Product Catalog, File Guidelines, Data Elements, and Formats
Purpose and Usage
The Product Catalog file is used to give TIBCO Reward a complete and current record of your product catalog and product hierarchy.
TIBCO Reward can support up to five levels of product catalog categories in a hierarchical fashion. Here is one example of a product hierarchy with a product:
Women’s Apparel/Outerwear/Leather/Leather Jackets/Brown Leather Jacket Model 100.
When TIBCO Reward imports a Product Catalog file, you will receive an email warning you if there is an orphaned category. If there are orphans, you can submit a new product file to correct the problem.
You can use all TIBCO Reward features if there are orphaned products, but you might not obtain the desired behavior. For example, if you have set up an offer that awards 50 bonus points for all leather jackets, but a particular model of leather jacket is not correctly mapped to the right category, the purchase of the orphaned product will not qualify the shopper to receive the award.
Each time you upload the product file, a new set of products and categories is created. That is, the product file is considered a complete and comprehensive list of all current products every time it is imported. Even if products and categories were included in a previous Product Catalog import file, if they are not included in the current import file, then they will be effectively deleted and no longer available.