Attributes and how they work

Reference > Attributes and how they work

Reference: Attributes and how they work

What is an attribute?

An attribute is typically a property of the product which people will be interested in searching for or filtering by. The main ones are things like colour, size, and material.

Attributes should not be confused with the features.

How are attributes used?

Attributes are used in three ways.

1.To control the set up of a product family, for example an item of clothing available in different colours and sizes.

2.To present filters on the left hand side of the websites allowing products to be filtered by site users.

3.They are automatically added to the features table on the website Product Details Page, enhancing the information about a product.

How are attributes contextualised?

In the eyes of a website user, attributes with the same name may not mean the same thing. For example, the size of a items of stationery (A3, A4, A5) will not be the same as the size of an item of clothing (Small, Medium, Large) or the size of a football boot (size 6, size 7, size 8...).

To make this manageable, and to prevent website customers being present presented with confusing lists, in ProDigi the attributes are contextualised. In short, this means that different attributes may appear to be just called "Size" on the website, but the available list of values (LOVs) will be different and are linked to the product's location in the hierarchy. For example, if a product is in the sports clothing section, a list of sizes to choose from may include Small, Medium and Large. In stationery, the LOV for size might be A3, A4, A5.The system does this by keeping a number of different size attributes, each with an LOV; Only the relevant ones are shown, which depends on the products location in the hierarchy.

In addition, to keep the experience clean on the website, attributes will only be offered when the product is below a certain position in the hierarchy. For example, the attribute of "ink colour" might only be available under stationery/pens, and it would not be shown under just the stationery menu, because it an "ink colour" filter makes no sense for paper products, staplers etc.

Attribute naming convention

All attributes follow the following convention when working with them in ProDigi.

{Level} - {Location} - {Name} : {List of values}

Examples:

L1 - Curricular - Key Stage : EYFS, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4

means that any products in Curricular can optionally be given these attributes. Level 1 means the whole category.

L2 - Sport / Clothing - Personalisation : Yes, No

means that any products in Sports / Clothing can optionally be given a personalisation attribute of Yes or No. Level 2 means the Sport / Clothing section. Website users in Sports / Clothing can choose the Personalisation filter and select Yes to find all sports clothing products which can be personalised.

How were the currently available list of attribute values arrived at?

Before ProDigi, attributes were free text, which led to a lot of problems. These including spelling mistakes, duplication, nonsensical context - such as "tray colour" options for clothing - and a proliferation of options that confused the customer and made for a poor web experience. Some filters could list over 250 values to choose from.

Following a comprehensive cleanse of our data, all attributes entered into the system were analysed. Spelling mistakes were fixed, duplicates and unused values were removed, and a deep diagnosis was performed to establish the contextualised options. To aid searchability and usability, attributes with more than 40 possible values were further broken down. The contextual attributes were created and linked to the products.

This "hides" the complexity for both customers and users of ProDigi. For example, there are almost 100 separate "Product Type" attributes, each with it's own list of values; there are also 40 attributes for "Brand" and 50 for "Size", and so on. But only one of these will be shown at any one time, in the correct context for the product.

Multi-select attributes

Some products naturally belong in more than one classification. For example, a product might be suitable for more than one key stage, or more than one special educational need.

To support this, some attributes are optionally set to be multi-select, meaning they can be more than one value. This means, for example that the key stage for a product can be set to Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, and Key Stage 3 all at once. When filtering, if any of these match what a customer is looking for then the product will be shown.

Setting a product to Key Stage 1, 2 and 3 in ProDigi.

How these are shown on site for the customer to filter.

Attributes used as variants in a product family

As well as being used to filter the products, attributes can be used to drive variance. Easiest example is clothing item with different colours and sizes.

When an attribute is used to create a product family, the system will look after each of the attributes for you. It is not necessary to select each colour and size for each variant, for example.

FAQ: Can't see the options you need?

In order to choose an attribute, it must be set up in advance to be available to you within ProDigi. This is controlled through the Data Team, in order to ensure that attributes are managed in a structured way to drive a better search experience on the website. When setting up a product, if you cannot see the attribute you require, please contact the Data Team. They will check that it does not conflict or duplicate an existing attribute, and if not, set this up for you. It will then become available immediately.

Note: avoid using a pack size / quantity as a variant or attribute. This is handled through price breaks.