Importing the Visual Category Merchandising Rules from Other Store

Overview

It is now possible to copy your merchandising rules from one Klevu store to another!

When working with multiple stores you might want to re-use the same merchandising rules for the same category in many stores. Now you can quickly export your merchandising rules from one store and import them into another, using the new Import and Export functionality of Klevu Visual Merchandiser.

When you export a merchandising file for any category, the file will consist of boosting rules, pinned products, and excluded products. This file will can then be saved and shared locally before importing it back.

Before You Start

If you plan to copy merchandising configurations from one store to another, you must ensure the following:

1. Source & Destination categories:
   • Source categories: The categories from which, you export the boosting rules will be referred to as source categories.
   • Destination categories: The categories in which, you wish to import will be referred to as destination categories.
2. Product attributes: For the export-import to be successful, the source and destination should have the same set of product attributes, and attribute values in the same language. This means that if you have multi-lingual store views, e.g. English and Finnish, then it is likely that your product attributes (& their values) are different for both your stores. If the product attributes are different then those rules will be ignored while importing.
3. Boosting rule status: Before exporting please double-check the Status (enabled or disabled) of each rule that you have correctly configured for your categories. This status will be preserved when the data is imported, i.e. disabled rules in the source will remain disabled in the destination.
4. Import settings: When you import Boosting Rules, you will have a choice whether to replace them with existing rules or to add them as new rules (append to the existing list). However, when you import Pinned products and Excluded products, any existing pins and excludes will be cleared before importing from the file. When importing rules into a store, no changes are applied until you click “Save and Publish”, so you will have plenty of opportunity to check that everything appears correctly before you commit to the import. You can discard your Import changes at any time.

Copying Default Rules from one store to other

Exporting Default Rules

1. Select the Store from which you want to Export the VM configurations.
2. Under Visual Merchandising →Default Rules, select the categories to export configurations. Then click on Three Dots > Export button to export the selected categories. You will be presented with a dialog box.
3. Click on Export button, the system will prompt you to download a file that you can save locally. Please note, the exported file will consist of boosting rules, pinned products, and excluded products for the selected categories.

Importing Default Rules

1. Select the store from Store Selector on top in which you want to import the VM configurations.
2. Under Visual Category Merchandising → Default Rules, click on the Manage Rules & Facet button to start a new merchandising session.
3. You will see a category selection popup. This has been introduced to lock the categories that you wish to merchandise. Select the destination categories into which you wish to import the configurations and click on Proceed.
4. Click on the Import button from the top left, and an Import Wizard will begin.  
5. Choose the locally saved file that you had exported earlier using the dialog. Once you have selected a file, you will be prompted, which configurations you wish to import.  
6. On proceeding, you will be asked to map source and destination categories.  
   • The source categories will be listed in the first column, and their respective configuration counts (boosting rules, pinned product, and excluded products) will be summarized in the center column.
   • In the last column, for each source category, you will be able to map the destination categories.
   • Destination category names that have an exact match with source category names will be auto-mapped. You can review and select the correct destination category.
   • The import function will be executed only for the destination categories that have been mapped to source categories. If a destination category remains empty, nothing will be imported into it.
7. Once you have mapped your source-destination categories, click on Next to proceed. If you chose to import boosting rules, you will be prompted to choose an import setting for boosting rules for each destination category. These options are:  
   
   • Replace Rules
     Selecting this option will clear any existing rules in your destination categories and replace them with them the mapped rules from source categories.
   • Add as New Rules
     If you select this option, the mapped source rules will be appended in addition to any existing rules in the destination category.
8. Once you have made your selections, click on Confirm & Import, which will start the import process as per your mapping and chosen settings. Once the import has been completed, you will be shown a summary of the import process (including the number of categories that were successfully imported & the number of categories that failed to import).
   
   Note that the import can fail for the following reasons:
   • Category locks were overridden: When another staff member (KMC user) overrides locks from you for merchandising (while you were going through the import wizard), the import will fail for those categories.
   • Attributes not found in the destination category: On import, if the source categories’ attribute does not exist in the destination category attribute, then the import for that entire category would fail.

Copying Scheduled Campaigns

• The process of exporting and importing merchandising configurations for scheduled campaigns is essentially the same as the default rules. Refer to the above (Default Rules process) for a step-by-step guide.
• Please keep in mind the following when using the import-export feature for Scheduled Campaigns
  • Only one scheduled campaign can be exported at a given time. If you wish to export multiple campaigns, you will need to export them one by one, and subsequently import them one after the other.
  • To import the configurations into a campaign, you can create a new campaign, lock the destination categories, and then execute the import, or if you already have a campaign setup, you can edit the same (acquire locks) and import merchandising configurations.
  • When you import any boosting rules into a campaign, they will always be imported as Scheduled Campaign Rules and any existing default rules that exist (for that campaign) will remain intact.
  • When you export merchandising configuration (default or campaign rules), the data exported in the file is of the same format. This means that you can import campaign merchandising configuration in default rules and vice-versa.

Check the FAQs of Import-Export feature on this article.