Managing attribute dictionary

The attribute dictionary hierarchy represents the attribute dictionary in WebSphere® Commerce. The attribute dictionary can have multiple attributes and their type is based on their usage.

The attribute dictionary is modeled in the Attribute Dictionary hierarchy in InfoSphere® Master Data Management Collaboration Server - Collaborative Edition, as shown in the following sections.
The following concepts are important when defining an attribute dictionary attribute:
Attribute Group
An Attribute Group represents a set of InfoSphere Master Data Management Collaboration Server - Collaborative Edition attributes combined together as a grouping. They are represented as a tree structure with a parent and children node.
Attribute Category
An Attribute Category represents an attribute dictionary attribute in WebSphere Commerce. The details of this attribute are defined in the secondary spec associated with this category.
Note: The details of the attribute are defined in the secondary spec associated with the category that represents the attribute dictionary attribute. Nodes that are removed from the attribute dictionary secondary spec are not removed from the corresponding attributes on the WebSphere Commerce side. For example, if you remove an attribute dictionary attribute from one of the secondary specs or remove the spec entirely from the attribute dictionary and export an item that was mapped to that attribute dictionary category node, the removed attributes are not removed from the WebSphere Commerce side, however, new attributes are added.
The attributes defined in a spec will provide the actual names of the attributes and the types of these attributes will provide the attribute data type. The attribute type required for usage in WebSphere Commerce, for example descriptive and defining, will come from the Attribute Category.
Note: For defining attributes, you need to define a list of values. On InfoSphere Master Data Management Collaboration Server - Collaborative Edition, this list of values must be of an Enumeration type. For descriptive attributes, you do not need to define a list of predefined values. Advanced Catalog Management does not allow descriptive attributes with Enumeration type to be saved in InfoSphere Master Data Management Collaboration Server - Collaborative Edition.
Note: The term category name is the category path in the attribute dictionary hierarchy and the name of the spec which contains the attribute will be used as ‘attribute group’ for the scope of the attribute. However, the ‘attribute group’ concept is not supported in the current release.
The attributes are divided into two types, descriptive and defining attributes.