Table of Contents

Create and manage catalog items in Pimics

Catalog items are non-stock items that you manage in Pimics but do not maintain as permanent stock in your Item table in Business Central. They allow you to expand your product offerings without committing inventory resources.

Pimics allows catalog items (non-stock items) to be seamlessly included in your website or printed catalog offerings. Although catalog items are not managed as transactions in Business Central, Pimics treats them identically to regular items from a PIM data perspective. This means you have complete freedom to manage and present catalog items to your customers using the same data richness and processes as your stock items.

When to use catalog items

Example scenario: If a vendor offers 5,000 products but you only stock 1,000 of them, you can import the remaining 4,000 as catalog items in Business Central. You manage them with Pimics and include them in publications. When a customer orders a catalog item, a special Business Central customization can automatically convert that catalog item into a regular item in your Item table, ready for the sales order.

This lets you offer your customers the vendor's complete product range, driving sales without maintaining large inventory.

Catalog item pages in Pimics

Pimics provides optimized pages for managing catalog items as part of the Pimics user role.

The Catalog Items List

Similar to the stock items list, but featuring:

  • A product categories tree on the left for easy navigation through your product structure
  • Display of catalog-item-specific PIM data relevant to PIM users
  • Quick access to all necessary parameters for efficient product management

prod-catalog-item-1

The Catalog Item Card

The Catalog Item Card is optimized for PIM users and contains PIM-related functionality. Although similar to the ERP's standard catalog item card in layout, it focuses exclusively on information relevant from a PIM perspective. You can access Business Central's standard catalog item card by selecting Item -> Open Standard Item Card.

The Catalog Item Card provides the same PIM management capabilities as the regular Item Card:

  1. Basic item data: Entry number, description, GTIN/barcode information.
  2. Important PIM data: Certification status, default checklist, allocated publication channels, category information, default picture, translation availability.
  3. Product descriptions: Texts for the product in Rich Text format—short descriptions for online shops, long descriptions, marketing texts, inherited category descriptions, safety information, etc.
  4. Product features: Define all product features such as dimensions, color, weight, material, etc.
  5. Translations: Manage translations for different markets and languages.
  6. Digital assets: Organize product pictures and graphics.
  7. Control: Inheritance settings to determine whether the catalog item inherits descriptions, features, keywords, pictures, documents, and graphics from parent categories.

Catalog item lifecycle

1. Create catalog items

Catalog items can be created manually or imported in bulk through the Vendor Catalog import process.

To create a catalog item manually:

  1. Search for PIM Catalog Items and select the related link
  2. Click New
  3. Enter the basic item data (description, vendor information, etc.)
  4. Optionally select a template to pre-populate PIM data
  5. The new catalog item is created and ready for PIM data management

To create catalog items in bulk: Refer to Vendor Catalog import for importing multiple catalog items from vendor data sources.

For standard Business Central catalog item procedures, refer to Microsoft's documentation.

2. Manage PIM data on catalog items

All PIM data management processes for catalog items work identically to regular items. You can:

3. Assign catalog items to channels

To make a catalog item available for publication:

  1. Open the Catalog Item Card
  2. Select Assign to Channels from the actions menu
  3. On the channel list, select one or more channels where the item should be available
  4. Close the page—the Channel field on the item card now shows your selections

4. Certify catalog items

Before publishing, verify data quality:

  1. Open the Catalog Item Card
  2. Select Certify from the actions menu
  3. Pimics checks the item against your defined checklists
  4. View results in the Certification Log and Channels factboxes:
    • Certified — item is ready for publication
    • Process or Partially Certified — review factbox details and complete missing data

5. Synchronize publications

After data is complete and certified:

  1. Open the Catalog Item Card
  2. Select Reorganize Publications
  3. On the publication list, select one or more publications where the item should be updated immediately
  4. Close the page—the item is synchronized with selected publications

6. Convert catalog items to regular items

When a catalog item is in demand and must be sold, convert it to a regular item in your Item table.

Before conversion: The catalog item contains all PIM data—descriptions, features, keywords, pictures, documents, graphics, classes, and translations.

During conversion: All PIM data is automatically copied to the new regular item. The catalog item is archived for historical reference.

To convert a catalog item to a regular item:

  1. Open the Catalog Item Card you want to convert
  2. From the Item actions menu, select the conversion action (or follow Business Central's standard process as shown in Microsoft's documentation)
  3. The new regular item is created with:
    • All original catalog item PIM data (descriptions, features, keywords, pictures, documents, etc.)
    • Inherited category data (if configured)
    • Publication channel assignments
    • Classification and translation data
  4. The original catalog item is marked as archived
  5. The new regular item is ready for sales transactions

Manage translations for catalog items

Translations created in Pimics can be transferred to Business Central for use on invoices and documents.

To enable catalog item translation synchronization:

  1. Search for Catalog Setup
  2. In the General section, find the Exchange Item Translations field
  3. Set to Always
Note

Translations sync only from this point onward. Previously created translations will not retroactively sync.