Creating a Base Catalog

Article
11/12/2009

After you or your site developer creates the catalog definition (property definitions, product definitions, and category definitions), you use the catalog definition to create a new catalog.

You can create two types of catalogs: a base catalog or a virtual catalog. For instructions about creating a virtual catalog, see Creating a Virtual Catalog.

When you create a catalog, you specify:

The currency that will be used to price products (for example, you specify the abbreviation EUR for euro).
The unique ID that will be used to identify products in the catalog (for example, name of the product).
The unique ID that will be used to identify product variants (for example, stock-keeping unit).
The languages that the catalog supports (for example, English, Spanish, French, and Japanese).

The values for these properties depend on your catalog definition. For example, in the catalog definition, you could specify that unique ID is going to be the stock-keeping unit (SKU) number of the product.

Notes

If you do not specify a default language for a catalog, Commerce Server uses the same language as the Microsoft Windows operating system on your Business Desk Web server.
The number of Commerce Server catalogs in your database affects how long it takes to create a new catalog. For example, it may take a couple seconds to create your first empty catalog. If you already have more than 300 catalogs in your databases, each with 5,000 products, it may take 10 minutes to create an additional catalog.

To create a base catalog

This procedure assumes either you have or your site developer has already created your catalog definition. If you have not yet done so, see Creating a Catalog Definition.
In Catalogs, click Catalog Editor.
In the Catalogs screen, click on the toolbar, and then select New Base Catalog from the drop-down list.

In the Catalog Properties - New Base Catalog screen, in the Catalog Properties section, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Name	Type a unique internal name for the new catalog. This internal name cannot match the name of any existing catalog in the Commerce Server catalog database. This internal name is used in catalog reports. It can be up to 85 characters long. You cannot change this name after creating the catalog, but you can edit the catalog name that is displayed on your site; see step 4.
Start date	Type the start date for the catalog. This date does not have any effect on your Web site. However, if you exchange catalogs with a trading partner, this date lets your trading partner know the first date the catalog is valid.
End date	Type the end date for the catalog. Your trading partners use this date to determine the last date the catalog is valid. By default this will be the current date plus three months. For example, if you create your catalog in December, the catalog end date will be in March.
Currency	Select a currency for the catalog from the drop-down list. The default is USD.
Unit of weight measure	Displays the unit of weight for the products in this catalog. Your system administrator specifies this value during Commerce Server configuration. Note For information about how to add a new unit of weight measure, see Adding Custom Catalog Attributes and Property Attributes.
Product unique ID	Select a unique identifier from the drop-down list. If your products do not have variants, this could be SKU number. If your products have variants, this could be Name or Title, and the Product variant unique ID would be SKU. You cannot change this value after creating the catalog. For information about assigning unique IDs, see Best Practices for Catalogs.
Product variant unique ID	Select a unique identifier from the drop-down list for the product variants. For example, this could be SKU or another unique identifier. If your products do not have variants, select the same property here as you selected for the Product unique ID. You cannot change this value after creating the catalog. For information about assigning unique IDs, see Best Practices for Catalogs.

In the Catalog Languages section, do the following:

Use this	To do this
Add	Select the languages that the catalog will support. You can add five languages at a time. You must save the catalog, and then you can add five more languages. There is no limit to the number of languages you can add to a catalog.
Default Language	Select from the drop-down list the default language for your catalog. If you do not specify a default language, Commerce Server uses the same language as the Microsoft Windows operating system on your Business Desk Web server.
Reporting Language	Select from the drop-down list the language that is to be used for the properties that are to be stored in the Data Warehouse. This is the language that will be used for reports and analysis.

To enter the display name for the catalog, in the Language box, select a language, and then click Edit.
In the Display name box, type the name for the catalog in the selected language. This is the catalog name that will appear on your Web site.
In the Dependent Catalogs section, Business Desk lists the virtual catalogs associated with this base catalog. For information about including a base catalog in a virtual catalog, see Including Base Catalogs in a Virtual Catalog.
In the Security section, click Permissions, and then specify the Windows accounts for users who have been granted security permissions to update this catalog. For more information about granting security permissions, see About Business Desk Security.
To save the catalog and return to the Catalogs screen, click on the toolbar.
To add products and categories to your catalog, see Adding a Category to a Catalog and Adding a Product to a Catalog.

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Creating a Base Catalog

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