Salesforce B2C Commerce 24.7 > Administering Your Organization > Import and Export > Importing Data into and Exporting Data from the Instance Database

Managing Attributes Via a Backend System

If you use a backend catalog management system to define attribute data or new product attributes, you can use catalog import to import new product attribute definitions into Salesforce B2C Commerce and to make sure that attributes managed via the backend system can't be edited in Business Manager.

Useful Elements for Managing Attributes

In the catalog.xsd, the product-attribute-definitions element uses the complexType.AttributeDefinitions type, which contains two useful elements:

  • externally-managed-flag - used to indicate that the custom attribute values are externally managed and can't be edited in Business Manager.
  • externally-defined-flag - indicates whether the custom attribute definition is managed in an external system and then imported in our system. This element is intended for merchants that use Catalog Management Systems, where they manage their catalog data along with product meta data. Attribute definitions that are imported along with catalog information are implicitly marked as externally-defined. There is no way to set the externally-defined-flag in Business Manager.
Note: Although most metadata attributes can be set when creating a product attribute definition, the following attributes can only be set via Business Manager:
  • order-required-flag
  • searchable

Delete and Create Custom Product Attribute Definitions in a Single Feed

You can delete obsolete attribute definitions and create attribute definitions in a single feed using the product-attribute-definitions element.

  1. In UX Studio, in the pipeline that you use to import your catalog, locate the ImportCatalog pipelet.
  2. In the ImportConfiguration parameter, enter {importAttributeDefinitions:true}.
    Note: If this option isn't set, the product-attribute-definition element is ignored by import and an error is generated in the import log.
  3. From your backend system, generate a feed based on the catalog.xsd that has the following:
    • a product-attribute-definitions element for each new attribute definition you want to create.
    • if you want to remove a product attribute definition that is externally defined, make sure that it isn't included in the feed. Whether you are importing with the UPDATE, MERGE, or REPLACE mode, the replace semantic is always used for product-attribute-definitions element, so any attribute definitions that are flagged externally defined in the database and not defined in the import file are removed from the database.
  4. Import the feed via a job.
    Note: Importing the feed manually in Business Manager causes the product-attribute-definitions element to be ignored.

Changing Product Object Custom Attribute Definitions

Because custom product attribute definitions are created in the catalog import can't be searchable or order-required, to prevent unintended changes to the storefront, you must change these attribute settings after catalog import.

Note: Carefully consider whether the new attributes can affect your cart, checkout procedure, or order information.

Infocenter Retirement: On June 30, 2023, the Infocenter was retired, and documentation currently hosted on the Infocenter will be published to Salesforce Help, Commerce Cloud Developer Center, and Salesforce B2C Commerce Developer Documentation Resources. For more information, see the release note.