Templates determine what data from your inventory will be sent to the various feed destinations and in what format that data will be sent in. You can create and assign a template to a feed as part of the feed creation process. The ChannelAdvisor Merchandiser is a tool that allows you to map your template to your inventory.You will also have the ability to utilize some advanced mapping options, such as business rules and lookup lists that will allow you to dynamically manipulate your data in order to optimize how your data appears on the various comparison shopping sites. 

Prerequisites

• Shopping and Flex Feeds Getting Started Guide

Tasks to Complete

The Template step of the feed setup guide is where you will select the template you prefer to use with this feed. 

Note: You can manage all of your existing templates by navigating to your Feeds > Product Mapping > Templates view

Select a Template

Depending on your feed destination, you will have one or more of these options:

• Using the ChannelAdvisor Template - System templates are only available for ChannelAdvisor supported feed destinations. System templates are preconfigured with all of the required and desired fields for that destination.  To view a full list of sites currently supported by ChannelAdvisor please view the following Strategy and Support Center article . 
   
• Using an Existing Template - Your second option is to utilize an existing template that may be in use by a different feed to the same destination.
• Select the existing template from the dropdown
• Optionally, you can choose to create a copy so that the other feeds using this template are not affected.
   
• Using a New Custom Template - Your third option is to Create a new template with fields that you designate. With this option you will be asked to add your own custom fields to the template. Some of the information you will be asked for includes the following:

• Template Fields  - There are two methods to create your template fields
• Add Fields individually
1. Type your field name,
2. Type an optional description
3. Mark as required or leave blank
4. Select the  Add Field  button
• Paste Fields from spreadsheet  
1. Select the  Paste Fields from Spreadsheet  button
2. Paste fields in the box
3. Select  Add  
• By default, our feeds strip HTML out of your text values.  If you need to leave HTML values in your feed, check this setting.
   
• Product URL  - For tracked feeds, it is required that you identify the URL field for our system to insert the tracking information.
   
• Header and Footer Rows  - By default your feed will have one single standard header row. To change this setting do the following:
• Select the ' Would you like to change this or add custom header or footer rows?'  link.
• Choose to include standard header row or not
• Enter number of custom header rows you would like
• Enter number of custom footer rows you would like
   
• File Type  - Select from one of the supported file types (Tab-delimited, Pipe delimited, Comma-delimited, XML)

Map the Template Using the ChannelAdvisor Merchandiser

The next step is to map your template fields using the ChannelAdvisor Merchandiser tool. The merchandiser is a dynamic tool that will assist you in the process of populating each template field with the appropriate information. You will have various mapping options to choose from such as using attributes from your inventory, hard coding a text value or utilizing advanced data manipulation options such as business rules and lookup lists.

To learn more about how to utilize all the features of the merchandiser visit the ChannelAdvisor Merchandiser page.