Product Catalog

Definition

A grouping together of products from your product master data, in a structured hierarchy.

 

Use

You use product catalogs to group together products to present them in the Web shop, Interaction Center, or in other forms of media, for example printed format or CD-ROM.

You can create various catalogs for your products in the product master and use them according to a validity date. For example, you could use certain products for the summer season, and other products for the winter season.

You can also tailor your product catalog to meet other needs by creating catalog variants. For example, you can create a catalog in English with the prices displayed in US Dollars. Or a catalog in German with the prices displayed in Euros.

 

Structure

You structure and organize your product catalog using catalog areas and subareas, which you then arrange in a hierarchy. You assign products to these areas and subareas. You can edit the catalog hierarchy by moving the areas and subareas up and down within the structure, deleting them, and copying them. An example of a product catalog hierarchy can be seen in the figure below.

 

Catalog Types

When you create a catalog in SAP CRM you must determine the catalog type in the catalog header. You choose from the following catalog types, which determine how you assign products to catalog areas:

●      Manual assignment

●      Automatic assignment

●      Manual and automatic assignment

In addition to the product assignment method, the catalog type determines the following:

●      Text determination procedures for catalog areas and product items

●      Document types for product items

●      Document types for catalog areas

●      Permitted product types

●      Indexing of product category data

You define this additional data for each of the three catalog types in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing Master Data -> Product Catalog -> Define Catalog Types.

Catalog Variants

Each catalog must have at least one variant. Defining catalog variants enables you to generate catalogs in several languages, currencies, or distribution chains on the basis of the same set of data.

Catalog Areas

You use areas to structure your catalog. You arrange the areas hierarchically in the catalog and assign products to them manually or automatically, depending on the catalog type. Each catalog area can contain further subareas.

In a Web shop for pumps the different catalog areas could be petrol pumps, bicycle pumps, car pumps, and so on.

You can also create areas without items, for structuring purposes. For example, you create the catalog area Computers, and assign two subareas Laptops and PCs. You only assign items to the subareas and not to the main area, as the main area is simply a way of guiding the customer to the correct part of the catalog.

Catalog Views

You use catalog views to create customer-specific views of a catalog for particular business partners or target groups. For example, you block the view of certain products in the catalog to certain customers. The views contain particular areas and items from a main catalog and are visible only to assigned recipients.

You have categorized your customer base into gold, silver, and bronze customers, and created a catalog containing sports shoes and t-shirts, for use in your Web shop. Your gold customers have shown loyalty to the company and you, therefore, want to offer them good discounts on the catalog items. You create two views of the catalog; view A for your gold customers containing special discounts on items, and view B for your silver and bronze customers containing standard prices. You assign your customers to the different views of the catalog. When your gold customers log on to the Web shop, the system displays view A. When a silver or bronze customer logs on view B is displayed.

Integration

The product catalog is integrated with the following components:

 

Component	Function	Mandatory / Optional
Product master	Creating and managing product catalog	Mandatory
Internet Pricing and Configurator (IPC)	Pricing and configuring product catalog contents	Mandatory
Index server (e.g. TREX)	Indexing product catalog data to the TREX server for publication of the catalog in a Web shop	Optional

Mandatory components are required in order to be able to implement the product catalog. You can implement optional components as necessary.

 

Specifics for CRM E-Commerce and Channel Management

In addition to the above components, you need to have installed CRM E-Commerce and set up the Web Crawler Enablement Application on the SAP Web AS Java 7.00 server engine.

In addition to the above functions, you can also enable the use of collaborative views in the Channel Management and CRM E-Commerce Web shops. For more information, see Collaborative Views.