Managing categories

Having a central product catalog is important. Without a central product catalog, product managers must dig deep into documentation of legacy systems, including getting IT involved, to determine the key capabilities of existing products and the inherent product capability that is built into the systems.

Hierarchies, and their categories, provide an organization structure to categorize items within product catalogs. In the Banking solution sample, all catalogs must be defined with a primary hierarchy. Additional hierarchies can be created for use within one or more catalogs, allowing the user to view or organize catalog items through different hierarchical structures. For example, in the Offer Catalog of the sample banking solution, the Offer Types hierarchy is the primary hierarchy that is defined for the catalog. But the user can also view items under other hierarchies such as Channels hierarchy, Market Segments hierarchy and Locations hierarchy.

The following product documentation focuses primarily on how the hierarchies are being used in relation to the Banking solution sample.

Adding a category to an existing hierarchy

You can add new categories to the existing hierarchies in the sample banking solution: Offer Types, Channels, Market Segments and Locations.

From the left navigation pane, select the hierarchy from the menu to add the module.
From the left navigation pane, select the hierarchy from the menu to add the module.
Provide values to complete the category details.
Click Save to add the category to the hierarchy.

Updating a category

From the left navigation pane, select the hierarchy from the menu to add the module.
From the left navigation pane, select the category to update.
Update the category details and click Save.

Removing a category

You can delete a category (that has not yet been published). If the category has been published to the physical MDM (as indicated by the Last Successfully Published fields), the category remains in the physical MDM. The publish function does not automatically delete the category from the physical MDM.

From the left navigation pane, select the hierarchy from the menu to add the module.
From the left navigation pane, select the category to be deleted.
Right-click on the category and select Delete, and click Save.

Moving a category to a different parent

You can change the hierarchical structure by move a category from one parent to another.

From the left navigation pane, select the hierarchy from the menu to add the module.
From the left navigation pane, select the category to be moved.
Right-click on the category and select Cut.
Select the new parent for the category.
Right-click and select Paste.
In the dialog window that displays, confirm that you want to change the parent of the category by clicking OK. The changes should appear in the hierarchy tree. Click the refresh icon if necessary.
Click Save to save the changes to the hierarchy.

Assigning a secondary spec to a category

Secondary specs can be associated with categories to define additional item attributes that an item can have if it is mapped to those categories. The Channels hierarchy in the sample banking solution is set up to illustrate how secondary specs can be used to add item attributes to an offer based on the Channels categories that are assigned to the offer.

The following procedure assumes that the secondary spec has already been created through the Spec Console.

Select a category to edit.
Click the Specs tab, and select Manage Specs > Add Specs.
In the dialog window, select Item Hierarchy Specs for the Type of Specs field.
In the search field, enter the name of the secondary spec to add to the category, and click Search.
In the search results, check the appropriate secondary spec, and click Select.
For Apply Specs to Items In, select the appropriate catalog or All Catalogs from the list, then click Done. The selected secondary specs should be displayed under Item Specs.
Click Save to save the category updates.

Publishing a category

Using the workflow feature in the collaborative MDM, a category can be published to the physical MDM so that published offers can be viewed or accessed within the physical MDM using the same hierarchical structure as in the Product Master. When a category is selected for publishing, the publish category function publishes the selected categories parent and child categories to the physical MDM. If the category has secondary specs that are associated with it, those specs are automatically published.

You can publish a category as many times as required, especially after there are updates to the hierarchy (for example, changes to parent or child categories, category name, associated or disassociated secondary specs).

It is not necessary for users to independently publish categories. The Publish Offer workflow publishes all of the categories (and specs) required by the offer to the physical MDM as well.

Limitations: Categories that are deleted from the collaborative MDM are not synchronized with the physical MDM through the publish category function.

A category cannot have multiple parents. Although the sample banking solution user interface does not prevent the user from assigning multiple parents to a category, publishing a category with multiple parents result in errors.

Select the category from the left navigation pane. Click Checkout, then select the publish category workflow. Alternatively, right-click on the category from the left navigation pane and select the appropriate category publish workflow. The available publish category workflows for selected hierarchies are: Publish Offer Type, Publish Market Segment and Publish Channel.
If the category is successfully published, the category is updated with the following information: Last Successfully Published and Last Publish Results.
If the publish fails, the workflow is in the Fixit step, and the relevant error message will be listed in the Last Publish Results field of the offer. If you encounter this situation, resolve the error and republish the category.