Associations of products

Summary

Associate your products and Product Models

Link a product to other products or Product Models to describe relationships such as alternatives, substitutions, cross-sell and up-sell options, or product sets with quantities. This article shows you how to view, add, and remove Associations from the Product Form, and how to import them.

Understand Associations

A product can have no Association, or several Associations with other products or Product Models. Each link is defined by an Association Type, which also sets the direction of the link: 1-way or 2-way.

Some Association Types also support quantities, so you can describe a product set, for example a kitchen package made of 1 oven, 2 shelves, and 4 handles.

To create and configure your Association Types, see Manage your association types.

You can also define Associations on a Product Model. All its variant products inherit them. See Enrich your products with variants.

 

 

Which method should I use to link products?

Akeneo offers several ways to link products:

  • Manual Associations, described in this article, for commercial relationships such as cross-sell, up-sell, substitutions or product sets.
  • Automatic Associations (Product Compatibility) for technical fitment computed by a rule, such as rims that fit vehicles or cases that fit phones. This feature is available for Premium customers.
  • Product Link Attributes (Composable Products) when the link is part of the product data, such as the components of a composable product or a spare part.

To compare them, see the Choose the right way to link products table in Manage your association types.

 

 

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View the Associations of a product

  1. Open the product you want to check.
  2. Click the Associations tab.
  3. Select an Association Type in the left-hand list.
  4. Click Show products to display the product grid.
  5. Click Show groups to display the product groups grid.
Associations tab with Association Type list and associated products gallery

The Associations tab displays only the products and Product Models that are already associated. If the selected Association Type has no Association, the tab stays empty.

Counters help you see the volume at a glance:

  • The total number of Associations appears next to the Associations tab label.
  • The number of Associations per Association Type appears in the Association Type list.

Compatible products (Premium): if your catalog uses Automatic Associations, the Associations tab also lists the products that the PIM computes as compatible with this product. To learn how to view them, send them to a manual Association Type, or filter the product grid on them, see Manage product compatibility.

 

Open an associated product

  1. Open the product and click the Associations tab.
  2. Select the Association Type.
  3. Click the associated product or Product Model. It opens in a new browser tab.

Add Associations to a product

The steps depend on whether the Association Type uses quantities.

Add Associations with a standard Association Type

  1. Open the Product Form and click the Associations tab.
  2. Select the Association Type.
  3. Click Add associations. The selector opens.
  4. Filter by Category, label, or identifier, or add filters to find the products or Product Models you need.
  5. Tick the products or Product Models in the grid. They are added to the basket.
  6. Click Confirm.
Product selector with filters, product grid and selection basket

The selected products and Product Models are now displayed in the Associations tab. A product can be associated with a Product Model.

Add Associations with quantities

Use an Association Type with quantities when you build a product set, for example a bundle sold as a single offer.

  1. Create the product or Product Model that will be the base of your product set.
  2. Open the Product Form and click the Associations tab.
  3. Select the Association Type with quantities.
  4. Click Add associations. The selector opens.
  5. Filter by Category, label, or identifier to find the products or Product Models you need.
  6. Tick the products or Product Models in the grid. They are added to the basket.
  7. Click Confirm.
  8. Set the quantity for each associated product or Product Model.
  9. Click Save.
Associated products listed with an editable quantity column

Limits of Associations with quantities

Quantities must be positive integers between 1 and 2,147,483,647.

A single product or Product Model cannot be associated with more than 100 products or Product Models per Association Type with quantities.

Quantified Associations are exported with the main identifier only, never with UUIDs. If you re-import the same file, Associations are removed for products that have no main identifier.

 

Filter the product grid with Associations

The Associated with filter lets you find the products linked to a reference product or Product Model:

  1. Open the product grid.
  2. Add the Associated with filter.
  3. Select a product or Product Model, then an Association Type.
  4. Review everything associated with it.

You can also open this filtered grid directly from the Associations tab of a product, with the button next to each manual Association Type.

A variant product also returns the Associations held by its Product Model, as in the Product Form, the API and exports.

Tip: to share a filtered view, copy the grid link. Anyone who opens it sees the same filtered grid.

The filter respects permissions: a product that a user can't view never appears in their results. Lists and filters display up to 10,000 products. Use the API to retrieve the full list.

 

Remove Associations from a product

  1. Open the Product Form and click the Associations tab.
  2. Select the Association Type.
  3. Hover over the associated product or Product Model you want to remove.
  4. Click the cross.
  5. Click Save.

For an Association Type with quantities, associated products are displayed as a list instead of a gallery, so there is nothing to hover over. Click the cross directly in the list, then save.

When you remove a 2-way Association, it is removed on both products.

 

Import Associations

To import Associations successfully, include a column with the primary identifier (SKU or UUID) for every product that has an Association.

The import creates the products first, then applies the Associations, so the order of the lines in your file does not matter. However, a product imported without its primary identifier cannot receive Associations.

When you import 2-way Associations from an XLSX or CSV file, declare the Association on both sides. If products A and B are both associated with product C, make sure product C is also associated with products A and B, otherwise the Associations created on the previous lines are removed.

 

Understand the display order of associated products

You cannot define a custom order for your associated products and Product Models. The order follows two rules:

  • Associated products are displayed first, then associated Product Models.
  • Within each group, items are sorted alphanumerically on their internal ID, visible in the URL.

For example, if you associate the products "e9af9526-08df-4177-a7bc-34016b231d0c", "02255102-39ee-41cd-87af-340d1a3fe5cd", and "732b0fe5-1159-4802-8c3d-a68eff1ba158" with the Product Model "1568", the order is the following:

Position

Item

Why

1

Product "02255102-39ee-41cd-87af-340d1a3fe5cd"

Starts with "0", the lowest digit

2

Product "732b0fe5-1159-4802-8c3d-a68eff1ba158"

Starts with "7", which comes after "0"

3

Product "e9af9526-08df-4177-a7bc-34016b231d0c"

Starts with a letter, which comes after digits

4

Product Model "1568"

Product Models always come after products

When you export your Associations through the API or in XLSX and CSV files, the same order applies.

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