ChannelEngine: content mappings

About this article

This article describes the content mapping process on ChannelEngine.

Table of contents

Introduction

Mapping attributes

• Product filters tab
• Attribute filters tab
• Enhanced tooltips
• Option mapping
• Attribute option syncing
• Replacement tags
• Wildcard search

Product search and filters

List view

Export content mappings

Introduction

To export product content to a channel, relevant information about your products must match the content that the channel expects. To match your product information with the expectations of the channel, you map your content through a process called content mapping. 

The requirements and complexity involved in content mapping differ per channel, while some channels do not require content mapping at all from ChannelEngine.

Content mapping basics

• Categories should be as specific as possible. E.g.: 'bag' or 'luggage' is not enough; 'luggage, bags, shoulder bags' is preferable.
• Certain attributes are required for all marketplaces. E.g.: description, EAN, main product image, SKU, product title, etc.
• Other attributes are often required. E.g.: color, material, short description, size, etc.
• Content must be generic. Most channels reject data that contains hyperlinks (e.g.: using the HTML tag <a>), references to your company's services (e.g.: customer service), the use of terms such as 'free' and 'gratis', etc. The exceptions to this rule are channels on which offers are directly related to the content, like eBay and Wish.

Mapping attributes

Category overview

Before you map content attributes for your products, you first need to categorize your products in the Categorization step of the channel plugin. Thereafter, you map attributes that apply to All products and then to attributes that apply to specific categories. 

To start mapping content, go to Mappings, Content mappings. At the top of the list, you see All products. The list continues with the categories that you have selected in the Categorization step.

Each line item in the Content mappings tab shows the following fields:

• Products - shows the number of products mapped to this marketplace category.
• Required - shows the number of required attributes, how many are already mapped, and how many still need to be mapped. This field is green when all required attributes are mapped, and yellow when some attributes are still unmapped. If a required attribute is not mapped, an error appears on the Listed products page, preventing the product from being created or updated.
• Conditionally required - shows the number of conditionally required attributes for the category, how many are already mapped, and how many still need to be mapped. Conditionally required attributes become mandatory based on the value mapped in another attribute – in other words, they depend on another attribute. If a conditionally required attribute is not mapped, an error may appear on the Listed products page, preventing the product from being created or updated.
• Optional - shows the number of attributes that are not required but can be mapped. Without these attributes, your product is still exported to the marketplace, but the more optional attributes you map, the greater the visibility of the product on the marketplace. This, in turn, leads to a higher conversion rate.

Some channels do not require direct categorization. In those cases, all attributes are mapped under All products. You may be taken directly to the mapping view. 

Mappings view

Click on one of the line items to start mapping attributes in the mappings view. In the first column of the grid, the products that you plan to list on the channel appear as separate line items. The attributes that you map for the product listings are shown in the subsequent columns. 

The All products category is shown in the example below. These are the global attributes (i.e.: required for every category), which include the Description, EAN, Main product image, SKU, and Product title.

This same display appears in two tabs: Product filters and Attribute filters: 

• Product filters - the product filters tab shows the global view of all mappable attributes in the channel and is equipped with several filters to target specific products whose attributes you map. 
• Attribute filters - the attribute filters tab enables you to easily filter the same view to target the channel attributes that are still not mapped. 

Product filters tab

To map an attribute, select the dropdown of the attribute you want to map. The dropdown presents you with options with which map the attribute:

• Not mapped - if mapping the attribute is not mandatory, you can select the option Not mapped. Bear in mind that the more content you map, the more visible your product can be.

• Advanced rule - select this option if you do not have structured data for a mandatory attribute, but the information can be taken from a different attribute. Color, for instance, is often mentioned in the product title. You can extract it and use it as an attribute by using an Advanced rule. E.g.: if the title contains 'red', use 'red' as the color attribute; if the brand is equal to 'Nitro', use 'Nitro' as the brand. If you created multiple rules that may result in the same output, drag and drop your rules in the order of their priority.

  NB: if you create multiple advanced rules, the rules are applied in order from top to bottom. If multiple rules overlap with each other, the first matching rule in the list is used for the output. The rules beneath the first matching rule are ignored. Drag and drop your rules in the order of their priority.

