Product Types

As a community owner, you can define additional location attributes you would like a supplier to provide when they share their products with you. You setup these custom attributes when defining your Product Types. Navigate to the “Admin” page from the “Settings” dropdown menu, then select the “Product Setup” tab, then click the “+” sign to get started.

First you will need to define your product types. Think of these as a category of items that you source, such as “Tomatoes – Cherry” or “Chicken Thighs”. For each of these types, your suppliers may add several items with unique GTINs but they all relate back together. Once your list becomes very large it may make sense to save some views so you can quickly access the Product Types you want to work with. Steps for setting up save views can be found here.

We offer a set of default product attributes within FoodLogiQ Connect as a starting point.  As a community owner, you can define additional product attributes you would like a supplier to provide when they share their products with you.

Default Attributes

Product Name is the only required attribute, and as a community owner, you can specify whether a GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is also required. All other default attributes are optional.

Custom Attributes

Once you are ready to add custom attributes, you have two options, GDSN attributes and “Industry Attributes”. Industry attributes are standardized, but you can specify the “Attribute Name”, whereas “Custom Attributes” are completely user-defined, may be specific to your own business.

“Attribute Name” vs. “Key”

• Attribute Name is the more user-friendly, value that will be displayed to the supplier who is entering the information.
• Key field is intended for the database name if you are importing using our .csv template or using APIs to share the information.

Select the appropriate "Field Type", then click the "Add Attribute" button.

Field Types

When defining your own custom attributes, there are 7 different types you can choose from. Once you select a field type, if a supplier tries to enter a value that is inconsistent with this selection, we will return an error message to them. Below are listed the 7 field types that are possible:

• Combination: You can associate two list fields together. For instance, perhaps you want suppliers to identify a distributor (select List Type = "Businesses") they ship the product to, then the distribution center location (List Type = "Locations") that they ship to.
  
• Date: This will display a calendar within the online submission form for your users to select a date. If importing products using our .csv template, the required format is “mm/dd/yyyy”.
• Decimal Number: Use when requesting a numeric value for an attribute that needs to have the option of recording decimals, such as price per case or case weight.
• Selection list: Display a dropdown menu of options to be selected from. Single selection is by default, but you can allow for multiple selections if needed.
  • Businesses: This will pull from the Connections list if you have enabled your suppliers to connect to other members of your community.
  • Custom List: You can define your own list of choices. Just add as a comma-delimited list.
  • Locations: This will display a list of locations that suppliers have connected with using the Connections feature (if enabled in your Community Information page), or a list of the supplier's own locations.
• List Types:
• Text: choose this option if you want a free-form text field.
• Whole Number: Use when requesting a numeric value for an attribute that does not require decimals.
• Yes/No: choose this field type when the type should be a True or False answer

Editing Product Type Attributes

Once you create your attributes you have a few options to edit them. If these options don’t suit your needs, you can simply delete and re-create them.

• Modify the order: If you want to adjust the ordering of your product attributes, you can simply click on the row and drag and drop the attribute to the desired placement. This might come in handy if your suppliers are bulk uploading this data in a spreadsheet and want to be consistent with the ordering of the data in that template.
• Required vs. Optional: If you want to make an attribute required or no longer required, simply click the required checkbox to change.
• Remove attributes: You also have the option of deleting the attribute entirely if you no longer need it or if you made a mistake and need to re-create.
• Field Type- Selection List Only: You can double click the comma-separated values you added, and edit within the text box.
• Note: Field Type, Key, Attribute Name fields can not be edited once created, but you can delete and re-create.