This glossary explains the core concepts you meet in Digital Showroom, from Portfolios to Private Showrooms. Knowing them helps you set up Digital Showroom faster and understand what your users and guests see.

Portfolio

A Portfolio is a curated selection of products that you share with one or more User Groups. Each Portfolio is linked to one PIM Channel and has its own configuration:

• The Locales and currencies available.
• The products included, based on product filters and the Category tree.
• How products are displayed: filters, product cards and table columns, product details.
• Which sharing features are on.
• Which User Groups have access.

For example, Northwind Outdoor, a fictional camping gear manufacturer, creates a "France B2B" Portfolio with French product data and EUR prices for its French sales team, and a "DACH Retail" Portfolio in German with EUR and CHF prices for its retail buyers. See Manage your Portfolios.

Channel

A Channel is an Akeneo PIM concept that represents a destination for your product data. It defines the available Locales, currencies, and Category tree.

Every Portfolio is linked to one Channel, so the Channel determines which Locales, currencies, and Categories the Portfolio can use, and which product values are shown. To learn more, see What is a channel? in the Akeneo PIM Help Center.

Locale

A Locale is a language and region combination, for example English (United States) or French (France). The Locales users can choose from come from the Portfolio's Channel.

When a user selects a Locale, everything switches to it: product data (names, descriptions, Attribute values) and the interface (menus, buttons, labels). The interface is translated into 11 languages. If the selected Locale is not one of them, the interface is displayed in English and product data stays in the selected Locale.

You can request more interface languages by opening a support ticket.

Currency

Currencies are used to display product prices. The available currencies come from the Channel linked to the Portfolio. Users switch between them with the currency selector in the navigation bar.

User Group

A User Group is a set of users who share access to the same Portfolios. User Groups are the bridge between users and Portfolios:

• An administrator creates User Groups and assigns Portfolios to each one.
• Each user belongs to one or more User Groups.
• A user can access every Portfolio assigned to their User Groups.

If your organization uses Single Sign-On, User Groups can be mapped to SSO groups so that users are assigned to the right groups automatically. See Manage User Groups and Set up SSO.

Roles

Digital Showroom has two user roles. An administrator chooses the role when inviting a user and can change it later from the user's details page.

See Manage users.

Private Showroom

A Private Showroom is a secure page where a user shares a curated selection of products from a Portfolio with external buyers. The user picks the products, invites the buyers by email, and sets an expiration date. After that date, guests can no longer open it.

For example, after a meeting, a Northwind Outdoor sales representative shares the 20 tents a buyer asked about in a Private Showroom that closes at the end of the month. The user who created it, and administrators, can follow how guests engage with it.

Private Showrooms are available with the Sell package. To add them to your plan, contact your Customer Success Manager. See What is a Private Showroom?

Guest

A guest is an external buyer invited by email to a Private Showroom. A guest is not a Digital Showroom user:

• Guests do not need an account or password. They sign in with a one-time code sent to their email address.
• Guests only see the Private Showrooms they were invited to, never your Portfolios.
• Guests do not appear in Admin > User management.

See Access a Private Showroom as a guest.

Sharing settings

Sharing settings are the Portfolio settings that control what users can share from that Portfolio and how exported files look. For each Portfolio, an administrator turns PDF exports, Excel exports, and Private Showrooms on or off, sets the PDF options (sort order and cover), and picks the Attributes included in exports. See Configure sharing settings.

Ranking Rule

A Ranking Rule boosts the products that match an Attribute-based condition so they appear first in the product gallery and in search results. Each Portfolio can have up to 3 Ranking Rules, each with its own strength. For example, a Ranking Rule can push new-season products to the top of the gallery.

PIM connection

The PIM connection is the secure link between Digital Showroom and your Akeneo PIM. Digital Showroom is activated as a Connect App, which authorizes it to read your product data. Changes made in the PIM are then synchronized automatically through the Akeneo Events Platform. See Connect your PIM.

Assets and media

An asset is a media file attached to a product in Akeneo PIM: an image, a video, or a document such as a PDF. In the PIM, assets are organized into Asset Families.

In Digital Showroom, users find a product's assets in the Files and Media tab of the product details page, where they can preview and download them without needing to know how Asset Families are structured. See Browse product assets.

Exports

An export is a file generated from a selection of products. Users select products in the gallery, open Share selection, and choose a format:

• Export as PDF: up to 100 products, with the Portfolio's sort order and optional cover.
• Export as spreadsheet: an Excel file with up to 1,000 products, one column per included Attribute.

Exports remain available for download for 30 days after generation. See Manage your exports.

Related articles

• What is Digital Showroom?
• Set up Digital Showroom: quick start guide
• What is a Private Showroom?
• Manage your exports