This article covers the following aspects:
1. Information about the product markets in the Online Catalog
2. Accessing the market management dashboard
3. Product market management
3a. Language settings
3b. Enabling products
1. Information about the product markets in the Online Catalog
What is a market?
A manufacturer can commercialize his products in several countries and territories. This is reflected in the Online Catalog by the so called 'Markets'. Therefore, the main reasons for having the 'market concept' are the following:
- A manufacturer can enable catalog items only to markets where the relevant products are really available (e.g. certain countries may not allow the marketing of certain products).
- Products (with regard to the binary data) are available in different markets, but with different descriptions or translations (e.g. catalog's name). A good example is that French products may not be sold in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, in spite of the 'common' language.
How are the markets defined and how is the market concept applied?
The markets have been created by KNX Association and have been named with country names according to the existence of National Group in a country. They are visible to ETS users who can then select those, whose products they want to see. Furthermore, the manufacturers can enable several (or the same) products to one or several markets.
Are the market settings globally defined for all manufacturers?
No, each market is individually configured per manufacturer and the settings of a manufacturer do not affect the same market of another manufacturer. That means, that if a manufacturer has defined 'English' and 'German' as available languages for market 'Greece', then this setting applies only for his products and not for other manufacturers.
2. Accessing the market management dashboard
In order a manufacturer to manage his products in the markets, he has to click on the 'Manage markets' panel in order the market management dashboard to open.
By opening the 'Manage markets' dashboard, the manufacturer has to select the market that wants to manage.
As soon as a market is selected, the market's configuration page opens.
Every market can be set to have one or several languages enabled, by means of which the products that are enabled in it can be distributed in the respective languages to ETS users. In order to enable or disable a language the manufacturer has to check (or uncheck) the checkbox of the desired language. Therefore, the languages to be enabled in the selected products need to have available translations so that the online catalog can show them in ETS.
At least one language has to be enabled in order the products of a market to be shown in ETS.
The next step for the market management is to enable the products that are going to be shown in ETS. This is done from the 'Catalog' section within the 'Manage markets' dashboard.
At this step, all the product that have ever been uploaded to the Online Catalog server can be found here. To see all the available products, the manufacturer may 'Expand' or 'Collapse' (1) the entire catalog by clicking the corresponding links in the upper right corner.
In order a product to be enabled in a market, the corresponding checkbox has to be checked and the 'Save' button to be pressed subsequently. In order to make the management of the products easier, there are two options 'Check All' and 'Uncheck All' (2), by means of which the manufacturer can either enable or disable all the products in this concrete market.
Another very useful function of the Online Catalog is that the configuration that has been realized for a market can be easily copied to other market(s) as well. So, a manufacturer can make the configuration once and then select the target markets from the dropdown menu below the catalog and press the ‘Save’ button.
In order to select multiple markets, the manufacturer can press and hold the 'CTRL' button and select with his mouse the other market(s).