Name: Multi-Dimensional Product Variants - User Perspective
Uploaded: 2024-8-29
Duration: 321 s
Description: SAP Commerce Cloud offers an alternative way to create Multi-dimensional Product Variants. In this video, a user picks a base product, like a shirt, and then uses the Color Picker on the Storefront to choose Variant Products, like different sizes, colors, materials, and so on.

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Configuring Multidimensional Variant Products

<div id="content"><p tabindex="0">Variant products, as described in the previous lesson, provide an efficient way to model variations of a base product. However, their structure is very static; in the example we showed, the selection of a style (color) determines the available sizes, but not the other way around. This is due to the hierarchical nature of the underlying data model.</p><p tabindex="0">The variant product model is also difficult to update; adding a new variance (such as the material the product is made of) requires updating the type system, a task that requires not only the intervention of a developer, but also rebuilding and redeploying the system.</p><p tabindex="0">SAP Commerce Cloud offers an alternative way of creating product variants: Multidimensional Product Variants. Using this approach, every aspect of the variance configuration can be configured by a business user in Backoffice. A business user could, for example, add another variance criteria for a group of products simply by setting up a category structure, then judiciously assigning new or existing products to these categories.</p><p tabindex="0">Multidimensional Variant Products start with a base product, which is a regular product configured to have generic variant products, each of which represents a combination of different sizes, colors, materials, and so on.</p><p tabindex="0">As shown in the following diagram, there's only one variant product type here, the GenericVariantProduct. That means every variant product has the same type, and doesn’t have any properties to indicate its color, size, and so on. Instead, generic variant products are differentiated based on what variant value category they belong to. Each generic variant product represents a SKU.</p><p tabindex="0">Also shown in the diagram below, we have two subtypes of category: the variant category, which identifies the nature of the variance (size, color, and so on), and the variant value category, which identifies the specific variant value (red, blue, large, small, and so on).</p><img style="max-width:900px;max-height:none" class="image 1_1_landscape" title="Example on the left shows the relationship between Generic Variant Product, Variant Product, and Product, and the example on the right shows the relationship between Variant Value Category, Variant Category, and Category" alt="Example on the left shows the relationship between Generic Variant Product, Variant Product, and Product, and the example on the right shows the relationship between Variant Value Category, Variant Category, and Category" src="/service/media/C4H322B_2407_en-US_media/C4H322B_2407_en-US_images/U7L2Multidimensial1_image.png" tabindex="0"><p tabindex="0">How do all these work together? Let's have a look at a video that explains the inner workings of Multidimensional Variant Products.</p><div tabindex="0"><h3>Multi-dimensional Product Variants - User Perspective</h3></div><div class="formalblock"></div><div class="kalturaVideoLessonWrapper"><div aria-label="" class="kalturaVideoLessonContainer" data-testid="video" id="1_4thscc57"></div></div><img style="max-width:900px;max-height:none" class="image 1_1_landscape" title="Schematic overview of the color, size and material selection that goes into the configuration of a blue large cotton Oxford shirt (Based on the video, you just watched)." alt="Schematic overview of the color, size and material selection that goes into the configuration of a blue large cotton Oxford shirt (Based on the video, you just watched)." src="/service/media/C4H322B_2407_en-US_media/C4H322B_2407_en-US_images/U7L2Multidimensial2_image.png" tabindex="0"><p tabindex="0">Let’s now turn to the steps necessary to define the product and category structure needed to support Multidimensional Variant Products, using Backoffice.</p><div tabindex="0"><h3>Creating Multi-dimensional Product Variants in Backoffice</h3></div><div class="formalblock"></div><div class="kalturaVideoLessonWrapper"><div aria-label="" class="kalturaVideoLessonContainer" data-testid="video" id="1_wvu10xwp"></div></div></div>

