Overview

We’ve improved and modernized how we fetch, index, and store product data inside the Activation app. Instead of focusing on jobs and feeds, we now focus on individual products. This shift allows for a smarter, more complete, and scalable way to review your transformed product data.

A new product grid is available within an activation channel. This grid lists all the products (and their transformed data from the PIM) that are part of the channel’s syndication feed.

This upgrade provides e-commerce teams with a dedicated workspace to check how well their products match channel attributes and make necessary adjustments to improve channel readiness.

The grid is available both before and after product export, allowing you to view the data even before exporting your catalog for the first time.

Getting Started

How to Access the Products Tab?

• Inside an Activation Channel, you can navigate to the new 'Products' tab.
• The grid of products becomes available post once you've created and saved a catalog mapping in your PIM (if you don't see any products - follow the steps in this article to create mapping for this activation channel).

How does it work?

Once in the product tab, you can take a few actions to govern the product information for the products that are part of that channel. Note: the total count of products inside the channel is listed in the top right section of the grid.

Summarized Product Data View

This is the first view you see when landing on the product tab. From here you see a summarized list of all the products that are part of this channel.

Product Information: High-level details to quickly identify a product record

• Product name
• Product main image
• Product unique identifier (SKU, EAN, UUID)

Catalog: This shows the channel catalog the product belongs to

Error count: If available (not all retailers and marketplaces return errors), we display here the number of errors associated with the product during the last product export

Last update on the PIM: This is the timestamp for the most recent time this product's record was updated in the PIM

Added to the catalog: This is the timestamp for when this product was first added to the channels's product catalog

From here, you can perform a few actions to refine your analysis. Products can be sorted and filtered by various criteria, enhancing visibility and governance.

• From the search bar, you can search for products via essential product information, such as product names, and unique identifiers
• You can filter by product catalogs
• You can sort each of the table columns
  • Product information: in alphabetical order
  • Catalog: in alphabetical order
  • Error counts: least/most
  • Last update on the PIM: most recent/oldest
  • Added to the catalog: most recent/oldest
• With the Actions button:
  • You can sync the latest set of product updates coming from the PIM
  • You can download the filtered data in an xlsx file. 
• You can then click on a product in the grid to have access to the detailed view

Filters

To onboard new channels efficiently and make sure your catalogs stay compliant with channel requirements we created a set of filters at the top of the product grid. This makes the transformed data coming from your PIM actionable and helps you with channel governance and analysis. Filters can be combined to refine search results and can be cleared when selecting the "All" option.

Here are the filters available:

• Catalogs: filters on product catalogs. This filter is multi-select with a search capability
• Readiness: filters for products that have all the required attributes mapped with returned values
  • Options:
    • All
    • Ready
    • Not Ready 
• Status: filters on products that have been accepted or not by the channel
  • Options:
    • All
    • Accepted by the channel
    • Rejected by the channel
    • Never exported
• Errors: filters on products contain errors in their last export
  • Options:
    • All
    • Contain errors
    • No errors
• Exported: filters on products that were part of the last export
  • Options:
    • All
    • In the last export

For example: if you want to know which products were successfully accepted by the channel in your last export, you can apply the filters: status “accepted” and exported “in last export”.

Detailed Product Data View

Clicking on a product provides a detailed view of all transformed product data from the PIM, organized around multiple sections.

Product Information

• You can scroll through attributes showing the transformed data coming from the PIM, to meet retailer requirements, displaying only required or filled optional attributes
• You can filter to refine the data based on readiness
  • Required attributes that have not been mapped
  • Required attributes mapped but that still return empty values after transformation (likely due to mapping errors or change in enrichment changes in the PIM)
• For the catalog the product belongs to, we display the full list of attributes part of the requirements expected by the retailer or marketplace
• In the right panel, there are two additional sections
  • one on product readiness, displaying counts or missing required attributes and empty mapped attributes (for quick identification of potential mapping work needed on required attributes)
  • on showing the product's unique identifiers

Errors

Errors play a key role in a product's activation journey. Retailer and marketplace requirements can change, mapping errors can happen, and being able to act when errors occur increases the chance of publishing accurate and complete data consistently. You can quickly identify errors at scale and reduce the time needed for adjustments.

We are now able to list all the errors attached to a product and display them in the detailed view of the product grid. Then you can open the catalog mapping in the PIM to go correct errors in bulk.

You are now provided with the following:

• The source of the error
  • Internal
  • From the retailer or marketplace
• The timestamp for the export when the error happened
• The actionable error message explaining what the error if applicable, how to correct the error

Activation Timeline

To ease the activation journey analysis, we display a few key timestamps highlighting the product life cycle 

• Added to the catalog: the first time a product was included in the Activation Channel catalogs (fetching from an assortment of products in the PIM)
• First accepted push to the retailer: the first time a product was successfully sent to the retailer
• Last accepted push to the retailer: the last time a product was successfully sent to the retailer
• Last update on the PIM: the most recent time this product's record was updated in the PIM

Lastly, you can directly access catalog mapping and individual product pages in the PIM from the Akeneo Activation app to quickly make mapping or enrichment updates.