Overview

Fundamentally, product variants are created from and are linked with one or more inventory variants. This bond between inventory variants and product variants happens during the process of product creation.

The goals is:

• Prevent duplicate product variants being listed to sales channels
• Enable composition of multiple data sources by taking the best data points from each to create the richest and most accurate representation of a product
• Allow for pricing and quantity strategies to consider all fulfillment options for a given product variant
• Allow for dynamic order routing rules when an order is placed for a listing variant that has multiple fulfillment options

The Product Builder achieves this by:

• Finding common inventory variants by comparing configured identifiers
• Combining all common inventory variants into single product variant by ranking source priorities
• Maintaining the linkage between the newly created product variant and the various inventory variants it was derived from

Steps to Create Products

1. Select Inventory
2. Create Products
3. Review Inventory Variant Statuses
4. Resolve Builder Issues

Instructions

Select Inventory

First step is identifying the inventory variants you would like to create into a product variant. This can be done individually or in bulk.

• Select the individual inventory variant and click Create Products on the inventory variant detail page
• Click each individual checkbox(es) beside the inventory variant(s)
• To select in bulk, you will usually search or filter by specific criteria, then select the top checkbox and click Select all 50+ Variants to select all the results when there are more than 50 to choose
• After your inventory variants have been selected click Create Products

Create Products

Instructions

When creating products through the Source Inventory level, they will go through the Product Builder and get a Mapping Template assigned. During this process, you can select if you want to auto create the listing on the Channel after it's been built into Product Catalog.

After clicking Create Products, a fly out will appear telling you how many variants were selected and will show two fields:

Create Products:

Product Builder and Mapping Template

1. The Product Builder is a set of configurable rules and settings to follow when creating product variants from inventory variants. See What is a mapping template?__

This fly out will give the option to create, edit, or select an existing builder or mapping template. To edit, click the pencil symbol (🖍).

1. Automatically, the Builder and Mapping Template fields will be populated with default builder and mapping templates. These defaults often don't need to be modified unless you have a specific requirement on how your product must be created.

You only need new ones (➕ symbol) when you have multiple strategies for creating products.

Auto Create Listings:

1. This is OPTIONAL
2. This will make it so that once these products are created within the Product Catalog, that they are then created into a Channel Listing based on the channel(s) you select.
3. You may also create Channel Listings later from the Product Catalog.

Product builders primarily consist of these configurable rules and settings:

• Match Rules (Select Linking Identifiers)
• Identifying Mismatches (Reduce False Positives)
• Rebuild Settings (Automate When To Rebuild)
• Rank Source Priorities (Put Your Best Data First)
• Creating Mapping Templates

Usually, when a builder finds a conflict between the variant being built and the rules and settings configured, it will prevent the variant from being built and flag it to review with a builder issue.

Other setting configurations include:

• Build a new variant or parent product
• Fail will deny the variant from being created
• Attach Variants to link the variant to an existing parent (if possible)
• Use Variant to use inventory variant data when parent data is not available to create the product variant

Auto Create Listings

Optional: Listings will be created for the selected channel(s) after all the selected products have finished being created.

• To note, each channel will be applied with the most recent Mapping Template used, unless it's the first time**—**in which case it will use the default Mapping Template.
• You can always edit this by selecting the Channel, and then clicking the pencil symbol (🖍) to edit the current one or the ➕ symbol to add a new template.

Recommended Practice  

When using "Link after Building Listings" feature for a channel, ensure all the product data is accurate coming from the supplier feed. This is to avoid incorrect product data syncing after a link is established. If you are sure all product data is correct, then you can always start this in small batches to test.

An example of all of this put together is:

You build Product X, and in the interface select it to be created for Channel A and Channel B.

For Channel A, you elect for Link After Building

• This is by default toggled on in the Channel settings, and uses the linking priority in step 2 of the channel.
• Can access this from the Create Product interface by hovering over the 🔗 icon next to the Channel. A pop-up will show, and you can click "Channel Settings".

But for Channel B, you do not want the link to run automatically, so you turn that off in the interface before hitting the create button.

Result: Product will be created on both Channel A and Channel B, but it will only link on Channel A. When you're ready to link on Channel B, you will need to go into the channel to run the link manually.

Review Inventory Variant Statuses

Inventory variant status is designed to make it simple to understand what status your variant(s) are currently in. Beyond that, it allows you to quickly manage your inventory and resolve builder issues.

Monitoring the Creation Progress 
After you have initiated creating products, you can begin monitoring progress by filtering inventory variants by creation status and calculating the total.

There are four statuses you need to know:

• Not Linked: Inventory variants that have not been selected to be created into product variants
• Building: Inventory variants that are currently being created into product variants
• Builder Issue: Inventory variants unable to be created into product variants because they did not meet the requirements of the Product Creator
• Linked: Inventory variants have been successfully created into a product variant or linked to an existing product variant.

Removing The Building Status

You can remove both parents and variants Products from the "Building“ status By following the steps as stated:

• Under source inventory, select the parent or variant product
• Click on Actions
• Click on Stop Building
• Click on Remove From Queue
• Confirm as YES

Resolve Builder Issues

Congratulations! You've created your product variants. Not so fast, did you check your Builder Issue filter? If you didn't, you may have valuable inventory blocked from becoming a product and listing on your sales channel(s).

Builder issues appear because at least one of the rules or settings configured in your Product Builder flagged the variant(s) to review due to conflicts with your Product Builder preferences. Now, manual intervention is required to remove this flag by confirming whether the issue is legitimate.

On the inventory variant detail page, find the section titled Builder Issues. There, you will see a detailed breakdown of "this variant's issues" showing the details of the variant in question, along with mismatched variant(s).

The objective is determining if you want to continue creating this variant into a product by selecting "Nope, Delete" or "Looks Good, Build Again."

• "Nope, Delete" will not ignore or resolve the issue, however, it will remove the flag showing there's an error. Builder issues will arise again if conditions and builders remain the same, and it is created again.
• "Looks Good, Build Again" is an acknowledgement of the potential builder issue and a nod of the approval that the issue isn't valid. In some cases, that confirmation might be an action that will be performed on the variant(s) in question.

If you find yourself in a situation where you would like to remove all builder issues in bulk, you can do this back on the Source Inventory tab under Variants view. This is the equivalent of clicking the "No, Delete" button on the inventory variant detail page for all selected inventory variants.