Categories and the Category Tree

If you are selling products, you want to make it easy for users to find them. In addition to the great Search Features SCP offers, you can organize your products into categories and allow your users to browse them. The category tree provides a way to organize the entire product catalog. In addition, each category gets its own page on the site, which offers an opportunity to add content describing your products for your visitors.

Category Basics

It's easy to create a category. In the administrator, click into Site Content -> Categories, and click the plus icon to add a category:

The different fields for the category are organized like this:

As you add or edit a category and are going through each of its fields, take note of the following:

1. The Name field will be used by default as the category's name, both in the category tree, the category page for the category, and the subcategory listing under its parent (if it has a parent).

2. On the category page, the name can be overridden, however, using the "Page Title" field under the Content section of the category form.

3. Under the Content section, use the Description field to add any formatted content in the body of the category page. You can include references to reusable content blocks also in the description (see the docs on Reusable Content Blocks).

4. Under the Additional Display Fields section, you can set up a carousel of subcategories, and set various flags for the category page. See below for more info on the carousel.

5. Under the Navigation Fields section you can control whether a link to the category appears in the category tree, in the global header, or global footer. See below for more information.

Parent Categories, Subcategories, and the Category Tree

Parent Categories and the Category Tree

One of the main benefits of categories is the ability to automatically generate a category tree. This manifests as a menu of categories and subcategories that by default gets displayed for customers under the label "Browse" in the site's main header:

In the above example, the left-most categories such as Accessories, Christmas & Holiday Products, Art Supplies, and so on, are the "top-level" categories of the category tree. These are categories that do not have another category assigned as their parent category.

Under the Beauty category, there are three subcategories: Cosmetic Trays, Nail Polish, and Skincare. To be precise, these three are subcategories of Beauty because Beauty is assigned as their parent category.

Skincare itself has four more subcategories, that is, four categories that have it assigned as their parent category.

The category tree can go any number of levels deep.

To construct the category tree, you simply manipulate the following two fields as you create and edit categories in the administrator:

• Is On Category Tree: This flag must be set in order for the category to appear in the category tree. (The category's Is Active flag must also be set.) You can still use categories if they are not on the category tree. For example, you can create a link to the category from the main store header or footer instead (see below). As a another example, you may wish to have a category that only appears in its parent category's subcategory listing. Or again, you might wish to have a category that is not linked to from any other page, and is just used by people who know its direct URL.

• Parent Category: This field lets you tell the system where the category is located on the category tree. In the above example, the Beauty category has no parent category defined, making it a top-level category.

Here is an example of the Skincare category, which is located under Beauty in the category tree:

Note: in addition to the category tree menu in the site header, the category tree is used to help generate the Site Map. For more information see the Site Map Feature document.

Subcategory Listing

When you define the Parent Category for a category, it can appear on the parent's page in a list along with all the other subcategories of the parent. Here is an example of the subcategory listing for the Beauty category:

The subcategory listing can be turned on and off at the parent category level, with the Display Subcategory List flag:

In addition, you can choose to show or hide the heading (by default this is the word "Subcategories") using the Display Subcategory Heading flag.

Managing Parent Categories and Subcategories

In the administrator, you can pull up the list of the subcategories for a category using the "Subcategories" link under the parent's three-dots menu:

From the category grid page, you can easily adjust which parent category each category belongs to, using the "Parent Category" column:

You can also toggle the Is On Category Tree flag from the main grid screen by clicking the Display Columns icon and adding the "Is On Category Tree" field to the list of columns shown in the grid. For more details, please visit the Administrator Grid Screens document.

Adding Category Page Links To the Global Header and Footer

In addition to show categories in the category tree and in the parent category's subcategory listing, you can also easily add a link to a particular category page to the global header or footer. To do so, simply enable one or both of these two flags under the category:

For more information please visit the How To Add Links To the Header and Footer document.

Assigning Products to Categories

The primary purpose of categories ultimately, is to organize products, making it easier for customers to find them. Not all categories need to have products assigned to them directly. For example, top-level categories often only have subcategories under them. As you navigate down the category tree, you'll want to show your customers products, and there are two ways employees can assign a product to a category:

Setting the Product's "Primary" Category

Very generally, this is the preferred way to assign a product to a category. In many cases, your category structure may be simple enough that most products only belong in one category each, so this will be all you need to do. Even in cases where a product needs to be assigned to more than one category, it's useful to pick one of them as the product's "primary" category. The primary category is used in the breadcrumbing links, if the user arrives at the product page without going through a category page (eg, from an outside link).

To assign the category this way, use the product's "Category" field. This is done by editing the product record. The field is located under the Content section of the product's add or edit form:

Alternatively, starting with the category, you can view all the products that have the category assigned to them as their "primary" category, by clicking the "Products" link under the category's three-dots menu:

Finally, under the main Products grid screen (found under Site Content -> Products), you can quickly search for and edit the primary category for an existing product. By default the category field is shown as a column on this grid. It is editable by clicking the pencil icon that appears when you hover over it:

For more information on the tools on the grid screen, please visit the Administrator Grid Screen document.

Using a "Product Category" Record

If you need to associate the same product with more than one category, you can create any number of Product Category records for the product.

Starting with the product, you can add and delete Product Categories from this link under the product's three-dots menu:

Alternatively, starting with the category, you can look at and manipulate all the Product Categories for it by the same link under it's three-dots menu:

On the resulting screen, you will see the list of Product Categories. Note: each row in the table represents a single product being assigned to a single category:

To add new assignments, simply click the plus icon in the upper right. Select both the product and the category, and click Add New Record:

To remove a product from a category, simply click the three-dots menu next to the row you wish to remove, and select Delete...:

On the subsequent screen, click "Delete Permanently" to confirm you want to delete the record. Note: when you do this from the Product Categories screen, you are not deleting the product, nor the category. You are just unassigning them from each other.

Example: a Category of Featured Products

A common use case where Product Categories are used is having a category composed of "featured" products. The products might have their own "primary" category, but then you may want to select them to be featured in another, special category.

If you have this sort of featured products category, you can maintain the list of products in the category periodically, via the Product Categories link under the category:

On the resulting screen, use the plus icon to add new products to the category, and use the "Delete..." link under the three-dots menu of one of the rows, to remove that particular product from the category:

When adding a new Product Category (ie, assigning a product to the category), after clicking the plus icon, on the following screen select both the product and the category, and then click Add New Record.

When deleting a Product Category (ie, unassigning a product from the category), after clicking "Delete...", on the following screen confirm you want to delete the record by clicking "Delete Permanently".Carousel of Subcategories

Product Lists on Category Pages

When it comes to rendering the products on a category page, SCP leverages the internal search engine including its ability to show faceted search results:

For more information on this, please visit the Search Features document.

Categories vs. Content Pages

You may notice that content pages and categories are similar. They can be used almost interchangeably. The differences are:

• You can associate products with categories but not content pages. This is the main difference. Categories do almost everything content pages do, but they can also list products under them.

• Categories can appear under the main category tree link in the global header by default (under the Browse link). The full selection of categories appears in the category tree, including subcategories, and subcategories of other subcategories.

• Categories can appear as "facets" on the search results or category pages, to help users find products more easily. This does not pertain to content pages.

• The URL for a category page is under the "/category" subdirectory, whereas content pages are under the "/content" subdirectory. Although, using a redirect, any URL can be used to point to any specific content page or category page.