Products
A product is an item in the Catalog. It can be a concrete product, like a laptop, t-shirt or balloons, or a digital item covering items like an application license, access to a disk area, an input form to order services and more.
Each product belongs to a category. Read more about categories here.
Add a product
Note that the Cetegra Catalog only supports adding products manually. Support for API connection to third-party suppliers is scoped for phase 2.
It is possible to add a new product in two ways, either from scratch, by adding a new product in a category, or by using one of the templates that are available in the Product Wizard.
To add a new product from scratch, click the Add product button inside the category the product should be placed in.
In the image below, we will add a new product in the Laptop category. The category Laptop is a child category of the Equipment category.
1. General information
The first step is to add general information:
Name: Name of the product.
Subtitle: A subtitle that will be visible below the main title.
Description: A description of the product, visible on the product page. The description supports copy/paste from Word files and other HTML pages, and has a toolbar for formatting the text.
Layout: Select how the product should be displayed.
Spacious form with centered images:
Used for products where both the input form and the images should be in focus.
Spacious form:
Used for products where the input form should be in focus, and the image should be displayed in smaller size at the top left.
Compact form with centered images:
Form (if any) is displayed at the right side, and images are in focus.
Compact form with centered images:
Form (if any) is displayed at the right side, and images is displayed at top left.
Price/SKU: Add the price, if any. Select currency and the type of payment. This can be Free, One time payment, recurring payment or Unspecified.
Status:
- Draft: The default status for a product. End users will not be able to see the product until it is published.
- Published: The product is visible to end users.
- Only visible in collections: The product will only be visible from within a product collection. Read more about product collections here.
Type:
- Normal: This should be used for all normal products and items.
- Collection: This product will be a collection, containing other products. Read more about collections here.
2. Images
A product can have one or more images attached to it. If a product does not have any images, the first letters of the product name will be used as a product logo with a random background color.
It is possible to decide when images should be visible by using the actions and variants tool. This can be used to display a set of images based on a selected color. Read more about variants here.
Add images by dropping image files into the Upload images area. It is possible to select already uploaded images from the Image library, and also to crop and edit images. Read more about the advanced image features here.
Click the Thumbnail button to mark an image as the main image/thumbnail. By default, the first image will be set as the thumbnail image.
Click Reorder images to change the display position.
The Thumbnail image will be displayed on the product card on the category page:
On the product page, the end user can browse through all images:
3. Related products
Related products are used to display products that can be of interest to the user below the current product information on the product page.
Click the Edit button on the Collections area at the bottom of the product edit page.
Select one of the existing product collections, or create a new collection. You can also edit existing collection from this page. Read more about collections here.
Click the Select button to connect the product to a bundle, and click Unlink to remove the connection.
Now, the user will be presented with the related products below the product description:
Here’s an improved version of the user documentation text:
4. Restrict Access
Products can be restricted to ensure they are visible only to specific users or to users who are members of certain groups/products. Access is controlled by Active Directory (AD) groups.
Restrict Visibility
To restrict visibility, click the Groups area.
- Select one or more groups by clicking Add New.
- Only users who are members of the selected groups will see the product.
Limit Product Ordering
To restrict the ability to order the product, click the Restrict ordering to the following groups or Other products area.
- Using this feature, all users will see the product, but only users who are members of one of the selected groups/products will be able to order it.
- You can set this up based on a group or another product. Note that only products that grant access to a group can be used.
5. Order form
In the Order form area, you can define a form that the user can fill out before ordering the product.
Different types of products may require different types of information. For example, a laptop may require information about the user, while a software license may require information about the company.
Note that the placement of the Order Form area will vary depending on the product layout.
Click the Edit button and add elements as required.
Read more about forms here
5. Order fulfillment flow
The Order fulfillment flow section is used to manage what should happen after an order is placed.
The products will by default inherit the category actions (if any) but can be disabled by clicking the Disable inheritance checkbox.
Actions inherited from parent categories will be processed after actions that are set on the product directly.
Read more about the Category actions here.
Read more about the order fulfillment flow here.
6. Variants
The Variants section can be used to set specific prices or to display a set of images based on user configuration/selection.
To be able to use the variants system, the product need to have one or more dropdown or radio lists configured in the actions section.
Note that the form inputs need to have a token name to be used as a variant.
Here, we want the user to be able to select processor and hard drive sizes for a laptop.
In the configuration window for the Processor dropdown action, we make sure that a name is set, and that the checkbox for Use field to create product price variant is clicked.
When we have added two form inputs that should be used to create price variants, we can see all possible combinations in the Variants section.
Add a price for each combination, or leave it blank to use the default product price (as set in the General section).
The process for using the image variants is the same. Configure a form input to let the user choose, in this example, color. Check the option Use field to create product image variant in the form input configuration window.
The options will be listed below Image variants in the Variants section.
Click Select images to select one or more of the images that are connected to the product.
When the configuration option is selected by the user, only the selected variant images will be displayed.
Product bulk editor
It is possible to bulk import or edit products within a category.
The input format is CSV, and you can set the separator by choice.
The format is Name, Subtitle and Price.
The price should be a plain number only, without commas or currency.
In the example below we are adding 20 fictive IT products.
After pasting the CSV data into the text area, click Add products.
The products have now been buffered, and you can do a quick edit or add more products.
When you are happy with the buffered data, click Import.
Now, the products have been imported. It is possible to quick-edit the products or import images by dragging an image to the drop zone.
Collections
Collections are used to connect products and can be used both for displaying related products or as a product collection.
Add a new collection
To add a new collection, click the Collections button from the front page or within a category page.
The collection management tool is also available from within a product edit window, in the Related products section.
Add a collection name and click Add product.
Select the products that should be included in the collection, and click Close.
Note that it is possible to add multiple copies of the same product.
Click Edit on an existing collection to add/remove products.
Product collection
A product collection is a set of products that are connected and should be available as a one-click product.
This could be a set of accesses, a computer with an additional docking station and mouse/keyboard, or a “starter pack” for new employees, giving both accesses and equipment as needed.
In this example, we will add a laptop collection, that contains a laptop, monitor, docking station and keyboard/mouse.
Note that we are setting Type as Collection.
In the Collection section, we will select the collection that should be used.
When the user clicks the Collections product, all included products are listed. Any product-specific configuration can be done directly on the product that contains these options.
The price will show the total price of all products in the collections.
The user clicks Add bundle to cart to add all products included in the bundle to the cart.
The user can continue to browse for other products or submit the cart.
Related products
A bundle that should be used for Related products can consist of different products within the same category.
The users will see all related products below the product description.
Read more about the related products here.