, because there would be nothing to show. How a variant family is created is described under creating variants.
Description
This section holds everything that gets translated. How languages are set up and what gets transferred without a translation is described under multiple languages.
As long as only the default language is maintained, the fields sit there without a tab bar above them, and Insert sits above those. That button's menu shows exactly the languages that do not yet exist on this product, German in the image.
From the second version onwards, one tab per version sits at the top of the section, English and German in the image. It switches the version shown below. Once every language of the client is maintained, Insert is gone entirely.
The selected version comes with a button carrying its name, Delete German for instance. It deletes the translation for that one language. On the default language it is absent, so on English in the image: that version is the product itself and cannot be taken away without deleting the article.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The article's designation | Appears in the list in the Name column |
| Short Description | The short text a shop shows in the article list | Two tabs above it switch over: Visual shows the formatted text with a bar for bold, italic, strikethrough, three heading levels, bullets, numbering, link and quote, Html the source behind it |
| Description | The full text of the article page | Switchable in the same way |
The Meta Description subsection holds three fields for search engines: Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. They are transferred where the channel offers fields for them.
Categories
The section shows two different trees, depending on whether you only want to look or to assign. In its normal state you only see the assigned categories together with their parent categories, in bold, and nothing else.
Only the Edit button brings in the client's full category tree, with a checkbox in front of every node through which you assign and unassign. The button then reads End Edit and switches back. The Category Links section of a category is built from the same two states, see categories.
That is deliberate: a category tree quickly runs to a few dozen entries, and whoever only wants to look up where an article is filed should not have to search it first.
Next to Edit sit four more buttons. Expand All expands the whole tree, Collapse All collapses it again. Move Up and Move Down move an assigned category within the order and require one to be selected.
The order only becomes visible once more than one category is assigned. Each assigned category then carries its position as a small numeral. It sets the order in which the categories sit on the product and in which they are transferred. What a connected system makes of it is listed under Channels and tasks.
Categories are created and renamed in their own area, see Categories.
Images
The section shows the product's images as tiles with file name and size. The checkbox on a tile marks it as Is Cover.
Three buttons sit above the gallery. Add opens the media overview, from which you pick an existing image. Delete removes the image from the product, Details shows it at full size. Both require a selected image. Below the gallery sits the Upload field. Drop a file in or choose one, and TRADElube creates a medium from it and attaches it to the product straight away.
Delete here and deleting in the Media area are two different things: here you release a link, there you delete the file. One image can hang on several products.
Prices
At the top of the section sits the Tax Rate field, and below it one collapsible block per price group, carrying that group's name. Why price groups exist and how net and gross relate is described under prices.
Every block carries a table with one row per price and two buttons for it: New creates a row, Delete removes the selected one.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Net Price | The price without tax | Entered or calculated, depending on which of the two columns you write into. The choice applies per row, and the calculated field is shown grayed |
| Gross Price | The price including tax | The same, the other way round |
| Discount | The distance to the first row, in percent | Appears only once the price group has more than one row |
| Quantity From, Quantity To | From and up to which quantity the row applies | Several rows thereby make a scale price |
| Valid From, Valid To | The period in which the price applies | Only on a price group of the special-offer type |
An empty block means there is no price in this price group on this product. That is not an error but the normal case for a group maintained for only part of the range.
Stocks and Shipping
At the top sits a table with one row per Store and the Stock field in it. Every store of the client has its row here, including an empty one. What sets stock apart from the rest of the product data is described under stock.
Below it, three shipping fields.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Shipping Method | The shipping method intended for the article | May be left empty |
| Shipping Cost | An amount charged on top of shipping | For the bulky article that does not fit standard shipping |
| Delivery Time | The figure a shop shows as the delivery time | On a new product TRADElube inserts the delivery time of the chosen shipping method, where that method has one |
Measures and Packing
The section carries the article's physical dimensions and the units it is sold in.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Width, Height, Length | The article's dimensions | In millimetres |
| Weight | The article's weight | In kilograms |
| Base Unit | The unit the base price refers to, litres for instance | From the units |
| Base Unit Size | How many base units make up one selling unit | 0.75 for a tin of paint holding 0.75 litres |
| Purchase Unit Size | How many pieces one order item covers | 1 as a rule, more for a pack sold only whole |
| Pack Unit | The kind of packaging, a box or a pallet for instance | From the units |
Base unit and base unit size are what a shop calculates the base price from, that is the price per litre or per kilogram. If one of them is missing, the shop has no base price, and in several countries it is required by law for consumers.
Properties
The section shows the properties set up for products, each with the input field of its type. Properties without a group sit at the top, followed by one collapsible block per group.
The section exists only if there are any properties for products at all. If it is missing, that is not a permission problem: there is nothing to show. Properties are set up under Settings, through the Properties button, and explained under properties.
A property without a value stays empty and disturbs nothing. Not every article carries every property, and that is the normal case.
Orders
The section lists the orders the product appears in, with the same columns as the order list and a pager of its own below it. It answers the question that comes before every deletion and every price change, namely whether the article sells at all. Nothing can be changed here: an order is edited in the Orders area.
The table sits in a box that can be scrolled sideways. The image shows the first columns. The Last Name, Zipcode, City and Total Gross Price columns sit to their right.
Channel mappings
The Channels section shows which connected systems the product is linked to, one row per channel. What a channel mapping is and why it stays attached to the record is described under channel mappings.
This table too sits in a box that can be scrolled. The image shows Channel, Mapping and Executed At. You reach the Changes At and State columns by scrolling the table sideways.
This section looks the same on every record, on an order, a customer, a category and a manufacturer just as it does here.
Two rows of buttons sit above the table. The upper one holds four, all of which require a selected row:
- Show Traces opens the traces for this mapping, one tab per transfer. The row must carry at least one transfer for it.
- Remove From Channel deregisters the product with the connected system. The channel removes it there on the next execution. TRADElube asks first.
- Delete removes the mapping inside TRADElube without notifying the connected system. Here too TRADElube asks, and points out explicitly that the product stays in the channel.
- Restart picks the transfers of this mapping up again so the next execution processes them anew. TRADElube then reports how many entries that affected.
The lower row holds one button per channel that can transfer products and that this product is not yet mapped to. Its caption carries the channel's name, Add To 'ERP System' for instance. It maps the product to that channel and needs no selected row. Where the product is already mapped to every channel, the row stays empty.
| Field | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Channel | The channel the mapping belongs to | |
| Mapping | The identifier under which the counterpart is carried in the connected system | Depending on the system an article number, an internal identifier or a composite value |
| Executed At | When a transfer for this record last ran | |
| Changes At | When the transferred data last changed | |
| State | The state of the last transfer, color-coded | An error shows red here and is the entry point into troubleshooting |
What happens in the shop is decided between Remove From Channel and Delete. One takes the article out of the range there, the other leaves it standing and merely forgets that it belongs there. Whoever means the second and does the first takes a selling article offline. The other way round leaves a dead article in the shop that TRADElube no longer finds.
Further reading
- Data model: how product, variant, category and manufacturer relate
- Properties: what properties are for and where they are set up
- Prices (concepts): price groups, net and gross, scale prices
- Stock: why stock is treated differently from the rest
- Maintaining products: the guides on creating, variants, import, prices, media and properties