Multidimensional Variant Products

Managing Products in the Backoffice Product Cockpit

<div><div><div><div>SAP Commerce Cloud offers an alternative way to create Multi-dimensional Product Variants. In this video, a user picks a base product, like a shirt, and then uses the Color Picker on the Storefront to choose Variant Products, like different sizes, colors, materials, and so on.  <br><br><br><br><br></div></div></div></div>

Multi-Dimensional Product Variants - User Perspective

Let's take a look at multidimensional product variants in complex relationships. Consider a customer visiting your store to purchase a nice Oxford button-down shirt. Robert wants a shirt that will look great with his favorite tie. Our product catalog then contains a product named, appropriately enough, Oxford Shirt. This product is under the shirts category. Placing a product under a category can help the customer stumble upon it while browsing the catalog hierarchy, or else benefit from a discount specific to that category. Unfortunately, our customer can't just purchase this product without providing some information. This is exactly what would happen were he to step into a men's clothing store and ask to purchase an Oxford shirt. The sales clerk would inquire about the desired size and color. In SAP Commerce Cloud, we're likely to have a number of variations of the Oxford Shirt product. For example, we might have a red cotton shirt available in sizes large and small. Then green shirts, then blue shirts. Here, all these variations are configured as the product's variant products. By the same token, the Oxford Shirt product becomes each variant product's base product. Each variant product is actually an instance of the type generic variant product. That's the major difference between basic variants and multidimensional variants. Here, all variants have the same type, named generic variant product. So now, the big question, how does Robert specify which of these six variant products he wants to purchase? The storefront will display a color picker on the product page. That's great. But, how did the storefront know to do that? The product manager will let the storefront know it should display a color picker by assigning the Oxford shirt to the color category. Now, color isn't a regular product category, but a variant category. When it sees it, the storefront knows it should offer a way to select a color. Okay, but how many colors? And, for that matter, which colors exactly? Well, the storefront will look to see what subcategories color has. In this case, it has three subcategories, red, blue, and green. Since these are of type variant value category, an item type that also extends category, the storefront knows it should invite the customer to select from the three available colors. Since the color variant category happens to be configured to show images, a color swatch is displayed for each color. Knowing the color is a good first step, but we also need to know the size. We'll need a selector for that too. How does the storefront know to show one? You guessed it, it looks at a second variant category parent of the Oxford shirt product. The size variant category is configured to not use pictures, so the storefront displays a drop-down menu. We'll need values for that drop-down, and it works the same as it did for color, the storefront looks at the variant value categories to know what to show in the drop-down. So when Robert selects the blue image for color and large for size, the storefront looks at the Oxford shirts list of variant products and selects the generic variant product whose parent categories include blue and large. That's the blue L cotton Oxford shirt. But it gets better. Imagine that our storefront now wants to add a choice of materials for the Oxford shirt, cotton or silk. The product manager would then create six new generic variant product instances, three colors and two sizes, but now in silk. Then we'll need a selector for material. It will be displayed after we add a new variant category parent to the Oxford shirt, named material. The drop-down will show two choices, cotton and silk. When Robert selects silk this This time, the storefront selects the generic variant product whose parent categories include blue, large and silk. That's the Blue L Silk Oxford shirt. Once the generic variant product has been identified, the storefront now has a product it can add to your shopping cart. However, when you search for products in the Composable Storefront, it shows you configured generic variant products. When you view these in a product details page, the variant selectors are already set to the values corresponding to one of the variant products. You are invited to change them if you want a different configuration before clicking the add to cart button. So let's review. The product manager was able to add a new variant selector on their own, without the help of a developer or having to recompile and redeploy the storefront. Because of this, multi-dimensional product variants are more flexible than basic product variants. However, the additional database lookups this approach requires makes it slightly more costly in terms of performance.

