Table of Contents
Catalog contains sections that allow you to create and structure your Product Catalog.
Products
Products are orderable items that your Customers may purchase. Purchased Products become visible for the Customer as Services under the Profile the Product was purchased on.
Products have a localized name optional plan name as well. Plan name is often used to separate different versions of the same Product, eg. Starter, Basic, Professional.
Products have a localized description field that you can edit using a WYSIWYG editor. You can create content rich pages describing your products best features, using images and/or videos.
Provisioning method
Provisioning method defines how the Product is provisioned when the Order is received and activated.
- Manual - Email. This provisioning method sends an email to the address defined by Preference: SERVICE_PROVISIONING_DEFAULT_EMAIL_ADDRESS with the Message Template: SERVICE_EMAIL_PROVISION.
- Automatic - PAITA. This provisioning method uses PAITA integration to provision the Service. PAITA integration needs to be setup before. See Service Integrations.
Pricing
Products have 3 different pricing options:
- Ask for an Offer. The Product cannot be purchased. Instead, contact information is presented.
- One-time purchase. A single price may be set. The Service will be provisioned, but no actions will be performed by Pilvi after that. Use cases: One-time purchase to receive something in exchange.
- Recurring. Product has a price for a certain period. The usage of the Service may be continued after the initially paid period has ended. Product may have a setup cost, that is paid only on the first order. Product may also have a Trial period.
Discounts
See Discount page for more information on Discounts.
Life-time
Product may be externally managed. Externally managed Products are not visible or purchasable in the Shop can cannot have a price. Externally managed Products are used when you want your Services to be provisioned from an outside source.
Product Cards
Product Cards may be used to provide different views to your Products. A Product may have many Product Cards that each can have a different theme and varying fields showing information about the Product.
Product Cards are components that can be embedded to external websites.
Product Card Groups
Product Card Groups may be used to group Product Cards from different Products into a single element. Product Card Groups enable you to show a compare view of the Products, which shows what feature is available for each Product.
Product Cards Groups are components that can be embedded to external websites.
Relations
Relations may be added between the products. In the Shop, these relations show as product recommendations in Product Detail and Product Configure.
There are two relation types, group and single. If a new group relation is created, the current and the selected target product will be added to the group. More products can be added to the existing group. In the Shop, the products in the group relation will be shown as recommendations for each product in the group. A product may belong to several groups and single relations.
The Single relation type is unidirectional. The product in the relation (target product) will be shown for the current product in the Shop. The current product won't be shown when inspecting the target product.
Taxonomy types
| Taxonomy type | Intended use case | Where is shown? |
|---|---|---|
| Variant | Variations of the same Product. Used for different Product Plans for ex. | Product Detail Page, under "Other versions of this product" and a select box above the product price. |
| Related | Products that are related or otherwise recommended with this Product. | Product Detail Page, under "Recommended products" |
| Competing | Competing or similar Products. | Product Detail Page, under "Competing products" |
| Compatible | Products that may be bought and used together. | Product Configure Page, as checkboxes. If selected, they will be added to Cart at the same time. |
Importing Excel Files
Products can be imported from an Excel file. The file must be in Excel 97 - 2003 (.XLS) format, and contain 15 columns described below. The data must begin from row 2.
Download template file here
Excel File Layout
| # | Column | On Create | On Modify | Default value | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Product No. | optional | required | 100 | 100 | Product number |
| 2 | Locale | optional | optional | From user's session | en_US | Possible values: fi_FI, en_US |
| 3 | Localized name | required | required | Microsoft Office | ||
| 4 | Localized plan | optional | optional | Business | ||
| 5 | Localized description | optional | optional | Web user interfaces of: Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote. | ||
| 6 | API | optional | optional | PAITA | PAITA | Possible values: PAITA, EMAIL |
| 7 | Currency | optional | optional | EUR | EUR | Possible values: EUR, USD |
| 8 | Price (in Currency) | optional | optional | 8.50 | Decimal number, no currency sign | |
| 9 | Price interval | optional | optional | P1M | ISO 8601 Duration. Min: P14D Max: P10Y |
|
| 10 | Billing interval min | optional | optional | P1M | ISO 8601 Duration. Min: P14D Max: P10Y |
|
| 11 | Billing interval max | optional | optional | P1Y | ISO 8601 Duration. Min: P14D Max: P10Y |
|
| 12 | Trial period (days) | optional | optional | 0 | 30 | Min: 0 Max: 90 |
| 13 | Region | optional | optional | global | ||
| 14 | Brand | optional | optional | Microsoft | ||
| 15 | Image URL | optional | optional | http://www.myshop.fi/pictures/apic.png |
If the product number is enclosed, and a product with the same number exists in the database, it will be replaced. Otherwise the row will be imported as a new product. If the product number cell is left empty, the number will be generated, and that row will be imported as a new product.
If the data has been succesfully imported, the number of products processed will be displayed. If not, an error dialog will point at which rows and columns there is invalid data.
Categories
Categories allows the Products to be grouped in the Shop with a criteria of your choosing.
By default, categories are shown on the sidemenu in the Shop, but you can also choose to not show them in the menu.
Category has a layout that affects how the Category and its products are shown on the page.
Category layouts
| Layout | Description |
|---|---|
| Single Category | Grid view of all the Products in the Category with filter and sorting controls. Default |
| Category Showcase | Products of the Category and its related Categories grouped into Carousels with varying sizes. |
Regions
Regions are another means of grouping your Products based on geographical location. Regions are shown separately from Categories in the Side menu.
Brands
Regions are another means of grouping your Products based on the provider of the Product. Brands are shown separately from Categories in the Side menu.
SEO
Products have localized SEO fields such as Title tag, Meta description and Meta Keywords that can be manually set. If not set, Pilvi Platform tries to automatically provide best possible values based on the Product data.