PIM prerequisites

Summary

PIM Prerequisites

Before your team can start browsing products in Digital Showroom, your Akeneo PIM needs to be properly configured. Digital Showroom reads product data from your PIM, so the quality and completeness of your PIM setup directly affects the experience your users will have.

This article walks you through each area of your PIM that Digital Showroom relies on.

Channels

A channel in Akeneo PIM represents a distribution context — it defines which locales, currencies, and category tree are associated with a particular way of distributing your product data. When you create a portfolio in Digital Showroom, you must select a channel, and that channel determines which locales and currencies are available.

What to do:

  • Make sure at least one channel is configured in your PIM.
  • Verify that the channel has the correct locales and currencies enabled.

To learn more about channels, see What is a channel? on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Locales

Locales determine which languages are available for your product data. Digital Showroom displays product information in the locales you select when creating a portfolio. These locales come from the channel you choose, so make sure the right locales are enabled on your channel.

What to do:

  • Enable all the locales you want available in Digital Showroom on your PIM channel.
  • Ensure your product data is translated into those locales for a complete experience.
Tip: If your products are only complete in certain locales, consider enabling only those locales in your portfolio to avoid showing empty values to users.

To learn more, see Manage your locales on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Currencies

Currencies determine how prices are displayed in Digital Showroom. Like locales, the available currencies are determined by the channel you select for a portfolio.

What to do:

  • Enable the currencies you need on your PIM channel.
  • Make sure product price attributes have values in the currencies you plan to use.

To learn more, see Manage your currencies on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Attributes

Attributes are the building blocks of your product data. Digital Showroom supports all major Akeneo PIM attribute types:

  • Text and Textarea — Descriptions, names, and other text content
  • Number — Numeric values such as weight, dimensions, or quantities
  • Boolean — Yes/no values like "Is recyclable" or "In stock"
  • Date — Date values such as launch date or expiration date
  • Price — Product prices in one or more currencies
  • Metric — Measurements with a unit (e.g., 2.5 kg, 100 cm)
  • Simple select and Multi select — Single-choice and multi-choice option lists (e.g., color, material)
  • Reference entity and Reference entity collection — Links to reference entity records (e.g., brand, designer)
  • Image and File — Media files attached to products
  • Asset collection — Linked assets from asset families (images, videos, documents)

What to do:

  • Ensure the attributes you want displayed, filtered, or searched in Digital Showroom have data in the relevant locales and channel scope.
  • Pay attention to attribute completeness — attributes without values will appear empty in Digital Showroom.

To learn more, see What is an attribute? on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Attribute Groups

Attribute groups organize your attributes into logical sections. In Digital Showroom, the product details page displays attributes grouped by their attribute group. This helps end users find the information they need quickly.

What to do:

  • Organize your attributes into meaningful groups (e.g., "Technical specifications", "Marketing", "Dimensions").
  • Give your attribute groups clear, descriptive labels in all relevant locales.

To learn more, see Manage your attribute groups on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Categories

Categories provide the hierarchical navigation structure in Digital Showroom. When browsing a portfolio, end users navigate through category trees to find products. The administrator chooses a root category for each portfolio, and only products within that category branch are visible.

What to do:

  • Set up a well-structured category hierarchy in your PIM.
  • Make sure category labels are translated into all locales you plan to use.
  • Assign your products to the appropriate categories.
Tip: You don't need to use your entire category tree. When configuring a portfolio, you can select a specific branch as the root category, which limits the navigation to only that part of the tree.

To learn more, see What is a category? on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Families

Families define the set of attributes that apply to a group of products. In Digital Showroom, the family determines which attributes appear on the product details page. Families are also available as a filter option so end users can quickly narrow down products by type.

What to do:

  • Create families for each type of product in your catalog.
  • Assign the appropriate attributes to each family.
  • Make sure every product belongs to a family.

To learn more, see What is a family? on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Asset Families

Asset families are essential for displaying media in Digital Showroom. Product images, videos, PDFs, and other documents are all sourced from asset families in your Akeneo PIM. Without asset families, products will have no thumbnails in the product gallery, no main image on the product details page, and an empty Medias & Files tab.

What to do:

  • Create asset families in your PIM for each type of media you want to manage (e.g., "Product Photos", "Technical Documents", "Videos").
  • Link assets to your products using asset collection attributes.
  • Ensure the media files are uploaded and properly linked.
  • Make sure each product family's attribute used as the main image is set to an asset collection attribute.
Important: Standard image attributes (pim_catalog_image) are not displayed in Digital Showroom. You must use asset families and asset collection attributes for all product media.

To learn more, see What is an asset family? on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Catalog for Apps

Digital Showroom uses the Akeneo PIM Catalogs for Apps feature to define the scope of products shared with the application. A catalog must be set up and enabled in your PIM for the Connect App after the connection is activated.

What to do:

  • After activating the Digital Showroom Connect App, open the catalog configuration in your PIM (you can access it directly from Admin > PIM Settings > Open PIM Catalog in Digital Showroom).
  • Enable the catalog and configure the channel, locales, and any product selection criteria you want to apply.
  • Make sure the catalog is enabled before expecting products to appear in Digital Showroom.

To learn more, see How to configure a catalog for an App on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Products

Finally, make sure your products are ready for Digital Showroom:

  • Products should have data filled in for the channel and locales you plan to use.
  • Products should be assigned to categories.
  • Products should belong to a family.
  • For the best experience, aim for high product completeness — products with many empty attributes will not look great in Digital Showroom.
Tip: Use the PIM's completeness feature to check which products still need data before making them available in Digital Showroom.

To learn more, see Monitor product completeness on the Akeneo PIM help center.

Want to find out more? Take a look at these related articles