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Catalogs (form) (Retail)

Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2

Click Retail > Common > Catalogs > Catalogs. In the Catalogs list, on the Action Pane, in the New group, click Catalog to create a new catalog, or select a catalog in the list, and then, on the Action Pane, in the Maintain group, click Edit.

Use this form to add, modify, or remove catalog information. Retail product catalogs let you identify the products that you want to offer in your online stores. Publish the catalog to make the products available in the online store.

Task that uses this form

Key tasks: Create retail product catalogs

The following tables provide descriptions for the controls in this form.

Tab (Action Pane)

Tab

Description

Catalogs

Create and enhance retail product catalogs. Then validate and publish them to the online store.

Tabs (lower pane)

Tab

Description

General

Enter descriptive information about the catalog, such as the name, description, and effective date range.

Retail channels

Add the online stores that the catalog applies to.

Note

The online stores that you add to the catalog must be published before you can publish the catalog.

Products

View, add, remove, and maintain the products that are included in the catalog.

Buttons (Action Pane)

Button

Description

Copy

Create a copy of an existing catalog.

Delete

Delete the catalog. If a catalog has been submitted for review, approved, or published, or if it has expired, it cannot be deleted.

Catalog

Create a new retail product catalog.

Validate catalog

Validate the catalog to ensure that all of the required data is included and is valid. You must validate the catalog after you have entered all the required data and prior to publishing. The validation process identifies warnings or errors in the catalog.

Publish

Publish the catalog to the selected online stores to make the products available in the online stores. You can publish the entire catalog or only products that have changed since the last publish date.

Note

A catalog must be approved before you can publish it.

Activate

Activate the catalog to make it available for processing.

Inactivate

Inactivate the catalog. Catalogs that are inactivated are not available for processing.

Retract

Manually retract a published catalog from the online store. This action sets the catalog to a status of Expired and removes the product listings for the catalog from the online stores.

Add products

Add products to the catalog. If a product is added, and it is already assigned to a category in the catalog, the product is automatically added under that category. If the product is not assigned to a product category, then the product is added to the Uncategorized category in the catalog and must be manually assigned to the appropriate category.

Remove products

Remove selected products from the catalog.

Edit in Excel

Edit catalog product data in Microsoft Excel. You must use the Microsoft Dynamics AX Add-in for Excel. For more information about how to set up and use the Microsoft Dynamics AX Add-in for Excel, see About importing data from Microsoft Excel.

Translate

Open the Text translation form, where you can enter the catalog description and friendly name in additional languages.

Buttons (lower pane)

Button

Description

Categorize products

If products have been added but not assigned to a category, assign the products to a category in the catalog.

Add

Open the Add products form, where you can add products to selected categories. The products in the Add products form are filtered by the online stores that are added to the catalog.

Note

You must add online channels to the catalog before you can add products to the catalog.

Remove

Remove a selected product from the catalog categories. Products that are removed after a catalog has been published are marked as deleted items and removed from the online store listings the next time that the catalog is published.

Related products

Open the Related products form, where you can view the list of products that are associated with the product. By default, all related products are included in the catalog for the main product. Clear the Include check box to prevent the related product from being included in the catalog.

Note

This button is available only if you select a product on the Products FastTab and the Related products check box is selected.

Attributes

Open the Product attribute values form, where you can enter values for the product attributes that are included in the catalog.

Listings

Open the Listings form, where you can view listing information for the online stores that are assigned to the catalog. The listings are generated when the catalog is published.

For more information about the fields in this form, see Listings (form).

Fields

Field

Description

Category hierarchy

The Retail channel navigation hierarchy that is defined for the online channel that is assigned to the catalog. Products that are added to the catalog map to the navigation hierarchy that is published to the online store.

Owner

The name of the catalog manager who is responsible for maintaining the catalog.

Status

The status of the catalog. The following values are included:

  • Draft – The catalog can be edited. If you edit a published catalog, the catalog status is set back to a draft status.

  • Submitted for approval – The catalog has been validated and submitted for review, but is not yet approved.

  • Approved – The catalog has been reviewed and approved. The catalog is eligible for publishing.

  • Rejected – The catalog has been submitted for review and has been rejected.

  • Published – The catalog has been published. Product listings have been generated and created in the online store.

  • Expired – The catalog expiration date has been reached, the catalog is expired, and all product listings for the catalog are inactivated.

  • Inactive – The catalog is inactive and not available for processing.

  • Deleted – The catalog is deleted.

  • Retracted – A published catalog has been retracted. The product listings are removed from the online store.

  • Validated – The catalog has been validated by the system to ensure that all required attribute values are valid.

  • Validating – The catalog validation process has been initiated, but the validation process is not yet completed.

Effective date

The start date of the catalog. If a catalog is published by using a batch job, the product listings for the catalog are made available to the online store on this start date.

Expiration date

The end date of the catalog. Any product listings that are created for the online store for this catalog are automatically removed on this end date.

Last published date

The date that the publishing process was last completed for the catalog.

Operating unit number

The legal entity that the online store is assigned to.

Channel name

The name of the online store.

Channel type

The type of retail channel. Retail supports three channel types: brick and mortar stores, online stores, and online marketplaces. Retail product catalogs can be published to online stores only.

Channel status

The publishing status for the online store. The online store must have a status of Published before you can publish a catalog to it.

Publishing an online channel creates the metadata for the online store. Publishing the catalog creates the product listings for the online store and makes the products available to online shoppers.

Category

The channel navigation category that the product is assigned to.

Related products

A selected checkbox indicates that the product in the list has additional products related to it.

See also

About retail product catalogs

Catalogs (list page) (Retail)

Set up an online store

Announcements: To see known issues and recent fixes, use Issue search in Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS).