OFBiz Catalog & Category Setup

Last Updated 20230808

Catalogs need to be setup first in order to configure GL Account Defaults - Product Category GL Account.

OFBiz Catalog Discussion

A Catalog is a group of products further sub-divided into categories. A Catalog is typically associated with a store. A web store might sell one group of products that are inventoried internally and more products that might be dropped shipped. While the retail store might only sell the products that are inventoried internally. I am aware of a business that sells thousands of magnets. They have 2 company names and 2 websites. Their backend is a common inventory management system. They would have 2 top level Catalogs in this instance one for each web store. If a person owned multiple businesses and wanted consolidated financials in a single OFBiz instance you would probably create a top level Catalog for each business unit with a 2 or 3 letter identifier in front of each catalog.

Some companies produce multiple product catalogs each year. If a user goes to there website it would be nice to have a drop down list of catalogs that match your paper catalog that was mailed to you.

SPRING_2023
SUMMER_2023
FALL_2023

Note: Product Category ID Field length is a maximum of 20 characters. Exceed it and you will get an error message as it tries to truncate it.

Ruffian is looking at a top level catalog for each of our business areas. The next level would be Navigation, Promotions, Search, etc. You don't have to use Best Selling or View Allow but it is nice to have a naming convention setup in advance. We would then have individual finished goods assocated with a category. We would have Wildland Chainsaw Bar Covers with the Wildland catalog and USAR Chainsaw Bar Covers with the USAR Catalog.

Ruffian Specialties is thinking about this configuration:

Product Catalog Category Type

Admin Allow (One) - Not sure how this works. Could have something to do with View Allow and Purchase Allow questions on the New Product Catalog screen.
Best Selling (One) - This is the Popular Categories section. This is also on the home page of your website.
Browse Root (One) - Required. This is the navigation of the website. Add sub-categories in the Rollup section.
Default Search (One) - Products in this category are used in search first.
Ebay Root (One) - Not sure how this works.

Most Popular (One) - Not sure how this works, but this is a place to start:
https://ofbiz.markmail.org/search/?q=PCCT_MOST_POPULAR+order%3Adate-backward#query:PCCT_MOST_POPULAR%20order%3Adate-backward+page:2+mid:be6zqsjajhzzp7jv+state:results

Other Search (Many) - Not sure how this works.
Promotions (One) - Should be required. This is the home page of your website. This is the Featured Products section.
Purchase Allow (One) - If active, only products in this category will be allowed for purchase.
Quick Add (Many) - Used to specify which products can be added in bulk to the cart .
View Allow (One) - If active only products in this category will be visable on the website.
What's New (One per catalog) - Need to try this out.

20230616 Stop here and redo this section based on the layout above.

Select Catalog

Select Catalogs

Click

New Prod Catalog

Type

RS_FGDS_ROOT

Catalog Name Type

RS_FGDS_ROOT

Select "N" Use Quick Add

Click

Update

Select Categories

Click

New Category

Type

RS_FGDS_NAV

Select Catalog

Type

RS_FGDS_NAV

Click

Update

Click

Catalogs

Select RS_FGDS_ROOT

Select Browse Root (One)

Click

Add

Select

New Category

Type RS_FGDS_BELTS

Select Catalog

Type

Belts - This is the text that will show up in the navigation tree on the left side of the ecommerce display.

Note: Some changes seem to require a shutdown and restart of OFBiz. Some you can go to Web Tools and clear the cache and that will do the same thing.

Click

Update

Select

Rollup - Not Highlighted, Sorry.

Then Select Child Category

RS_FGDS_BELTS

Select

Date

Click

Add

Jumping ahead here a bit because we have not added a product yet but I want to show what is showing up and what fields are creating that information.

Featured Products : Categories RS_FGDS_PRMO field name Product Category Name

Ruffian Spe... : Stores PS_RS_CA_MAIN field name Store Name

https://localhost:8443/ecomseo/ versus https://localhost:8443/ecommerce/control/main
Try them out. The backend does not need SEO but the front end will need some work with redirects and making sure indexers only see one product.

Breadcrumbs Belts : Categories RS_FGDS_BELTS field name Product Category Name

- Ruffian Specialties Designed Belts : Categories RS_FGDS_BELTS field name Product Category Description

Completed

Advanced Tip

Import data with the Web Tools as detailed in OFBiz Facility Setup .

Note: This section is really long but it was created via cut and paste and find and replace. I'm still learning so this could all change.

Top Level Catalogs / Industry Groups

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>

Product Store Associated with Top Level Catalogs

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>

Product Category Type Associated with Top Level Catalogs

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>

Product Catalog Category Type

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>

Product Category Type Associated with Catalogs

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>

Product Category Rollup Associated with Catalogs

<entity-engine-xml>

</entity-engine-xml>