<div>In this video, Milly launches a new Toys product line. She configures Multi-Dimensional Product Variants on the site to support the toy products. Milly completes this task using the Backoffice Administration Cockpit. </div>

Creating Multi-Dimensional Product Variants in Backoffice

Milly was advised that the clothing company she works for wants to launch a new product line, Toys. She decides to configure Multi-dimensional Product Variants on the site to support these Toy products. She will complete this task using the Backoffice Administration Cockpit.  First, Milly logs into the Backoffice as the Backoffice Product Administrator.  That's one of the two roles she has on the system,  and it’s the one that gives her access to the Administration Cockpit.  In the Administration Cockpit, Milly navigates to the Categories page.  Let’s take a look at what Milly wants to do. Ultimately, she wants to create a base product named Fidget Toy, and two Variants, a Cube and a Disk.  The Fidget Toy will serve as the base product for the two Variants.  To allow the customer to select the variant they want, Milly will need the following category structure: a Variant Category, named Shape, and its two child categories. of type Variant Value Category, named Cube and Disk.  The Variant Category is assigned as the base Products Parent Category, and the two Variant Value Categories are assigned to their respective variant products. Milly will first create the category structure,  before creating the products and assigning their Supercategories.  Milly's first order of business is creating a Variant Category.  However, if she simply clicks the plus (+) button, Backoffice defaults to creating a regular Product Category.  Since that's not what she wants, she's going to need to get sneaky. She clicks the chevron to the right of the plus (+) button to show which item types can be created on this page. Since Variant Category is a subtype of Category, she'll expand that type,  and there it is. She clicks on Variant Category. The correct creation wizard shows up.  She'll create a Category called shape and place it in the Staged version of the Electronics Product Catalog.  Now that Milly has defined a Shape Variance, she needs to define the possible shapes the customer can select.  For that, she'll need Variant Value Category items that are Child Categories of the Variant Category she just created.  She expands the available Item Types and this time selects Variant Value Category.  She sets the Variant Value Category's Identifier to cube and makes it a Subcategory of the Shape Variant Category.  Variance values need to be ordered, so she'll give this value the Sequence number one (1).  Notice that she wasn't invited to set the Category's Name attribute, which is unfortunate, because it ends up being necessary. So she’s going to have to edit the item she just created to set that property.  To do that, she starts by refreshing the list of Categories.  Then edits the Cube Category she just created  and enters cube as its name.  Her next task is to create the second value for this variance, named Disc.  She launches the Variant Value Category Creation wizard once more. She creates the disc item, also a subcategory of the Shape Variant Category.  Since it's the second Variance Value, she assigns the Sequence number two (2).  When the wizard completes, she refreshes the list of Categories once more and edits disc. As she did before, she provides a value for the item’s Name Attribute, in this case disc.  Now that Milly has created the category structure to support her Multi-dimensional Product Variance, she will turn to the products themselves.  She navigates to the Product's page and creates a new product.  She gives this regular product the code fidget toy and assigns it to the Staged Electronics Product Catalog.  Switching to the Description tab, she identifies it as the Fidget Toy.  Then on the Categorization tab, she will assign it to the Shape Variant Category.  After closing the Creation Wizard by clicking Finish, one last Attribute needs to be set. Milly edits this new item by clicking on the confirmation message telling her the product was successfully created.  In this editing window, she navigates to the Variants tab, and selects Generic Variant Product as the Fidget Toy's Product Variance Type.  Milly will now create the two Variant Products. As they’re variants of Fidget Toy, they need to be of type GenericVariantProduct.  She finds that type under the Variant Product subtype, after she scrolls down to find it.  She will give this first product the code cube_fidget_toy and place it in the Staged Electronics Catalog version.  Then she'll link it to its base product Fidget Toy.  The Base Product property appears here because we're creating a Generic Variant Product. We give it a readable name, and in the Categorization tab, assign it to the correct Variant Value Category, Cube.  We repeat the process for the disc fidget toy,  but this time, assign it to the Disc Variant Value Category.  And that's it.  Once Milly adds pricing and stock information, approves the product and synchronizes it with the online catalog version, the customer will be able to pick the shape of Fidget Toy they'd like to purchase.