BigCommerce Product Listings

ChannNoRelevant Dynamics 365 Business Central Item Information

Let’s start by looking at a Business Central Item and related information and showing the relevant data that CSM can send to BigCommerce.

In Business Central on the item you have already defined/created, let’s pay attention to the values that CSM will look for. Note that all the information is not required for CSM to transmit product information to BigCommerce. CSM will send what it finds, and it can always be updated later.

Item No.
Type (Physical or digital)
SKU
Regular price
Weight
Primary category code
Catalogue visibility
Item Category
Tax Class ID
Width
Depth
Height
Cost price
GTIN
Inventory tracking flag
Extended Text (on the field ‘Description,’ type ‘Short description’)
Set Special Prices (standard functionality for sales prices)
Identifiers (CSM can use this to link a BigCommerce Product SKU that is different than the Item Number)

Note: the ability to assign and manage item pictures is not supported in CSM for BigCommerce. This functionality will be added in a subsequent product version.

In Business Central, the image is on the CSM Listing card, in the Listing Product Information section, on a line with "Information Type" = Image. The URL that CSM sends is built from the "API Image File Path" on the Listing Management tab of the Sales Channel Card plus the "CSM Name" field on the Listing Product Information line.

Go to the Channel Integration action then click Send Images to Channel. BigCommerce should return an External ID and fill some other fields with "External" in the name. On BigCommerce, the image should be assigned to the product.

CSM Listings

Now that we have reviewed the necessary item information in Business Central, we are ready to define CSM listings for the BigCommerce sales channel.

There are three ways in which you can create CSM listing records:

Listing Wizard: a step-by-step process that walks you through the creation of a CSM listing record for a single Business Central record.
From BC Items Import: allows you to create multiple CSM listing records for a group of Business Central records.
From the Item Card: you can create listings for one or more sales channels directly from the Item card.

Creating Listings with the Listing Wizard

Open the CSM sales channel record for which you want to create listings.
Choose the Listing ribbon, then choose the Wizard action.
On the first page of the wizard, enter the Item field to assign the Business Central item that will have a listing.
If the item exists in multiple variants or units of measure and you want to create separate listing records for each one, enter these values in the relevant fields.

Note: if you are creating a listing for a configurable item with multiple children records that were built with the item variations module and you want to create separate listings for these children, you must assign the parent item in the Item No. field of the wizard and leave the Variant Code field blank. This will instruct CSM to create multiple CSM listing records with the proper parent/child structure.

Choose the Next button
In the Sales Channel SKU field, enter a value that will identify the CSM listing as a unique record for the CSM sales channel. By default, CSM will assign a SKU in this field based on the values that were entered on the first page of the wizard, but you can modify this, if desired.
Choose the Next button
Choose the Finish button

A new listing record is created for the sales channel based on the values that were entered in the wizard.

Creating Listings with BC Items Import

Open the CSM sales channel record for which you want to create listings.
Choose the Related ribbon, then select the Listing menu and choose the Channel Listings action.
On the CSM Listings page, choose the Actions ribbon, select the Create Listing menu, and then choose the From BC Items action.
On the Create CSM Listing from BC Items page, fill in the following fields:
- Listing Unit of Measure: select the item unit of measure that will be assigned to newly created CSM listing records. You can instruct CSM to assign an item’s base unit of measure or sales unit of measure as the CSM listing’s unit of measure.
- SKU Number: select the method by which sales channel SKU values will be assigned to new CSM listing records. A sales channel SKU identifies the CSM listing as a unique record for the CSM sales channel. Sales channel SKUs can be assigned from an item’s number; a combination of an item’s number, variant, and unit of measure; item identifier; or barcode values.
If you only wish to create CSM listing records for a selected group of items, set the necessary filters on the Filter Item FastTab.
Choose the OK button

New listing records are created for the sales channel according to the criteria that you specified in the Create CSM Listing from BC Items page.

Creating Listings from the Item Card

It is possible to create CSM listings directly from the Item card in Business Central. You must have defined a default SKU method on every sales channel for which you want to create listings in this manner.

To create listings from the Item card:

Open the item record for which you want to create listings.
On the Auto Create CSM Listings FastTab, choose an available line
In the Sales Channel Code field, enter the sales channel that will have a listing.

The sales channel’s default SKU method is automatically assigned to the line. If the item has an existing value that corresponds to this SKU method, it will be automatically entered in the Channel Item SKU field.

If the line does not have a value in the Channel Item SKU field, you must enter one.
If you wish to create a listing for a specific item variant or unit of measure, adjust the values in the corresponding fields.
Repeat the above steps on subsequent lines if you want to create listings for the item on other sales channels.
When you are ready to create the listing for a given sales channel, change the value in the Auto Creation Status field to Ready.
Choose the Auto Create CSM Listings menu option in the FastTab ribbon, then choose the Create CSM Listings action.
Choose the Yes button on the message asking you if you want to proceed.

