Attribute Set & Type
Product Type
This setting corresponds with the product type option you have in Magento. Products that come in just one appearance usually are called simple products. But if you have multiple products (or variants) which should form one product/page on the web store, where then the buyer has to choose which version/variant they need, are called grouped or configurable items.
Attribute Set
Attributes and attribute sets are one of the key elements in Magento. Every product has to have an attribute set, and usually, these are used properly specify the product details. Proper use of attributes and sets is what enables you to sell any type of product on the web. The more details you provide, the easier it becomes for the buyer to select the right product. Besides the fact that these attribute values can be shown on the product detail page, they can also be used for filtering and sorting.
To define an attribute set, go to NAVcommerce / Attributes /. Create one or more attributes, make sure to release them, put them in a set, and after releasing the set, it can be used on products.
Status
This box is here to show you the latest status in terms of integration/synchronization. If there is something missing or something is wrong with the product, you will probably find the reason for that in this box.
Main
Descriptions
Where standard NAV/BC only gives you one or two description fields, which are no longer than 60 chars, with NAVcommerce you’ll get a name, short description and description field. All are 250 chars max length. For the product name we’d definitely wouldn’t recommend using that space, but for the descriptions, it very well might be that you need a lot more characters. And that is possible because if you look at the ribbon bar at the top, you’ll see two buttons which in turn open a rich text editor. As soon as you enter text in these editors, this text will predominate the text that was keyed into the standard description text inputs.
With the rich text editors, be sure to click on the Save button before moving on.
Meta Data
These are the texts you want to use for search engines.
NAVcommerce
Status
This is the switch you need to enabled/disable a product in the online store. There are more options to prevent a product from being shown, but once it is online this is the easiest way to ‘turn it on and off’.
Visibility
Besides enabling the product to make it visible in the online store, there is also the Visibility field. In most cases, you want to set it to Catalog and Search. But there are cases where you want to set an to be Not Visible Individually. Examples are Grouped Products, where you only want the main product to appear in the catalog and not the underlying items. Or items that you only want to show as items related to another item.
Special price
If you want the original price to be shown as the ‘old price’, and the current price as the ‘new price’, then you should use the special price feature. Use the date fields if you want to display the special price only within a certain time frame.
Content
These are all lists which show the number of content items which are linked to the current item. Click on any of these numbers to add categories, images, documents, related, cross or upsell items.
Inventory
If you want Magento to be aware of your inventory values, click Manage Inventory. So, in most cases, you want to enable this feature. But in case there is an unlimited amount of items available or if items are produced on-demand only, you could leave this unchecked.
Backorders – Here you can either select to use the global backorder setting, (to be configured in Magento) or you can tell the system whether you want to allow customers to place backorders, either with or without explicitly informing them about this.
Quantity Increments – When products have to purchased per 4 or 12 at a time, you can enter that number here. Depending on your frontend design, Magento will show arrows or something similar, to make things easier for your customers.
Quantity Uses Decimal – This is what you have to enable if you allow orders for 1.5 meters or 7,5 kilograms of your product.
Websites
If you run multiple websites in your Magento installation, this is where you can mark on which site an item should be shown.
Store-specific values & settings
If you want to use alternative texts or settings for one or more stores, you can add it here. Click on New Store Data, select the store for which you want to enter data and then click on Edit Store Data. A page which is similar to the page you were working on (the global item data page) will open, and a subset of fields is available to enter alternative data for this item for this specific store.
Store-specific values can be used for translating your web store into any other language. But you can also think about describing your items differently for your B2B customer as for your retail customers.
Attributes
One of the most important pieces of content are your attributes. Depending on the attribute set that was chosen at the very top of this item page, you will find attributes in this list. Attributes that are marked as Mapped Attributes cannot be changed at this point. These will get their values from the tables/fields they are mapped to. For all other attributes, you can enter values right here.
Be aware, the more and the better you make use of attributes, the better your store will perform because customers can find your products easier and with fewer clicks.