Link and unlink collections and products

Linking a collection or product associates it with a parent.

Linking is useful when you want a product to appear in multiple collections or a collection to appear in multiple catalogs. Linked items have multiple parents, one parent for each location. When you make a change to the item in one location, that change is reflected in all locations.

For example, suppose your catalog contains a product called Gas Hibachi in the Outdoors collection and you want it to also appear in a seasonal Father’s Day Gifts collection. You can simply link it to that collection.

You can link both products and collections to multiple parent collections. To link a collection to another catalog, add it to the catalog’s Included Collections list. (See Understand catalogs for more information.)

This section includes the following topics:

• Link and unlink products

• Link and unlink collections

Link and unlink products

You can link a product to one or more collections. Products appear in more than one catalog when they are linked to collections that are part of different catalogs.

If you unlink a product from all its parent collections, Commerce moves it to the Unassigned Products list.

To access all products in your environment, regardless of their parent collections or catalogs, click the All Products lists that appears above the collection hierarchy on the administration interface Catalog page. See Find products in collections for more information.

To link an existing product to a collection:

1. On the Catalog page, navigate to the collection where you want to link products.
2. Click the New Product button and select Link Existing Products from the menu that appears.
3. By default, Commerce lets you search for products in all catalogs. To search for products in a specific catalog, click the Catalogs button and select a catalog.
4. Select one or more products from the list. You can filter the list by typing or pasting some text in the Products box.

   The filter control matches letters or numbers that you type, wherever they appear in the name or ID, not just at the beginning. Usually, as you type more characters, there are fewer matches. When you see the item you want, select it.

5. Click Add Selected.
6. Click Done when you finish adding products.

To link products to multiple parent collections at the same time

1. On the Catalog page, navigate to the product you want to work with and open it.
2. On the product’s Membership tab, click the Edit button.
3. By default, Commerce lets you search for collections in all catalogs. To search for products in a specific catalog, click the Catalogs button and select a catalog.
4. Select a collection from the list. You can filter the list by typing or pasting some text in the Collections box.

   The filter control matches letters or numbers that you type, wherever they appear in the name or ID, not just at the beginning. Usually, as you type more characters, there are fewer matches. When you see the item you want, select it.

5. Click Add Selected.
6. (Optional) to unlink the product from a collection, remove a collection from the Included Collections list.
   • To remove a single collection, click the x at the end of a collection’s name.
   • To remove all collections from the list, click the Remove All button.
7. Click Done when you finish adding collections.

Link and unlink collections

You can link a collection to one or more parent collections. If you unlink a collection from all its parent collections, Commerce moves it to the Unassigned Collections list. See Work with independent catalogs to learn how to link collections to catalogs.

To link a collection to a parent:

1. On the Catalog page, navigate to the collection you want to be the parent.
2. Right-click the collection in the tree and click Link Existing Collection.
3. By default, Commerce lets you search for collections in all catalogs. To search for products in a specific catalog, click the Catalogs button and select a catalog.
4. Select a collection from the list. You can filter the list by typing or pasting some text in the Products or Collections box.

   The filter control matches letters or numbers that you type, wherever they appear in the name or ID, not just at the beginning. Usually, as you type more characters, there are fewer matches. When you see the item you want, select it.

5. (Optional) By default, the collection you right-clicked is automatically selected as the parent collection, but you can change it by selecting a new collection from the Select Parent Collection list.
6. Click Link.

To unlink a collection from a parent:

1. On the Catalog page, navigate to the collection you want to unlink.
2. Right-click the collection in the tree and click Unlink From Parent.

   If you unlink a collection from its last parent, Commerce moves it to the Unassigned Collections list.