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Create a Category

This article explains how to view, edit and create a (sub) category in CommerceTools.

A category in CT has various purposes, it is used for marketing, product grouping on the various pages of the website, as well as to determine numerous types of discounts and campaigns that should include or exclude products. The Category feature is for instance used to configure tier discounts for products. Before creating a new category, it may be a good idea to review existing categories and subcategories in the category list.

Contents

Category List

The category section of CT is accessed via the left menu pane.

Category List

In the ‘Category list’ you can view all existing categories and information such as: the category names, their ‘External ID’s’, the number of products and subcategories that are contained within it.

Category List

By selecting the > icon on a category a pane will open displaying any subcategories contained within it.

Category List

Subcategories can contain other subcategories, which can be navigated to using the > icons to go deeper, or on the top left of the screen shown above, using the < icon to go up a level.

Category Information

You can select a category or subcategory from the category list by clicking on it, information pertaining to the selected category will then be displayed on the screen.

Category Information

General

In the General tab there are three sections

General information

General information

Contains the name, description, key, external ID and order.

It can happen that an existing category may need the order value adjusted, this is where you would do this. Assigning an order number to categories will allow you to more easily use sorting to order your categories.

Category order values can be a value between 0 and 1. For example:

Category A has a Rank value: 0.05

Category B has a Rank value: 0.07

When you sort from low to high (ascending), category A is shown before category B because 0.05 is closer to 0 than 0.07.

Custom fields

Specifies the store's product categorization, first select Category custom type in the top bar next to the custom fields sub header. A secondary

searchable drop-down field will appear

  • 'Purpose' is for usage sorting.
    • Some Examples:

Mental Health

Beauty & Anti-Aging

Custom fields

  • ‘Type’ is for type-based listings.
    • Some Examples:

Vitamin C

Magnesium

  • ‘Audience' is for demographic targeting.
    • Some Examples:

Woman

Children's health

  • 'Other' is for various website logic and optimizing product discovery.
    • Some Examples: Categories used for campaign or events.

Category Branch

Displays the family tree of the category: which (sub)category it falls under and which subcategories fall under it.

Custom fields

You can use this to quickly navigate between categories and subcategories, without returning to the category list page.

Move Category

You can move any category to any sub-category position by clicking the Move category button.

Move Category

Important

  • You cannot move a subcategory to a main category position.
  • You cannot convert a category moved to a subcategory position back to the main category in the branch.

Move Category

Once you are happy with the new position of the category, press the move category button to save the change.

Move Category

Products

In the Products tab you can view and search for all products that have been added to the category, or rather products that have had the category added

to it. There is no way to add products to the category from this page. The relationship is the other way around, namely, you add a category to a product, via the product page.

Products

The Products tab on a category page is intended to give insight into which products are contained within that category.

This tab is NOT used. The URL slug is a required field by CT, that's the only reason it's filled. The actual field we use to determine a webpage's URL is the field "URL Identifier" in Hygraph. For search purposes within CT, it's convenient to fill CT's URL slug with the same value as the "URL Identifier" in Hygraph.

For more information about SEO please review the following

Ext. Search

documentation: SEO

URL slug

The URL slug is a user-friendly way to generate the category page URL. Slugs substitute system generated category IDs in the website page URL.

URL slug

This URL slug must be unique and may only contain between 2 and 256

alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens. They can not include white spaces or special characters like ñ, ü, #, %.

Meta title & Meta description

These fields cannot be removed from CT. Please do not fill them: instead, fill them in the SEO component in Hygraph.

Saving

If you have made any changes or additions to a selected category, then you must save them by clicking the save button on the bottom bar of the screen.

Saving

Not happy with the pending change or addition? Press cancel to revert it.

Saving

Creating a category

To create a new category, if an appropriate category or subcategory does already exist. You can either select the ‘Add category’ from the side menu.

Creating a category

Or by clicking the ‘Add category’ button on the top left section of the category list page.

Creating a category

You will be redirected to category creation flow pages.

Step 1 - Add basic category information

Category name

Give the category a descriptive but concise name. This field is mandatory, and must also always have an English name, for the sync to Hygraph to work. By clicking ‘Show all languages’, the available locale fields will be displayed, and can be filled in. There is no duplicate detection on this field, be careful that you don’t choose a name that is already in use by an existing category. The system will not recognize a duplicate category.

Category name

Category description

This is an optional field, and just like the name field, by clicking ‘Show all languages’, the available locale fields will be displayed, and can be filled in. It is only for internal use to make clear to different VHC users what the category is for. This field will not be displayed on the website.

Category description

Category key

Must be left empty, it is set upon saving the category.

Category key

External ID

Must be left empty, it is set upon saving the category. Refers to the category ID used in Hygraph.