• Fixed value - useful if you want to apply the same attribute value to all products, but you do not have an attribute with this information. Each product gets this value for the chosen attribute. A common example is Season, for fashion products. While not every merchant has an attribute in their product information for Season, this can be solved by using Never out of stock as a fixed value.

  NB: the maximum number of characters for attributes mapped via advanced rules and fixed values is 1,024.
• ChannelEngine fields - select this option to access the default ChannelEngine attributes under the bottom dropdown, such as Name, Brand, Merchant product number, etc.
• Custom fields - select this option to access your custom attributes under the bottom dropdown.

Once a mapping option is chosen, a new dropdown menu appears below it to provide you with options specific to your selection.

Manual override

You can set a manual override if a product requires a value different from what is mapped. To set an override, enter a value directly in the field or select an option from the dropdown, if available.

ChannelEngine highlights override values in yellow. The override takes priority over mapping, and ChannelEngine exports the override value to the channel instead. To remove an override, click the bin icon.

Attribute filters tab

Switch to the Attribute filters tab to search the channel's attribute labels and filter unmapped attributes in a single click. Use this view to reduce horizontal scrolling across the mappings page by searching for specific attributes in the search bar. 

In the search bar, search for an attribute by its name. Only the columns whose attributes match your search value will remain on the page. 

To show only the attributes that are not mapped, click the checkbox next to Show unmapped only. The columns of the mapped attributes will not show on the page. 

Enhanced tooltips

When you hover over a product name in Content mappings or Offer mappings, an enhanced tooltip appears, which provides you with quick access to key data about the product:

• Product type -  a G, P, C, or S icon in the upper right corner of the tooltip indicates whether the product is a (grand)parent, child, or standalone product.
• Family selector - a target icon appears next to (grand)parent and child products. Click on the target icon to restrict the mappings view to only those products that have the same (grand)parent-child relationship, i.e.: products within the same family (color, size, etc.). For guidance on (grand)parent-child relationships, check out ChannelEngine: parent-child relationships.  
• Unique product identifiers - the Merchant product number, GTIN, and Vendor product number. Easily copy these identifiers to your clipboard by clicking on a given number. Reuse the copied number to search on this product elsewhere on ChannelEngine or in your own systems.

Option mapping

Some channels require select attributes to be mapped to a specific set of values that the channel provides. These values are generally presented in a dropdown list within each cell in the mappings table. If you choose to map the channel's attributes with fields that you have already set up on ChannelEngine, then you can map each of the values from your field to the channel's values in a dedicated pop-up. This process is called option mapping. 

To perform option mapping to the channel's pre-defined values:

1. Map ChannelEngine fields or Custom fields to an attribute that provides selectable options. A dropdown menu appears below the attribute. 
2. After you select the desired ChannelEngine or custom field (e.g.: Color), a blue Edit option mapping button appears. 
3. Click the Edit option mapping button to view the list of your values as each line item (e.g.: Red, White, Blue). 
4. Then, map each of the values from your field to a value from the channel's dropdown list. Click Browse to view the dropdown list.
5. To hide all values that have already been mapped, enable Show unmapped only at the top right corner. 
6. At the bottom right corner, choose a default value if you have not mapped each of your values. 

Auto-mapping

If ChannelEngine recognizes an exact match between your field value and an option provided by the channel, ChannelEngine automatically maps your value to the matched channel option. These auto-detected fields are indicated by a light bulb icon.

• If no mapping is done, and you set a default to a specific option, then the selected default option is the output. If an exact match is found, then the auto-detected match is output.

• If you map your value to a specific option, then the output is the specific option that you chose, even if ChannelEngine auto-detected a match. 

• When the channel does not require you to map a value, e.g.: optional attributes, suppress the auto-detected output by selecting Not mapped - Clear value as the mapped value. 

• If no mapping is done, and you do not select a default option, then the channel's default option is used, if the channel configures a default option. 

To automatically map your values to the marketplace's predefined values using AI, click Map automatically with AI.

Attribute option syncing

Marketplaces dynamically update the requirements, options, and limitations on the values that you can enter into given attributes. From time to time, new categorization requirements on a given attribute might arise, or marketplaces might assign different brands to a given seller. These mismatches can lead to export errors. These errors can also occur when the channel options on the attribute are misaligned with your current settings.

