Configure catalogs with optional collections

You can link products directly to an independent catalog without adding them to any collections.

This section applies to Open Storefront Framework (OSF) and Storefront Classic.

By default, you add products to collections to organize your catalog into a hierarchy and provides a navigational framework for your store. You can also link products directly to a catalog, without adding them to any collections. Linking new products directly to a catalog can speed up catalog deployment, especially for large catalogs.

Understand catalogs with optional collections

You can link products directly to independent catalogs; you cannot link products directly to legacy catalogs or to a filtered view of an independent catalog. (Catalogs with directly-linked products do support filtered views, however.)

You can create catalogs with all products directly linked, or you can create catalogs that include a mix of directly-linked products and products in collections. You can also add directly-linked products to collections, except in the default Product catalog that ships with Commerce; product linked directly to that catalog cannot be in any of its collections.

Note: If your environment uses a default collection for products, a product directly linked to the catalog will also be added to the default collection for products. See Create default parent collections for more information about setting a default collection for products.

On your storefront, shoppers can find directly-linked products by searching. Keep in mind, though, that by default, collections control catalog hierarchy and navigation. Therefore,shoppers cannot browse to products that are only directly-linked to a catalog unless you have created a custom menu/taxonomy structure with custom links. Storefronts that are driven entirely by search require this type of customization, for example.

Understand the difference between optional collections and filtered views

A filtered catalog provides a filtered view of an existing independent catalog. Catalogs with directly-linked products do support filtered views, and while both features can speed up catalog creation and deployment, they address different merchant concerns.

• Filtered views let merchants scale to a larger number of catalogs with less work and provide flexibility for merchants who sell to a number of accounts or in a number of countries. Filtered catalogs provide central management of collections and taxonomies and give merchants fine-grained control over the availability of products for each account or country while maintaining a single collection structure across catalogs.
• Directly linking products to catalogs lets merchants who have very large catalogs deploy more quickly because they do not have to manage collections and assign products to them. Directly linking products to catalogs is especially useful for merchants who want a purely search/facet driven storefront or those who manage their taxonomies externally and do not want to replicate this effort in Commerce.
• Filtered views and direct linking of products can be used together and can be especially useful for merchants who need to scale to a larger number of catalogs but who also manage taxonomies externally.

For more information about creating filtered views, see Work with filtered catalogs.

Find products directly linked to catalogs in the administration interface

You can quickly find products that are linked directly to catalogs by performing a rule-based search on the Catalog page in the administration interface.

To create the search rule, follow these steps:

1. On the Catalog page, click Search Products and then click the Custom Search icon next to the search text box.
2. Select a product type to use from the Product Types list, then click the Create Rule button. You can select only one product type per rule.
3. Select Directly Linked Catalogs from the drop-down list in the rule. You can select only one property per rule.
4. Select an operator that links the property to a value that you will specify in the next step. You can select contains, does not contain, exists, or does not exist.
5. If you selected the operator contains or does not contain, select a catalog to search. If you selected the operator exists or does not exist, you do not need to select a catalog.
6. Click Search.

For more information about searching for products, see Find products in catalogs.

Link products directly to a catalog

This section describes how to link a product directly to a catalog in the administration interface. To learn how to link products to a catalog by importing them, see Import catalog items and inventory. To learn how to link products to a catalog with the REST API, see information about the /ccadmin/v1/products endpoints using the directCatalogs parameter in the REST API for Oracle Commerce documentation.

To link an existing product to a catalog:

1. On the Catalog page, navigate to the product you want to link. See Find products in catalogs for more information.
2. On the product’s Membership tab, click the Edit List button under Directly Linked Catalogs.
3. Display available catalogs by typing or pasting some text in the search 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.

4. Select one or more catalogs and click Add Selected.
5. (Optional) to unlink the product from a catalog, remove a catalog from the Selections list.
   • To remove a single catalog, click the x at the end of a catalog's name.
   • To remove all catalogs from the list, click the Clear List button.
6. Click Done when you finish adding catalogs.

Import and export products directly linked to catalogs

You can use the Import and Export features on the administration interface Catalog page to import and export products that are directly linked to catalogs. See Import and Export Catalog Items and Inventory for details about how to perform bulk import and export of products in Commerce.

The easiest way to format a file for importing related products for products is to start by exporting a file that you can use as a template for the items you want to add or modify. See Export catalog items for more information about how to export products.

When you look at the exported spreadsheet, you can see that the second row displays column headings that contain the internal names of the exported properties. The directCatalogs column includes catalog IDs for the catalogs that products are directly linked to.

Product data begins in the third row and continues for the remainder of the spreadsheet. If an item does not have a value for a property, the corresponding cell is blank. If the first row of the spreadsheet includes a catalog context in the sixth column (F1), for example, CATALOG=movieCat, the directCatalogs column can contain only the catalog ID specified in the in the header, otherwise, the data will not import successfully. If the spreadsheet does not include a catalog context, the directCatalogs column can contain any valid catalog ID from your Commerce instance. To directly assign a product to multiple catalogs, separate each ID with a comma.

See Import catalog items and inventory for more information about how to import your changes back into the catalog.