HomeEngagementContentDiscoveryOther Resources

Configuring and Merchandising Dynamic Categories

Suggest Edits

💡 Prerequisite Knowledge

We recommend that you read the following guide:

Dynamic Categories feature allows you to define the conditions for creating a category collection. In addition to this, you can also manage and merchandise these collections.

Configuring a New Dynamic Category

The following workflow walks you through the process of creating a new Dynamic Category.

1. Navigation

  1. Go to Search & Merchandising > Dynamic categories > Category management.
  2. Click the “+ New Category” button. This opens the New category wizard.

2. Adding Category Specifications

2.1 Naming the Category

Set the Dynamic Category's name using the Name input field.

2.2 Adding products to the Category

This section allows you to define your Dynamic Category set. To do this, you can either configure certain conditions or add products manually.

Configure conditions based on product attributes

  1. Click on “Configure conditions”.

  2. This opens up Configure conditions setup options.

  3. Now, choose one of these options for matching the products:
    Match ALL of the following: Products must match all conditions to be included in the Dynamic Category set. The conditions will be combined by the AND operator.
    Match ANY of the following: Products must match at least one condition to be included in the Dynamic Category set. The conditions will be combined by the OR operator.

  4. Click on “+ Add filter condition” to start adding the filter conditions. First, specify the category as illustrated below. You can search the Category with its name or ID.

  5. Click on “+ Add filter condition” and follow the same workflow each time you’d like to add more product attribute filters. For numeric attributes, additional operators described below can be used for targeted range control.

  • is equal to: The product attribute value must match the exact input value.
  • is greater than: The product attribute value must be greater than the input value.
  • is less than: The product attribute value must be less than the input value.
  • matches range: The product attribute value is more than the minimum value and less than the maximum value.
  1. Once you’re satisfied with the conditions, click on the "Apply conditions" button. This will fetch the matching products in the bottom viewing panel.

Add products manually

  1. Choose the “Add products manually” option under the Add products section.
  2. Now click “+ Add products”. This opens the Add products modal.
  3. You can add products either by

  • Copying and pasting up to 1024 PIDs. These can be separated by comma, space, or line.

  • Uploading a CSV file with valid PIDs.

  1. Click Add/Upload to add the products. The PIDs added will now appear under the panel.

2.3 Viewing Products in the Category

This section displays the products that match the conditions defined above or the products that were manually added.

3. Saving the New Dynamic Category

Click Save to save the Dynamic Category configurations. You can now see the unique Dynamic Category ID listed on the Dynamic Categories homepage. Copy and note this ID for passing in the API call.

Managing Existing Dynamic Category

The following actions are available to manage the category:

  • Editing
    You can edit the configurations of an existing Dynamic Category by clicking on the Edit Action button or clicking the Category name link in blue. Make changes and save them by following a similar workflow as previously described.
  • Deleting
    Use the Delete action button to delete the Dynamci Category. Please note that this will also remove the ranking rules associated with the category.

Merchandising Dynamic Categories

You can merchandise Dynamic Categories similar to how you merchandise ID-based Categories. Follow the steps given below to create a Dynamic Categories ranking rule:

  1. Go to Search & Merchandising > Dynamic categories > Ranking rules.

  2. Click on Add Rule.

  3. Enter the Dynamic Category ID. Please note that you can enter one ID at a time.

  4. Start applying merchandising operations to the product recall set. You can boost, bury, slot, or block the products.

You can also create attribute-based rules or sequentially lock the product set to build a curated collection. Please note that you can perform up to 1024 customizations at a time when creating merchandising rules (including PID operations and attribute rules).

❗️

Please note that Dynamic Categories do not support Add to Recall operation. Adding products to recall using the Left-side Product Search Panel is also not possible. The Left-side panel can only be used to search for products already in the recall.

  1. After making the customizations, view the changes in the Preview module.

  2. If you’re satisfied with the changes, click Save. The rule now appears on the Dynamic Categories Ranking Rules homepage.

📘

Global ranking rules impact

Global ranking rules will only affect the Dynamic Category ranking rules. There will be no impact on the Dynamic Category creation process. That is, there will be no impact on the recall since Global ranking rules only influence ranking rules.

FAQs

1. If a Dynamic Category is based on an attribute and this attribute is missing from the feed in the next feed update, what will be the impact on the products when the Dynamic Category is live?

Dynamic Category will show 0 products.

2. If a Dynamic Category is based on a list of PIDs and all PIDs are missing from the feed after the feed update, what will be the impact on the products when the Dynamic Category is live?

Dynamic Category will show 0 products.

3. How can I access analytics for Dynamic Categories?

You can access analytics for Dynamic Categories within the existing Category reports. The fundamental structure and data points in the reports will remain consistent with the feed-based categories. The reports can be accessed here:

  • Insights > Playbooks > Access Performance
  • Insights > Category analytics > Top categories

4. Are additional integration efforts required for implementing Dynamic Categories?

No additional implementation steps are required. As there are no changes to the request API specification or the returned data format, you can simply reuse your existing integration as is.

5. How can I fetch Dynamic Categories via the Bloomreach Search API?

To access the desired Dynamic Category, you are required to build your own page to perform a Search API call on a page visit. Then, initiate an API request to Bloomreach Search API, indicating request_type=search, search_type=category, and category_type=dynamic. You’ll also need to pass the generated Dynamic Category ID in the “q” parameter of the API call. Here’s a sample Dynamic Category request.

GET https://core.dxpapi.com/api/v1/core/?
account_id=<Bloomreach Provided Account ID>
&auth_key=jazzhands
&domain_key=example_com
&request_id=8830241055597
&_br_uid_2=uid=7797686432023:v=11.5:ts=1428617911187:hc=55
&ref_url=http://www.example.com/home
&url=http://www.example.com/index.html?q=cat000922
&request_type=search #Value must be search for Dynamic Category API
&rows=20
&start=0
&fl=pid,title,brand,price,sale_price,colors,sizes,thumb_image,price_range
&q=<Dynamic Category ID>
&search_type=category
&category_type=dynamic

🚧

Please note that “fq=cat_id:[Dynamic Category ID]” is not supported and will return a 400 request error.

Updated about 1 month ago