Merging Categories with Drag-and-Drop 

Use

If two categories in the taxonomy tree represent essentially the same category of products, you can merge one category into the other. This may be necessary if data was imported from two sources that used different names for the same category, or you decide that you no longer want to make a distinction between the products in two categories.

Just as with moving categories, there is no explicit command to merge two categories in the taxonomy tree. Rather, the pop-up context menu that pops up when you drag-and-drop a category includes a Merge Into choice that allows you to merge the dragged category into the category onto which you drop – and in the process reassign main table category field values that were assigned to the dragged category.

The challenge of merging two categories is to detect the category field values that have been assigned to either category and to reassign them to the single merged category, which MDM does automatically as part of the merge.

You can also use the Cut and Paste as Merge commands to merge two categories in the taxonomy tree, as described in the section below.

Merging categories occurs at the record level rather than the field level, and does not merge the underlying values of the fields within the two category records. Specifically, it preserves the field values of the surviving category and discards those of the non-surviving category.

If necessary, you can first merge the underlying field values within the records prior to the merge by selecting each of the multiple records in the Records pane (in Record or Hierarchy mode) and reconciling the values in each of the fields.

For more information, see Viewing and Editing Multiple Records.

Procedure

To merge one category into another:

       1.      In the taxonomy tree, select the category you want to merge (the one that will disappear from the taxonomy tree).

       2.      Drag the selected category onto the destination category (the surviving category that will remain in the taxonomy tree).

       3.      Choose Merge Objects from the context menu that pops up when you perform the drop.

To bypass the pop-up context menu, hold both Shift and Ctrl while you perform the drag-and-drop.

MDM merges the two categories and all of the category lookup field values that were previously assigned to either one of them.

When you merge two categories in the taxonomy tree, MDM automatically detects all lookup field references to the non-surviving category across all records in the repository.

When you merge two categories in the taxonomy tree, MDM automatically detects differences between their respective sets of inherited and linked attributes, and if necessary, adds links to the surviving category so that its set of linked and inherited attributes includes all the linked and inherited attributes of the category that is merged into it.

 

Operation	Constraints
Merge Into	●      Must be in Hierarchy or Taxonomy mode ●      Tree must have focus ●      A node must already have been cut or copied ●      Destination node cannot be the root ●      Destination and source node cannot be the same ●      Destination and source node cannot have children ●      Destination and source node cannot be an alias ●      Destination and source node cannot have a matching set