Use custom attributes to make changes and store your data before assigning the values to a product data specification attribute. This article explains how to set up custom attributes to use in your attribute rules.
Before you begin
Make sure to add product data sources to your Merchant Center account so that there is data to create rules with.
Then, enable the attribute rules feature by adding the “Advanced data source management” add-on. Having this add-on allows you to use attribute rules. Learn more about Advanced data source management.
How it works
Custom attributes allow you to store a value that you may use later to populate a different attribute value. This allows you to create a secondary version of the value without changing the existing attribute.
Examples
- You'd like to add the color "red" to a title
[title]attribute, but you'd also like to keep "burgundy" in the color[color]attribute. - You'd like to separate one section of the product type
[product_type]
Instructions
Step 1: Create your custom attribute
In your Merchant Center account, click on the Settings & tools icon
.
Select Data sources.
Under the “Product sources” tab, select a product source.
Click the Attribute rules tab and select an attribute.
- If you haven't created attribute rules for the attribute you want to edit, click Add attribute rule and select the corresponding attribute from the drop-down list.
On the page that opens, select the button for the action you’d like to take:
- Replace attribute data: Configure from where the data for the attribute should come. You can choose to replace the attribute with specific values or data from other sources. Click the pencil icon to see more options:
- Select when to replace the attribute data
- Select how to replace the attribute data
- Modify attribute data: Add any optional steps to change your data. For example, you may alter certain words in your product title or update your data to meet product data specifications. Click the pencil icon
to see more options:
- Select when to replace the attribute data
- Select how to modify the attribute data (Prepend, Append, or Find & Replace)
After selecting the actions and providing the required information in the setup flow, click Ok.
After you have made all your changes, click Save as draft at the bottom right hand corner.
The changes made to your rules are in draft mode. Click Show preview to test your draft rules before they’re applied to your product data.
Click Apply changes to save any new or updated rules. Or, click Discard changes to remove the draft rules.
Step 2: Use your custom attribute
After you've created and saved your custom attribute, you can now use it to populate or modify other attributes. To do this, set up a new attribute rule on the product data specification attribute of your choice. You can reference custom attributes in any rule condition or within any attribute rule operation.
Note: You'll find the new custom attribute in the Processed attributes section. All custom attributes are marked with a "*".