The Import functionality in PCC enables you to import data into a Catalog, that is, you can now import an entire catalog structure (that is, various catalog entities such as Taxonomy nodes, attributes, Schema, digital and so on). Once the catalog structure is standardized, you can maintain the existing catalog by importing SKU data into the catalog as changes will mostly happen in SKU data.
In PCC, you can import data to a catalog using one of the following formats:
Using the PCC Standard File Type format, you can import an entire catalog structure, that is, you can import the taxonomy Node, attributes, SKUs, Digital Assets and schemas. Thus, this option is best to be used when importing the catalog entities for the first time in PCC. The various PCC standard file types (that is, you can import data in the mentioned file formats) supported are as follows:
DataBridge Interchange Format (BIF) - This is an XML file with well-defined tags. The XSD is found here.
Stibo STEP XML - This is an XML file containing Product Information Management (PIM) data from STEP system.
Standard Vertical files – This consists of a list of 8 different files in CSV format. A detailed description of each of these files is provided in section A.4 Standard Vertical Files in Appendix.
Horizontal files - This consists of one single flat file in either CSV or Excel format. The file is a listing of all SKUs in the catalog shown in a denormalized manner, where the taxonomy path and all attributes are different columns/fields in the list. Refer section Horizontal Files and its Format in Appendix for more details.
NOTE | You can also import customer ID for Attribute or taxonomy, meta-attributes and metatags for schema. |
A User Defined Import Template is used to import SKU data as well as modify (move SKUs) when the catalog structure (that is, the taxonomy nodes and attributes) are already created in the catalog. You can then import all SKU related data such as SKU title, SKU ID, digital assets linked to SKU and SKU Attribute Values using the template created. A detailed description on how to create a user defined template to import SKU data is provided in Creating a New Template section.
NOTE | A user defined template allows you to only import SKU data. Hence, a prerequisite to import a SKU is to have attributes and taxonomy already present in the catalog. However, while importing the data, if a taxonomy node (listed in the file) is not present in the catalog, SKUs belonging to those nodes will not be imported in the catalog. Similarly, if a node is present but the attribute (listed in the file) is not present in the catalog / template, the attribute and the attribute value for that SKU will not be imported. |
Also, the user defined template supports two primary formats of data input files (that is, the SKU data can be imported using only these file formats) namely:
Horizontal files - This consists of a single flat file in either CSV (delimited) or Excel format. The file is a listing of all SKUs in the catalog shown in a denormalized manner, where the taxonomy path and all attributes are different columns/fields in the list. Each row represents a SKU. Existence of cell values in each column determines whether that attribute is relevant for the SKU or not. A detailed description about the various fields that can be configured while creating an import template using a horizontal file is provided in section A.1 Horizontal Files and its Format For Import Template in Appendix.
Vertical files – This consists of a single file in either CSV (delimited) or Excel format. The file consists of data pertaining to each SKU listed in multiple lines (that is, data for each SKU is listed in multiple rows). A detailed description about the various fields that can be configured while creating an import template using a vertical file is provided in section A.2 Vertical Files and its Format for Import Template in Appendix.
Based on the horizontal/ vertical file being used to import SKU data, you need to ensure that all nodes (as per the hierarchy) and attributes listed in these files are already present in the catalog.
To import a catalog structure or SKU data as well as to create a user defined template, as you log into PCC and hover over to the upper-left corner and the following menu is displayed as shown in the following figure.
Click Import > Catalog Import.
The following Catalog Imports screen appears.
Here, we can perform all functions related to import catalog which are as follows: