Product relations

There are two ways to create and manage relations between products in DynamicWeb 10 - depending on the use case:

• Relations are simple links between products under some header - e.g. Recommended products or Similar products
• Dynamic relations are links between products with added data - e.g. detailing what packaging has been used, or a list of ingredients with precise amounts defined

Both of these types of relations require you to first create categories - called relation groups for simple relations and dynamic relation groups for dynamic relations. You can then open the details view of any product and create relations manually - or as a part of a product integration, provided that you have the relationship defined on an external system.

Relations

The Relations-tool is used to create simple links from a product to other products, grouped under relation groups acting as a sort of category.

To create a relation:

1. Open a product in details view
2. Use the action menu to select Relations

You will see a list of existing relations grouped under the relation group, here Similar:

To add new products to a relation group, use the context menu and select Add products:

To add a new relation group click +New relation group and select one of the pre-created relation groups.

By default, relations are active for all languages, variants, countries and channels and are one way relations. To change that use the context menu for the list item:

Dynamic relations

Dynamic relations are more advanced links between a product and other products, where you want to qualify the link in some way. It is intended to be used for scenarios where you want to specify e.g. packaging or a list of ingredients for a product - for instance in relation to DPP compliance.

Note

As of now (release 10.15.4) Dynamic relations needs to be activated through the Feature Management tool. Please be aware that Dynamic relations can still be subject to change.

To create a dynamic relation:

1. Open a product details view
2. Use the action menu to select Add dynamic relation

You will see a form where you can define the relation:

You must:

1. If the product has variants select the relation kind:
   • Master
   • A specific variant
   • A specific variant option
2. If the product has units you can select which stock unit it applies to (e.g. for packaging)
3. Select the product you want to create a relation to
4. Define the relation by specifying:
   • The amount of the related product
   • The group this relation belongs to
   • Optionally a comment
5. If relevant, set valid from and valid to in order to make this relation time-sensitive.

Once a dynamic relation has been created, a dynamic relations tab will appear in the product details view. This tab shows all existing dynamic relation grouped under their dynamic relation group, e.g. ingredients.

Tip

The general idea behind dynamic relations is that you create special products to relate a product to, products which are not mean to be shown in frontend. For example, if you need to document the raw materials used for a product, you can create several products like:

• PVC plastic
• Steel
• Copper
• Lithium
• Cobalt

You give these products a weight - e.g. in micrograms (μg) - and then on each master product you create a relation specifying that this product contains e.g. 100 μg of lithium, 10 μg of cobalt, and so on.

In this manner it is possible to model many different kinds of relationships between products.