CSM will attempt to create a new listing record for the selected line(s). If this process is successful, the line(s) will be removed from the Auto Create CSM Listings FastTab. If the process fails, a message explaining the failure will be presented in the Error Text field. Common reasons for failure include the auto creation status not set to Ready or the item already having a listing for the relevant sales channel.

You can also configure CSM to automatically create listings for any auto creation lines as part of a scheduled automation routine. To do so, you must create and schedule the AUTOCREATELISTINGS automation process to occur as part of your CSM listing automation. When this automation routine is executed, CSM will attempt to create new listings for any auto creation lines with a Ready status.

CSM Listing Card

Once CSM listing records have been created, it is necessary to associate them to external platform records and perform other configuration activities:

Open the CSM sales channel record for which you want to configure listings
Choose the Related ribbon, then select the Listing menu and choose the Channel Listings action
On the CSM Listings page, open the record you want to configure

The General FastTab

Field	Description	Example Value
Sales Channel Code	The sales channel code this listing is for	BIGCOMMERCEB2C
Channel Item SKU	The SKU which BigCommerce uses to identify the product	79999
Type	The Business Central Sales Line Type that this listing links: Item: The listing links to a BC item. G/L Account: The Listing links to a D365 BC general ledger account Resource: The Listing links to a BC resource Charge (Item): The Listing links to a BC Item charge Note that the Wizard will only build Listings for Items, however, you could create a listing manually with a different item type. For example, if you would like your customers to be able to donate to a charity on your site, you could then record these donations to a “Due to Charity” G/L account on the Sales Order.	Item
No.	The No. representing the type. If the type is Item, this would be the item number	1936-S
Variant Code	This is valid for Type Item only. If you are using BC Variants for the item, you can specify which variant is to be listed in this field.
Unit of Measure	This is only valid for Type Item. This represents the Unit of Measure for the Item being listed. The wizard will default this to the Item base unit of measure, but you can select which item unit of measure is to be listed.	PCS
Channel Product Type	This controls the BigCommerce Product Type (Simple, Configurable, Grouped, Virtual, Bundle, Downloadable). Note that this documentation will only cover Simple Items. Configurable items are possible but requires a more advanced setup of attributes.	Simple

Listing FastTab

Channel Product Name	The product name representing the listing.	Berlin Guiest Chair, Yellow
CSM Channel Primary Category	The CSM channel category linked to this listing. If you need to change the categories that this item is part of, that would be done first in BigCommerce
Channel Attribute Set	Enter the attribute set you want to assign the CSM listing. BigCommerce does not utilize attribute sets, but it may still be beneficial to assign attribute sets to listings for grouping purposes.
MAP Price	If the product has a Minimum Advertised Price (MAP), it can be entered here. A MAP price is provided by a product’s manufacturer to a retailer, and represents the lowest possible price at which the retailer may advertise the product. Note: the BigCommerce storefront does not include support for MAP pricing, but BigCommerce can store this data via their APIs. If you add this to your BigCommerce storefront through customization, then CSM can be used to supply this information from Business Central.
Product Status	Select the product status that you want to assign to the CSM listing. This value will initially be assigned from the sales channel’s default product status, but it can be modified on a listing-by-listing basis. When the CSM listing is sent to an external BigCommerce channel, this setting will be used to determine the purchasability status of the product in BigCommerce. In this way, you can control the manner in which a product is made available for sale on your BigCommerce channel when it is sent from Business Central. Active: the product is available for purchase on your storefront. Preorder: the product is not currently available on your storefront, but you want to allow customers to place pre-orders. Disabled: the product is not available for purchase on your storefront. If you update a CSM listing’s product status in Business Central and re-send the listing’s data to BigCommerce, the status of the product in BigCommerce will be updated accordingly. In this way, you can move a product from preorder to active, or from active to disabled.	Active
Visibility	Select the visibility option that you want to send to BigCommerce along with the rest of the listing’s information. This setting determines whether the product is visible to visitors on the BigCommerce site.

The next FastTab is the Listing Product Information FastTab. This is a powerful piece of CSM functionality allowing you to add additional product information (descriptions, images, etc.) to the listing that can be sent to BigCommerce.

The CSM Listing Wizard brings product information record(s) for the listing based on the Sales Channel settings.

To see more details click Manage, then select View/Edit. The Product Information Card associated with the Listing is displayed.

CSM Listing Descriptions

It is possible to maintain the descriptive text that is displayed with a product on an eCommerce platform, then send this information to the external channel along with other listing information, from within Business Central. There are two descriptions that can be assigned to each listing:

Short descriptions represent a brief summary or tagline for the Short descriptions are defined on the Listing FastTab of the CSM Listing card.
Long descriptions represent the full marketing text that accompanies a product on an eCommerce Long descriptions are set up as unique product information records for a CSM listing.

