How do I create a Variation Group in Attribute Manager?

 

An item detail page contains information about a single SKU from your system.  But in some cases, the user has a better experience when they can see several variations of an item in one place. If you use Attribute Manager, you can achieve that using Variation Groups.

The Variation Group view is also available in SKU views, like Search Results and Categories.

Read on to see how to create the Variation Group in Attribute Manager and prepare it to be sent to the website.

First, open Attribute Manager and select a category

Variation Groups are category-based. That's how you can define which Attributes will be available to a Variation Group.

In this example, we'll use the "Safety Glasses" category.

Next, select the items you'd like to include in the Variation Group

TIP: Variation Groups should include only items that can essentially share a singular description and which have a particular difference. For example, safety glasses with lenses of different shades would be good candidates for a Variation Group. Safety glasses, hard hats, ear protection, and respirators might be items that go together, but they're not good candidates to combine in a single Variation Group. Including those items in a Variation Group would make for a bad user experience on your website.

If you sort the items so that items for a specific Variation Group are listed in order, you can click the first one in the list, hold down SHIFT on your keyboard, then click the last one in the list to select a range of items.

Here, we'll use the "SecureFit" line of safety glasses.

NOTE: the expected size of a Variation Group is no more than 12 items. It's possible to include more if the situation requires it, but a good user experience involves being able to visually scan the list on the website.

Now, right-click a selected item and choose "Add to Item Variation"

Choose an existing Variation Group from the drop-down menu or click "Add New Variation Group"

The name will auto-fill from the Description of the first item you've selected. Feel free to change it. Make the Variation Group Name and Description indicative of the items in the Variation Group, as it can appear on the website's SKU listings, in Search Results and Category listings.

Set the Default Sort option, and up to 4 Attributes to be shown on the SKU Detail Variation Group display. Be sure to set the Default Sort as one of your selected Attributes.

When you're done, click "Save".

TIP - Use attributes here that are marked as "Both" or "Specification" so that the data is available on the item listing online. "Filter" attributes don't display on the item listing directly, so the data won't make sense to your website users.

View "Edit Items & Properties" to verify your items

Note that the items we selected a few steps ago are now marked as "3M SecureFit..." in the "Family" column. This indicates that the items are in the "3M SecureFit..." Variation Group.

Now, to send this data to the website, simply go to the "Export Data" tab and click "Export Data to File"

Tips and Tricks

Editing a Variation Group

In Attribute Manager, select the "Variation Groups" tab to view all of the variation groups you've created in the category. Double-click one to edit the group. Note that this is not the way to change the items that are in the Variation Group. This is simply the way to edit the Group's "meta" information like Default Sort Order and the Primary Attributes.

Adding to or removing from a Variation Group

In "Edit Items & Properties", right click an item to add it to a Variation Group or remove it from its Variation Group.

Regarding items that exist in several categories

Items that exist in multiple categories are generally not good candidates to exist in a Variation Group in any category. The website will display item data from only a single category on the SKU Detail page (which is where you'll see these Variation Groups), and there's no way to guarantee which category's Variation Group will be displayed.

Special Characters in Variation Group Names

Adding special characters to Variation Group names can cause issues with group functionality.   Use only alphanumeric characters when naming Variation Groups.