Products and Categories Management
1. Overview
2. Product categories management
3. Front site categories menu
4. Products
5. Front site product layout settings
6. Featured products

1. Overview
The products and categories management functionality in NepBay lets the store administrators define product categories (multi level categories are supported) and enter products in them. It allows them also to specify multiple items for a product or for example set particular products as featured and display them on the home page of the website.

This paper strives to present the different pages and functionalities in the back office which help you to manage the product inventory.

The link to the products and categories management pages in the back office can be found in the left corner of the welcome page as well as in the main navigation menu.

2. Product categories management
In order to modify the product categories the store administrator needs to login to the back office as administrator and then go to the Products->Categories page. On this page, he will see the product categories as a tree making clear their hierarchy.

In order to select a category (from the currently available categories), you have to left click on it with the mouse. If you click with the right mouse button after that he will see a new context menu appearing having several options:

– Deactivate (if you click on it, the category will not be active anymore and it won't show up on the front site; it can be activated at any time in a similar way – by clicking Activate)
– Edit Products (by choosing this option, you will be redirected to a new page where you'll be able to edit the products currently listed in this category)
– Modify (this will redirect to a page providing the possibility to modify the selected category name and description)
– Delete (for deleting the selected category)

Near the category names in the categories tree, you could see red arrows which allow you (after a click on them) to change the positions of the categories in the categories structure. Keep in mind that the categories will appear on the front site, the categories menu, exactly in the same way as you see them in the tree. That means that if you would like to make some category appear on the first place and another one on second, you need to use this functionality. You could change the positions of two categories only if they are on the same hierarchy level in the categories structure (the red arrows show you the possible directions).

In order to change the hierarchy level of a category, you have to use the form located at the bottom of the page.

You could choose for example to make a main product category, a sub category of an existing category and vice versa. You'll be able to see the modified structure in the category tree as soon as you save the changes.

Adding a new category

The form for adding a new category is located at the bottom of the Products-> Categories page in the back office. When you add a new category you need to specify its name and if it's a “Main Category” or a sub category of an existing category (there are no limits for the number of levels in the product categories hierarchy).

3. Front site categories menu
NepBay strives to offer maximum flexibility and functionality for customizing the look and feel of the front site product categories menu. You could use the Products-> Settings and Products-> Menu Settings pages in order to modify the categories menu settings.

There are two main types of menus – standard and template based.
 

The standard menu is recommended when your site has a complex multi level product categories structure (since the template based menus don't support multi levels). You can specify the menu type from the Products-> Settings page:

In order to modify the settings for the standard menu, you need to go to the Products-> Menu settings and set the appropriate values.

The template for the template based menu can be changed from the Products-> Settings page (the field “Category Browser Template “).

For details for the template structure, please refer to the “NepBay, Store Templates Design Guide” file.
 

4. Products
In order to add new products or modify the existing ones, you need to login to the back office and then go to the Products-> Products page.

If you would like to add a new product to an existing category , please click on the category name and if you would like to modify an existing product you need to click on its name (the product /categories are shown grouped in a tree in order to make it easier for you to find the product you are looking for).

Adding a new product
In order to add a product to a selected category, you should either click on the category name on the Products->Products page or select the category on Products->Categories and then choose “Edit Products”.

The new product form has the following fields:
– Name (name of the product)
– Image (the image of the product)
– Short Description (the description displayed on the category browse page or in the middle results of a product search)
– Long Description (the description displayed on the product final page)
– Price (should be in the following formats: 12 or 12.5 or 12.56 , no $ or other currency symbols signs)
– Rank (integer number showing the product number, if the rank is higher the product will show up on a higher position when browsing the products of a selected category; if left blank, a default rank will be set)

Browsing the existing products and modifying them
If you select a category (in the same way as when adding a new product), you'll be able to browse/search the products in this category.

In order to modify a product, you need to click on the Modify icon (please look at the screen shot), to delete it – you have to check the check box “Delete” and then click on the delete button at the bottom of the page.
 

Managing the product items
There are multiple cases when you have one product but different items from it corresponding to different options and with different prices. Such example is a MP3 player with 256MB internal memory and the same player but with 512MB memory differing only by the size of the internal memory and having different prices. With NepBay, you have to add the basic product as all the other products and then add the different product items by clicking on the items icon in the products list table (showing the products in a select category).
 

When adding a new item for a selected product you need to specify for them:
– Name (the name of the product item, for example: 512MB internal memory)
– Short Description (short description of the item which will show on the product final page)
– Price (price of the product item)
 

The new product item form:

The different product items appear on the product final page in a drop down
menu:

5. Front site product layout settings
NepBay lets you define the templates which are used when rendering the product categories, the product final pages, the results when searching the cart layout, the front site template itself and others.

From the Products->Settings page you could modify the following layout settings:
– (Category Products) Columns in Line (the product shown per line on the category browse page or the product search results)
– Products per Page (the total number of product shown on the category browse page or the product search results)
– Category Browser Template (the template used for the template based categories menu if such menu is selected)
– Product Search Template (the template for searching products)
– Products Middle Result (the middle result template for product searches)
– Products Final Result (the product final page template)
– Categories Menu Type (the type of categories menu – standard or template based)
 

6. Featured Products
The featured products show up on the home page of the user front site (in the Special offers section) and/or on the pages where the STORE's featured products extension is set.

In order to set a product as featured, you need to go the Products->Featured Products page and click on the product name.

The featured products appear in red. You need to click on the product name colored in red (the featured product) in order to make it not featured (the not featured products appear with the default font).