ChannelEngine: smart custom fields [beta]

About this article

This is an article on the ChannelEngine feature, smart custom fields.

Introduction

Use cases

Limitations

Key features

Setup

Overview

• Review, edit, and delete
• Copy
• Search
• Create a smart custom field
• Map a smart custom field

Introduction

Smart custom fields enable you to create new product attribute values from your existing ChannelEngine fields and custom fields, by using advanced rules and ChannelEngine’s own scripting language, CE Shell. Based on the rules you set, ChannelEngine automatically calculates the resulting product attribute values and fills these into your product data.

On ChannelEngine, the smart custom fields that you create appear next to your regular custom fields in the Product details pages and in the Mappings step of a given channel, enabling you to easily map these values to a given channel’s attributes.

Unlike regular custom fields, smart custom fields are dynamic. They are regularly calculated in the background and require no manual input when performing attribute mapping. ChannelEngine automatically calculates values at the product level.

Use cases

You might have the same attribute across multiple channels. Instead of setting the same advanced rule multiple times across multiple channels for the attribute, create the advanced rule once in your smart custom field. Then, choose this smart custom field when performing content and offer mapping.

E.g. you are a brand with a price. But you want a minimum margin with every product. Before, you needed to calculate this in a new column of your product feed Excel file. Now, calculate the price with the minimum margin directly on ChannelEngine, and the values are ready for export to the marketplaces.

With smart custom fields, you can:

• Create calculated custom attributes per product.
• Perform text transformations and advanced operations that go beyond the capabilities of CE Shell alone.
• Reuse the same advanced rules across categories and channels without duplication.

Limitations

• After creating a smart custom field, the field’s value cannot be manually edited via the web interface or via API. Instead, ChannelEngine manually calculates the value for you in the background.
• Once the smart custom field is created, its label (Field name) cannot be modified.
• It is not possible to map your product feed values to a smart custom field.

Key features

• Dynamic attributes - values are calculated using advanced rules.
• Multiple field types supported - Boolean, Integer, Text, Decimal.
• Cross-channel mapping - instead of recreating advanced rules per channel or category, you can define a single smart custom field and map it wherever needed.
• Automated updates - smart custom fields are recalculated every 20 minutes (on creation and when rules are updated).

Setup

To enable this feature, contact your customer success manager or ChannelEngine’s Support team.

Overview

To manage smart custom fields, go to Products, Smart custom fields.

The smart custom fields view contains the master list of the existing smart custom fields in your tenant, with the following attributes on each line item:

• ID - the field’s unique identifier on ChannelEngine.
• Field name (required) - the label of the field.
• Field type (choose one):
  • Boolean
  • Integer
  • Text
  • Decimal
• Description - text to help you remember what the content of this field contains.

Review, edit, and delete

At the end of each line item, you see buttons to: 

• View in which mappings the existing smart custom field is used
• Edit the smart custom field
• Delete the smart custom field 

It is not possible to delete a smart custom field if it is mapped to an attribute on one of your connected channels.

Copy

At the end of each line item, you also have the option to copy an existing smart custom field. Copy a smart custom field to reuse its configuration, and make slight modifications to it. To copy a smart custom field, click the copy button on its entry in the smart custom fields overview. 

Search

Use the search bar to search the list of smart custom fields. The search result returns the smart custom fields that contain the text your searched on it their Field name.

Create a smart custom field

To create a smart custom field:

1. Go to Products, Smart custom fields.

2. In the upper-right corner, click Create a Smart Custom Field.

   

3. Fill in the details: Field name (required), Field type, and Description.
4. Define your output with conditional rules (recommended) or with a Default value.
   1. If you choose to define your output based on conditional rules, click Add a new set of rules.
      • Set up your conditions with advanced rules. 
      • For guidance on setting up advanced rules, check out ChannelEngine: advanced rules for product feeds.
   2. Or set a Default value as the output value, without conditional rules. 
   3. Customize the output with dynamic calculations. 
      1. Select CE Shell from the dropdown list with the CE Shell scripting language.
      2. Click Edit. For more guidance on CE Shell, check out ChannelEngine: CE Shell [beta].
5. Click Save.

Map a smart custom field

Map a smart custom field to a channel attribute in the same way that you map a regular custom field to a channel attribute.

1. In the Mappings step of the given channel, find the attribute that needs to be mapped.

   

2. In the dropdown below the attribute name, select Custom fields.
3. A new field appears, containing the list of your tenant’s regular custom fields and smart custom fields.
4. Select your smart custom field from the list.
5. ChannelEngine auto-populates the attribute values based on the rules you set for the smart custom field.