Key Concepts
Before diving into Digital Showroom, here are the core concepts you'll encounter throughout the application. Understanding these will help you set up and use Digital Showroom more effectively.
Portfolio
A portfolio is a curated selection of products shared with specific user groups. Think of it as a customized view of your product catalog designed for a particular audience.
Each portfolio is linked to one PIM channel and has its own configuration for:
- Which locales (languages) are available
- Which currencies are available for prices
- Which products are included (based on root category and filters)
- How products are displayed (grid columns, filters, details page layout)
- Which user groups have access
An administrator can create multiple portfolios, each tailored to a different audience. For example, one portfolio for your French sales team showing products in French with EUR prices, and another for your German buyers in German with EUR and CHF prices.
Channel
A channel is a concept from Akeneo PIM that represents a destination for your product data. Each channel defines which locales and currencies are available.
In Digital Showroom, every portfolio is linked to one PIM channel. The channel determines which locales and currencies the portfolio can use.
To learn more about channels, see What is a channel? on the Akeneo PIM help center.
Locale
A locale is a language-region combination (for example, en-US for English - United States, or fr-FR for French - France).
In Digital Showroom, there are two types of locales:
- Interface locale: The language of the Digital Showroom interface (menus, buttons, labels). Supports 11 languages: German (de-DE), English UK (en-GB), English US (en-US), Spanish (es-ES), French Belgium (fr-BE), French France (fr-FR), Italian (it-IT), Dutch (nl-NL), Polish (pl-PL), Portuguese (pt-PT), and Swedish (sv-SE).
- Catalog locale: The language used for product data (names, descriptions, attribute values). Available catalog locales depend on your PIM channel configuration.
These are independent: you can browse the interface in French while viewing product data in English.
Currency
Currencies are used to display product prices. Available currencies come from the PIM channel linked to your portfolio.
End users can switch between available currencies using the currency selector in the navigation bar.
User Group
A user group is a collection of users who share access to the same portfolios. User groups are the bridge between users and portfolios.
How it works:
- An administrator creates user groups and assigns portfolios to each group
- Users are added to one or more groups
- A user can access all portfolios assigned to their groups
For example, a "France Sales" user group might have access to the "France B2B" and "France Retail" portfolios.
Roles and Permissions
Digital Showroom has two user roles:
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Full access: create and configure portfolios, manage users and groups, set up SSO, customize branding, view analytics |
| User | Browse products in assigned portfolios, search and filter, view product details and assets, generate PDF exports |
An administrator assigns a role to each user when sending the invitation.
PIM Connection
The PIM connection is the secure link between Digital Showroom and your Akeneo PIM. It uses the Connect Apps protocol (OAuth 2.0) to authorize Digital Showroom to read your product data.
Once connected, product data synchronizes automatically in real-time via the Akeneo Events Platform. When you update a product in the PIM, the changes appear in Digital Showroom within minutes.
Asset
An asset is a media file attached to a product in the Akeneo PIM. Assets can be:
- Images (PNG, JPG, etc.)
- Videos (MP4, etc.)
- Documents (PDF)
Assets are organized into asset families in the PIM. In Digital Showroom, assets are surfaced to end users as Medias — this abstracts the underlying PIM asset family configuration. End users can browse, preview, and download product medias from the media gallery without needing to understand how assets are structured in the PIM.
PDF Export
A PDF export is a generated PDF document containing selected products with their details and assets. End users can:
- Select products from the product gallery
- Configure the export (name, sort order)
- Generate a PDF document
Exports are available for download for 30 days after generation.