To solve the export errors, you can manually sync the updated options on select attributes and on select channels. If attribute option syncing is available, you will see a refresh button next to each syncable attribute. Pressing this button will trigger a sync process, which will manually import the channel's available options for the attribute. 

To sync an attribute:

1. Verify that you are using a channel that supports attribute option syncing. If a channel supports option syncing, you will see a refresh button next to select attributes.
2. Ensure that the channel plugin is correctly authorized in Setup, Connection.
3. Click the refresh button next to the attribute.
4. An informational pop-up will appear, explaining that you can manually import the options for the given attribute a maximum of one time per 24 hours.
5. Click Sync options.
6. A status message will appear in the upper-right corner. When successful, the sync will execute within minutes. In case of an error, reach out to the ChannelEngine support team. 

Not all channels support option syncing. If a channel supports option syncing, you will see a refresh button next to the selected attributes.

It is not possible to perform option syncing on ChannelEngine attributes.

Replacement tags

In some cases, you might want to use the combined output of several attributes or extract a distinct part from an attribute. To combine attributes, use replacement tags as with Fixed value or Advanced rules. For guidance on replacement tags, check out ChannelEngine: replacement tags for channel mappings.

Once everything is categorized and mapped, new product information is automatically exported to the marketplace via the Export product data to channel task on ChannelEngine. This task is automatically scheduled once a marketplace is activated.

Product search and filters

At the top of the Content mappings tab, switch between the table and the list view. Both views include a search that allows you to find all products based on the attributes that contain your search term. Use the search to include or exclude certain products from the mapping by product name, GTIN, Merchant product number, or Vendor product number.

Use one or a combination of the available filters with which to refine your view:

• Export action - filter products by what action the data export will take on the product.
• Export status - filter by the status of the export from ChannelEngine to the channel.
• Channel status - filter by the status of the product's listing on the channel.
• Type - filter by product type: child, parent, grandparent (for products in a family) or single (for standalone products). 
• Include bundles - switch views via the dropdown to include, exclude, or exclusively show product bundles in the list.
• Product selections - select which product selections to show.
• Switch view via the All products dropdown:
  • Filter on empty values - view products with empty or unmapped attribute values.
  • Filter on overrides - view products with manual overrides. You manually entered value to map an attribute, or you selected an option that replaced the default mapped value.
• In a refined view:
  • Auto-hide unsaved matches - (available only if you switched to the Filter on empty values or Filter on overrides view) toggle on to hide unsaved changes. If you remove or edit a value without saving it, and it no longer matches the filter, it disappears from the results.
  • Show all attributes - (available only if you switched to the Filter on empty values or Filter on overrides view) toggle on to show all attributes, not only those with empty values or manual overrides.

Wildcard search

Wildcard searches enable you to quickly find a ChannelEngine field or a custom field within an attribute dropdown by using keyboard shortcuts. 

Use wildcard search in the Mappings step of a channel or within an Advanced rules pop-up. To use wildcard search:

1. In Mappings, go to an attribute, and select either ChannelEngine fields, Custom fields, or Advanced rule from its dropdown menu. 
2. If you selected ChannelEngine fields or Custom fields, place your mouse cursor within the empty field next to the dropdown arrow. 

3. Enter the wildcard character (%), preceded and/or followed by the characters from the attribute you seek. The (%) character replaces zero or more characters of any kind. 

   E.g.: to search for all attributes that have the letters 'e' and 't', such as Height and Length, enter 'e%t' in the search bar.

4. If you selected Advanced rule from the dropdown in Step 1, then click Edit advanced rule.
5. In the empty field within the If statement, enter your wildcard search.

List view

In the list view, you can preview the content mappings for a specific product. To do this, select the product from the Select product to preview dropdown. You can update the content mappings accordingly, as needed.

Export content mappings

To check if your product content is mapped correctly or if any products still need attention, you can export your current content mappings via email. On the Content mappings tab, click Export mappings, Yes. ChannelEngine sends a CSV file with the current content mappings to your login email address. To download the CSV file, click Download link in the email. The content attributes contained in the file vary depending on the marketplace.