It is possible to define default sources for both short and long descriptions for a given sales channel. When a new CSM listing for an item is created for the sales channel, its short and long descriptions are retrieved according to the channel’s defaults.

While short descriptions are always entered directly on the CSM Listing card, the manner in which a long description is created depends on its source type. For example, when a long description is based on extended text, CSM will copy an item’s extended text directly to the product information record as part of the CSM listing creation process. Conversely, when a long description is based on item marketing text, CSM does not copy any text to the product information record but rather establishes a link to the item’s marketing text information. In this way, any changes to the item’s marketing text do not need to be regenerated for the CSM listing.

Adding a Long HTML Description to the Listing

You must assign a long description to CSM listings before they can be sent to BigCommerce; attempting to send a CSM listing without a long description to BigCommerce will result in a failure. If a default long description has been defined for the BigCommerce sales channel, a long description line will be automatically created for new CSM listings. If a default has not been assigned, however, long descriptions must be manually created for CSM listings.

You can include HTML as part of long descriptions to influence the format of the text.

Open the CSM listing that will have a long description.
Choose the Add Description to Product Information action in the ribbon. A new CSM product information card opens.
In the Tags field, enter a value of Long Description.
On the Description FastTab enter a description for the item in the Description Raw HTML field. You can include HTML as part of long descriptions to influence the format of the text. The Description HTML Preview FastTab presents a preview of the text, including any HTML format adjustments.
Close the CSM product information card.

Adding Multiple CSM Categories to a CSM Listing

When a CSM listing is created, CSM uses the category mapping that has been defined for the BigCommerce channel to assign a primary channel category. In some scenarios, however, it may be desirable to associate multiple categories to a single listing. For example, if we created a listing for a pair of women’s pants, we might have separate categories for women’s clothing and pants, both of which would be applicable to the listing.

You can assign additional categories to a CSM listing:

From the CSM Listing, select the Add Additional Category to Product Information action
A CSM Product Information card will open. From there, enter the following fields:
1. Information Type is Category
2. Enter a Caption field for the product
3. Source Type is CSM Channel Category
4. Source Type 1 is the sales channel code
5. Source Type 2 is the channel category name (must already exist as a CSM Category in Business Central or an error will occur)

CSM Listing Attributes

When a CSM attribute set is assigned to a CSM listing, a separate line is added to the CSM listing’s CSM Listing Attribute List FastTab for each CSM attribute that has been assigned to the related attribute set. CSM will then attempt to assign listing-specific values to each attribute line based on the Business Central value to which the CSM item attribute is linked. For example, if we had a CSM item attribute that was linked to the Vendor Item No. field on the Item table and that CSM attribute was assigned to a listing, CSM would assign the vendor item number from the listing’s linked Business Central item to the attribute line.

Note: when working with configurable items, the manner in which attribute information is presented will differ depending on whether the listing is a parent or child item. Please see the documentation on configurable item attributes for more information.

CSM will automatically assign attributes to a CSM listing at the time of listing creation, but you can manually update a CSM listing’s assigned attributes by choosing the Actions ribbon, then selecting the Data menu and choosing the Synchronize Item Attributes action. CSM will review the CSM listing’s assigned attribute set and update the listing’s attribute lines based on any changes that have been made to the attribute set. For example, perhaps there is a new attribute by which you want to group your items. If you set up the proper CSM item attribute and then assign it to a listing’s attribute set, executing the synchronization action will automatically add the new attribute to the listing.

You can also execute this synchronization action from the CSM Listings list page, allowing you to update multiple listings at once. When this process is completed, CSM will present a message to the user specifying the number of listings that were successfully synchronized and the number of listings for which this process failed. You can review the CSM Listing Synchronization History table for more details into which listings were unsuccessfully updated.

Assigned attributes that represent static, non-configurable characteristics must have assigned values in the External Attribute Value and External Name fields if they are to be sent to BigCommerce; these fields should be reviewed and populated if they are blank.

When a CSM listing’s information is sent to BigCommerce as part of either a product creation or update process, its attributes can be included in this communication. These attributes and their values are assigned to the product on the BigCommerce platform as either custom fields or product variants. The attributes are unique to the BigCommerce product, and as part of the synchronization process CSM will retrieve the unique product’s attribute identification information and add it to the CSM Listing Attribute List FastTab.

CSM Listing Children

It is possible to create CSM listings for configurable items, which are items that you make available in multiple variations due to variable characteristics, such as color or size. CSM will create separate listings for the top-level parent item and each of the parent’s child items, with each child representing a different combination of variable attributes. The relationship between these records is maintained by CSM, and you can view any child listings that exist for a CSM listing on the CSM Listing Children List FastTab.

BigCommerce Product Listings

Now that basic CSM For BigCommerce setup is complete, we can concentrate on creating CSM Listings which can then be sent to BigCommerce for inclusion in its Products page.