Akeneo: integration guide

About this guide

This guide describes how to set up a connection between the Akeneo product information management (PIM) system and ChannelEngine. 

Table of contents

Introduction

Features

Requirements

How to request an account

Install Akeneo on ChannelEngine

• Connect the merchant plugin
• API keys
• Attribute mapping
• Activate the plugin

Install ChannelEngine on Akeneo

• Set permissions 

Product feed import

How it works

FAQs

Introduction

The Akeneo PIM empowers merchants by offering a complete and intuitive solution for managing, optimizing, and gathering intelligent data on their entire product catalog.

Connecting Akeneo to ChannelEngine allows you to import your product data and content into ChannelEngine, and list them for sale on multiple channels. 

Features

*If you use the free version of Akeneo PIM, you may not have full access to all features supported by this integration. E.g.: the import of images to ChannelEngine is not supported by Akeneo Community edition.

Requirements

• An active account on Akeneo
• An active merchant account on ChannelEngine
• Akeneo version 6.0 and higher

How to request an account

You can sign up for an Akeneo account directly on their website. For more information, check out their First steps with Akeneo guide. 

Install Akeneo on ChannelEngine

Follow the steps below to install the plugin and establish a connection between Akeneo and ChannelEngine. 

Connect the merchant integration

1. On Akeneo PIM, go to Connect, App Store, and search for ChannelEngine. Click Connect.
   
   NB: currently this step does not work. This article is going to be updated when the integration on Akeneo's app store is functional again.
   
2. Click Create an app, enter a name for the integration (e.g.: ChannelEngine), and enter your activation URLs as follows:
   a. Activate URL - https://myshop.channelengine.net/akeneo/activate
   b. Callback URL - https://myshop.channelengine.net/akeneo/callback. Make sure to replace 'myshop' with the name of your ChannelEngine tenant, as displayed in the URL when you log in to your account. 
3. Copy the Client ID and Client secret. 

API keys 

1. On ChannelEngine, click Settings from the left-side menu, and then click Merchant plugins.
2. On the Merchant plugins page, go to the Akeneo integration and click Add.
3. Go to the Setup page, and scroll down to the Connection section. 
4. Enter the URL for your Akeneo PIM (e.g.: https://channel-engine.demo.cloud.akeneo.com). 
   
   
5. Paste the Client ID and Client secret you copied earlier into the relevant fields. 
   
   
6. Click Save.

Attribute mapping

In the Plugin specific settings section, configure the following settings by entering the corresponding attribute code from Akeneo: 

• Category key - the preferred category tree root node key.
• EAN/GTIN attribute code - the code of the GTIN attribute.
• Name attribute code - the code of the name attribute.
• Price attribute code - the code of the price attribute.
• Stock attribute code - the code of the stock attribute.
• Description attribute code - the code of the description attribute.
• Attribute scope - the preferred scope of the attribute.

Activate the integration

To activate the plugin on ChannelEngine, go to the final tab, Activation, and toggle the option Activate synchronization for Akeneo. 

Install ChannelEngine on Akeneo

On Akeneo, accept the required authorization request from ChannelEngine.

Set permissions

To set the required permissions, next to the View field, select All under the following sections: Category trees, Locales, and Attribute groups.

Product feed import 

Because Akeneo is a PIM system, it has a product export feature that you can use to upload your product offerings into ChannelEngine without having to install the merchant plugin. Both methods work equally well, so it is a matter of preference which option you decide to use. 

To import your product feed from Akeneo:

1. Follow the steps in the Product export builder article in the Akeneo help center to export your products.
2. Publish the export file to the Web and copy the URL.
3. On ChannelEngine, go to Products, Product feeds, and click Add feed.
4. Paste the copied URL into the relevant field and click Load product feed.
5. You can continue to map your data attributes on Akeneo to product attributes on ChannelEngine. A full walkthrough of the steps involved can be found in the article ChannelEngine: product feeds. 

How it works

Once the merchant plugin is connected, ChannelEngine imports content and offers every 15 minutes. 

ChannelEngine converts these products into a usable format to make them available for use on any channel. If a required product field is missing, you receive a notification in your ChannelEngine environment. Manually correcting the missing field on Akeneo PIM makes it available for import.