External ID

Category order

Assigning an order number to Categories determines the order of the (sub)category in menus and pages on the website. This field can be filled in after the creation of the category.

Category order values can be a value between 0 and 1. For example:

Category order

Category A has a Rank value: 0.05

Category B has a Rank value: 0.07

When we sort from low to high (ascending), Category A is shown before Category B because 0.05 is closer to 0 than 0.07.

Category Reorder

It is much more user friendly to change the category order via the drag- and-drop reorder functionality which can be accessed via the category list view.

Category Reorder

Changing the order using this drag-and-drop functionality automatically changes the value of the category order field of the category to reflect the position relative to the other categories.

Custom fields

This is an important field and must be filled in, it determines specific behaviors within the website. It specifies the store's product categorization, first select Category custom type in the top bar next to the custom fields sub header. A secondary

searchable drop-down field will appear

Custom fields

  • 'Purpose' is for usage sorting – bones and joints, weight management, liver, anything that is a health need or goal.
  • ‘type’ is for type-based listings – super foods, vitamins, minerals, etc.
  • ‘Audience' is for demographic targeting – female, male, kids, 50+, any group of people.
  • 'Other' is for various website logic and optimizing product discovery.

Once all required fields and additional optional information has been entered continue in the flow by clicking the next button on the bottom navigation bar. Need to go back? There is a button for that! The back button! Next to the Next button.

Custom fields

Step 2 - Category location

Determine which existing category the new category should fall under, essentially making it a subcategory. If you do not make a selection, the category you are creating will become a ‘main category’. Use the search bar to quickly find a category or subcategory

Step 2 - Category location

By clicking on the select button of a category, the category that is being created will then become sub-category of the selected category.

Step 2 - Category location

To navigate through categories and subcategories click on the > arrows, and to go up a level click on the < arrow.

Step 2 - Category location

After clicking ‘next’ we go to the third and final step.

Step 3 - Add external search information

Configure the SEO settings for the category being created in the final step.

Step 3 - Add external search information

URL slug

The URL slug in CT is a mandatory field and must be filled in when creating a category. However, it will not be used in the website, this is configured in Hygraph. A URL slug is a user-friendly way to generate the category page URL. Slugs substitute system generated category IDs in the website page URL.

This URL slug must be unique and may only contain between 2 and 256

URL slug

alphanumeric characters, underscores, or hyphens. They can not include white spaces or special characters like ñ, ü, #, %.

Meta title

Again, the meta title is configured in Hygraph graph and does not need to be filled in in CT. A meta title is the clickable headline that appears in search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s also shown in browser tabs and when your page is shared on social media.

By toggling the checkbox, the category name will be used.

Meta title

Meta description

Again, the meta Description is configured in Hygraph graph and does not need to be filled in in CT. It is a short summary of a webpage’s content that appears below the meta title in SERPs and in social media previews.

Meta description

By toggling the checkbox, the category description will be used. Press ‘Save’ to create the category, or back to return to a previous step.

Meta description

Synchronization to Hygraph

Once the category is created the sync will create a category in HyGraph, however the category is at this point incomplete in HyGraph. The only information that is synced to HyGraph is the Tenant, URL Identifier and Title.

Synchronization to Hygraph

The URL Identifier is the key off the category, you can change the URL Identifier in HyGraph. The sync from CT to HyGraph will NOT update existing categories in HyGraph, the sync only creates a category. Further configurations of the category must be done in HyGraph.

Category order

The order of a category or subcategory is determined by the Category Order field on each category page. This is for instance used in the ‘Category list’ in HyGraph, where a number of categories are displayed, the order of which is taken from the Category order field.

There are two ways to change the order of a category or subcategory.

Drag & Drop

From the Category List page, by clicking the Reorder button

Drag & Drop

Click and hold a category and drag it to a position. Repeat until the desired order has been achieved and the press save.

Drag & Drop

The screenshot above is from the main overview page, drag and drop reordering is done the same way for subcategories.

Value

You may also manually configure the specific value of a category using the

Category order field

Changing the value of this field overwrites drag and drop positions and vice

Value

versa

Adding Products

All categories must be added individually to a product; they cannot be added from the category. Instead, you must navigate to the product and add the category there.

Adding Products

Adding Products

Alternatively, if you want to add a number of products to a category all at once. Navigate to the product list in CT, search for / filter, and select the products and using the action dropdown, select the ‘Bulk edit categories’ option.

There you have two options, as well as being able to add categories to the selected group of products. You may also remove them.

Adding Products

When the categories to be added or removed have been filled in, press the next button and a pop-up confirmation prompt will be displayed informing

Adding Products

you that this process cannot be stopped, press 'Start updates’

Adding Products

After doing so you will proceed to an Update summary page where the changes made will be displayed.

Adding Products