Product Information Management (PIM)

Product information often originates from different sources or is delivered in another structural format, not meeting predefined quality standards. The SCAYLE Panel offers various ways to “refine” product data to ensure quality standards.

Basic Concepts

As described in the configuration and product section, some basic settings have to be adjusted to structure products and product data before they can be imported into the SCAYLE Panel. Once the initial structure is set, you can start working with the imported products.

Different sources can deliver products to the system with their accompanying product information. The Merchants section provides an overview of how external sources are defined in SCAYLE and how merchants are connected to the system.

SCAYLE products pass two phases:

Delivered as a "merchant product"
Converted into a "shop product"

Merchant products are products a merchant delivers to SCAYLE. The respective product data can be processed automatically but may not correspond to the specified quality.

Therefore, it is necessary to raise product data quality to a uniform level. As soon as this process is completed, and merchant products are assigned the specified information, merchant products become shop products.

Workflow

There are two ways to refine product data:

Merchants' products are passed through the refinement process and converted into shop products assigned to one or more shops.
Alternatively, so-called "mappings" can be defined for attributes values and Attribute Groups. This way, product data is automatically enhanced and updated as soon as merchant information is transferred to SCAYLE. Detailed instructions on this process can be found in the section Attribute Mapping.

Refining product data usually involves several steps:

A merchant is connected to the system.
As soon as there is a connection, the merchant's data is transferred to the system.
If required, the delivered product data can be enhanced with additional information.
Optionally, missions can be created and assigned to different users (product data managers).
Product data managers process missions assigned to them and refine products.
Refined products can be assigned to one or more shops as shop products.

Once products are refined, their status is updated from New to Live in the global product list. Refined products can be assigned to any number of shops.

The majority of products usually have to pass the refinement process to achieve a homogeneous product data quality level. However, merchants' products that already include all necessary product information when transferred to the system are exceptions. In this case, products will be created automatically as shop products and displayed in the global product list with the status Live.

Missions

Since refinement of product data often requires a lot of time and capacity, the SCAYLE Panel offers the Missions function to simplify this process. Missions involve creating work packages with specific criteria. You can assign these missions to one or more users who will then update the respective products.

Global and Shop-Specific Missions

You can create missions either for all shops or explicitly for individual shops.

Product refinements carried out globally are automatically applied to all shops. For example, you can create a global mission to update color values and replace those sent by a merchant with your own values and apply them to all shops.

Shop-specific missions are useful if you want to change product data for a single shop only. An example would be if you want to flag products with an eco-certificate but only want them to be displayed in certain shops. The corresponding Attribute Groups can be maintained with a shop-specific mission for the respective products.

The PIM module is part of the Add-ons: Add-ons > PIM.

You can access global missions directly from the overview. Missions for individual shops can be accessed via the drop-down menu at the top.

In both cases, there are two subareas: Overview and My Missions.

Create Missions

Go to the product list of the respective shop: Shops > Shop name > Products.
Select or filter the products to be updated. Different filter options help you to precisely define the scope of a mission and which products should be processed in which work package. How to work with basic filters, advanced filters, and ID filters is explained in the Product Filters section.
Click Create Mission.
Complete the New Mission fields: Name, Configuration (standard or temporary), Assigned roles, and Assigned users.
- Selecting at least one of the fields Assigned roles and Assigned users is required.
- Standard missions remain permanent even if the products they contain have already been refined. Temporary missions are automatically deleted once fully processed.

There may be cases where not all mission products can always be processed immediately. In these cases, you can skip products and edit them later, as they are automatically placed at the end of a mission.

In the following example, all products of the brand "HUGO" are filtered to create a matching work package using Create Mission.

Prioritize Missions

The Overview area displays all missions with their current status. New missions are first listed in the left column with the status New. Missions that have already been prioritized appear in the right column with the status Prioritized.

Missions are displayed with their name, the number of filters used, and included products. Assigned users and the current progression of a mission are also displayed. Prioritized missions and their priority order are displayed with small blue numbers so that you can immediately see which missions have the highest priority.

You can change the mission order with drag and drop. To edit or delete missions, mouse over a mission tile, click the three-point menu, and choose from different options.

Click on a mission tile to go to the first product details page of the products to be processed. Make the necessary changes, and save the product. The system will automatically redirect you to the next product. This process allows you to work through missions step by step.

how product details pages are structured, see the Product View section.
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