Understanding product information systems

Discover more about what a PIM is and why you and your WebShop would love one.

Purpose and scope

A product information management (PIM) system is a structured system that collects, manages, stores, and distributes product data. It enables you to manage your product data in one location and distribute it through multiple channels. Integrating a PIM with Experlogix Digital Commerce gives you all the benefits of a PIM, where you can collect, manage, and enrich your product data, with an Experlogix WebShop providing you with additional eCommerce-focused features that allow you to scale your sales more effectively while still maintaining a single source of truth for your product data.

Current support

Experlogix Digital Commerce has collaborated with Boyum IT Solutions to integrate their Product Information Management System, Perfion, ensuring seamless integration between the two systems. Consequently, we currently support the following:

Integration between Experlogix Digital Commerce and Perfion, with a complete product catalog import from Perfion. This means that all your product information is managed in Perfion. Perfion becomes the source of truth for your product information.
Your integrated ERP remains the source of truth for your pricing and stock information.

This article describes what a Product Information System (PIM) is, its benefits, and how to set up and use Perfion when it is integrated with Experlogix Digital Commerce.

Benefits

Key benefits of integrating a PIM with Experlogix Digital Commerce are:

Maintain and enrich a structured, single source of truth for your product data in a PIM while using different channels to distribute the product data.
Scale more easily using eCommerce-focused features found in Experlogix Digital Commerce to share your standardized product data with a broader customer base.
Reduce human errors and inconsistency in your product data.

Introducing terms and concepts used in this article

Term	Definition
Enterprise Resource System	(ERP), a collection of your critical business operating systems, such as product, stock levels, financial, customers, suppliers and so on that run on the same platform.
Product information system	(PIM), a structured system that collects, manages, stores, and distributes product data.

How it fits together

Consider the business case: you have a complex product catalog comprising products with descriptions, images, specifications, variations, and more, which you wish to sell through various distribution channels. You want to minimize duplication of work when managing your product data and increase its visibility to a broader customer base. You select a PIM to manage your product data, and want to add an e-commerce channel to your distribution channel.

Integrating your PIM with Experlogix Digital Commerce supports:

Using a product catalog imported from your PIM as the source of truth for all product data.
Managing and scheduling updates from your PIM to Experlogix Digital Commerce using Workflows.
Using your integrated ERP as the source of truth for all pricing and stock information.

Set up

Key points

Experlogix Digital Commerce has collaborated with Boyum IT Solutions to integrate their Product Information Management System, Perfion, ensuring seamless integration between the two systems. Consequently, details provided in the following sections focus on how to integrate and use Perfion.

Contact our support team if you wish to use a different Product Information Management system to determine if we can facilitate the integration.

Additional professional services will be required, at extra cost to you, to ensure that the fields are mapped to suit your business processes and requirements.

Follow the steps to set up the integration between Perfion and WebShop:

Install the Perfion app in the Management Interface.
Set up the eCommerce mapping in Perfion to match the Experlogix Digital Commerce data model.
Set up the connection between the two systems and verify its operation.
Schedule regular updates from your PIM to WebShop.

It is assumed that:

You are logged into the Management Interface.
You have admin access to Perfion.

Step 1: Install app

Step 1

Perfion is available as an app that you can install and activate from the App Store in the Management Interface. For more information, refer to Using our app store in the Management Interface to learn how to install this app. For information on configuring and managing this app, read How do I configure and manage Perfion?.

Set up the eCommerce mapping in Perfion to match the Experlogix Digital Commerce data model. By default, the following fields are mapped:

Step 2: Set up data mapping

Step 2

Set up the eCommerce mapping in Perfion to match the Experlogix Digital Commerce data model.

Additional professional services will be required to complete this step, at extra cost to you, to ensure that the fields are mapped to suit your business processes and requirements.

By default, the following fields are mapped:

Field in Perfion	Field in Experlogix Digital Commerce	When to use
@ecommerceproduct/ID/SKU	Product code/SKU	To uniquely identify a product.
Title (EN/other)	Name	To map product names for all supported languages.
Description (EN/other)	Description	To map product descriptions.
Title	Page Title	To use the Perfion information for use in search engine optimization (SEO).
Material/Keywords	Meta Keywords
Description	Meta Description
Image/PDF URL	Image/PDF	To assign the main images/files to each product.
Product options/variants	Product Type	To map product variants with dropdowns for attributes (color, size, and more).
Category	Category	To assign products to their categories.
Brand	Brand	To assign products to their brands.
eCommerce Status	Status	To determine product visibility in the WebShop catalog.
Barcode	Barcode	To provide product barcodes for scanning and/or search.
Featured	Featured	To highlight a product as a featured product.
Special	Special	To highlight a product as a special offer product.
Trade Only	Trade Only	To indicate that a product can only be purchased by a B2B customer.
Can Buy	Can Buy	To indicate that a product can or cannot be purchased. A 'Can’t Buy' product is visible in the WebShop Catalog, but it cannot be purchased.
Language-specific fields/IDs	Product Translations - EN, DE, FR, etc.	To import product names/descriptions for each required language.

Step 3: Verify connection and workflow between systems

Step 3

Use Workflows to create a new workflow that verifies connection details between the two systems, imports products, and maps them to the appropriate categories according to your business process. For more information on using Workflows, refer to Understanding Workflows in the Management Interface.
Test and verify that your workflow works as required.

Step 4: Schedule

Step 4

Schedule your workflow to run at a time and frequency that suits your business.