The Department Create/Edit process is handled via a two step process. The first step is the Foundation information where information about the Department is stored. The second step, accessible by clicking Next from the Foundation page, provides a mechanism to populate the Department with products.
The data is divided into two categories, the Global Profile and the Language Data. The Global Profile is information that is used in all language variants of your catalog. The Language Data is specific to the language that the customer is using to shop your site.
The data for a department is:
Global Profile
Language Data
Because of the flexibility of CommerceCM, this can be quite different for each merchant. Your site might have multiple templates and might include up to four additional fields to give your site some unique capabilities. The example below has five unique Department templates and uses two additional data fields that allow the merchant to have unique content in the desktop menu and the ability to display Site Ads on their Department pages. The use of these additional templates and data fields will be documented separately for your unique use cases.
This is not a required field and has a default value of "--None--".
Using an image gives you the ability to create a unique and attractive Department page. The Department Image can be either landscape (like a banner) or portrait and appear at the top or bottom of the page as determined during the design phase of your site. The image can be used for lifestyle marketing, to show products from the department in use, or to show details or features of products from the department.
Note: Producing and maintaining enticing Department images contributes to the Total Cost of Ownership of your site. CommerceCM templates are programmed so that if you do not specify a Department image, the space will collapse and it will not be obviously missing.
If the Parent Department is set to None, your Department will be a top level department (TLD). The Parent Department determines which branch of the Department tree the new Department appears on.
The selection menu is sorted by Rank as determined when the other Departments were setup.
The level on the Department Tree is represented by two dashes displayed before the Department Name for each level below the top level. In this detail of the Parent Department menu, you can see that the Top level department is Health & Beauty (no dashes), with a Sub Department of Cosmetics (2 dashes) with its own sub-departments, preceded by 4 dashes. The Deodorants department at the bottom of the menu is at the same level as Cosmetics as indicated by the two leading dashes.
Each merchant has a default department page which is frequently the only Department Display Page they use on their site. It is important that the Display Pages are given names that are easily interpreted by the person managing the site.
Refer to documentation provided by your project manager or the support team.
This portion of the page will control your default language content, which, in the case of single language sites, will also be your only site language.
If you have a multi-lingual site, the form is slightly different and allows you to set the data for each of your active languages. This allows you to create language specific SEO and marketin content. To save time you can copy content from other languages which is useful if you are localizing your content for regions that use the same language but have idiomatic differences (EN-US vs EN-UK).
This is a required field and is used in your department tree view on the department landing page and in the site navigation. As a general rule this should be short and description.
Rank, Active, Hidden were all covered when we looked at the Department Landing Page .
CommerceCM generates this from your Department Name to save time but you can edit it if needed. Do not use punctuation, special characters, or leave spaces.
This is off by default. If you include parent department directories, the URL will show the entire hierarchy.
Using the fitness equipment example from the introduction, if Treadmills had this checked the full url would be "/Cardio-Equipment/Treadmills/Department.aspx" if it did not have this checked it would simply be "/Treadmills/Department.aspx" SEO's have differing opinions about the importance of including the full path or taxonomy for a department.
This is what shows up at the very top of your browser window. It shows up exactly as typed as shown here. The Browser Title will show up as the name of the page if a customer bookmarks your site, and is used by the search engines when they return links to your site.
HINT: You can use the browser title to help with your search engine optimization strategy by using keywords and phrases in the title.
Search: This hides the department from being returned when the on-site search is used. This should be combined with the same settings on the Products in the Department. This can be used when setting up new products prior to public unveiling, or for promotional products.
Site Map: CommerceCM produces Google XML site maps. If you do not want the department indexed by Google then check this box. This an be useful for temporary departments which are likely to contain products shown elsewhere in your catalog.
Keywords and phrases are optional text used by some search engines to help with your search engine placement. We recommend a maximum length of 1024 keystrokes. Keywords should be separated by comments and spaces are not required. Keywords were once an important part of SEO however due to improvements in algorithms and the ease of abuse they are rarely used by search engines anymore.
CommerceCM uses Keywords as part of our index for on site search. They can be used to supplement your page copy, list alternate terms, or common misspellings of key words, or perhaps to list phrases that are not used on your standard pages.
Like the Keywords, the Description is an optional field added to the meta tags of your Display Page and is used by some search engines in some cases. When it is used, it shows up under the link to your site. Generally the Description is a sentence or two.
The Search Engine Description is also used as part of your Open Graph data which is shared when someone shares a link to a page on social media (Facebook). For more information on Open Graph visit http://ogp.me/
NOTE: Your Search Engine consultant will be able to help you use your keywords effectively. If you are not using a consultant, we recommend www.searchenginewatch.com as a good place to learn about search engines.
This is the text that your site shoppers can read when they are browsing departments on your site. It can be used to entice shoppers to view your products and spend more time on your site. It can include formatted text, additional images and video through a powerful online editor built into CommerceCM.
Click the Edit link on the lower right of the field to open the Description Editor in a pop up window as shown below. When you are done entering your content, click update to close the pop up and return to the Department foundation page.
Done will save your changes and return you to the Department Manager landing page.
Next will save your changes and take you to the Product Selection step.