Adding a new Product Category

Note that all images below are taken from a standard Plone website - your website may have a different look, so the images are only a guide, they may not be exact.

Your website comes with the ability to add products - so people can buy from you! We set some up for you. If you have more than about half a dozen products, you need to organise them into categories to make it easy for people to find the product they want to buy. Some will be present already, but here is how to add new Product Categories as you expand what you sell.

Note - the examples below use 'DMA Collection' as the Collection entry - your setup will generally use your company's initials instead of DMA - in the instructions, we have used xx as the initials.

1. Log in to your website with the Login Name and Password that we gave you, if you are not already logged in. (You will see a Log In section at the bottom of the Navigation on the left if you are not logged in). Instructions are here.

2. Navigate to Products.

3. Click the Add new... button.

4. Select xx Collection from the list.

5. Enter the Title of the new Collection.

6. Tick Display as Table.

7. Because of how these entries are used, there is no point in entering values for the other information.

8. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

9. Click Criteria.

10. Click the Add Criteria button.

11. The Values list will show all the values you have used in the Categories on Products entries. So there must be at least one Product categorised before you can carry out this step - see instructions here.

Select the required entry from the Values list.

12. Click the Save button below the Criteria box.

13. If you want the Products to be sorted, select a value from the Set Sort Order list.

In most cases, you would use Title to sort the list alphabetically, or Creation Date if you want to list them in date order.

If you want the order to be reversed (that is, by Title starting from Z to A or in date order with latest first), tick Reverse.

14. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

15. As these should not appear in normal Navigation, hide them from the navigation list.

a. Click Edit.

b. Click Settings.

c. Click Exclude from navigation.

d. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.

16. NOTE - the Collection will be created as Private.

This means that you can see it, but nobody else can. This allows you to create the Collection and THEN let the world see it, when it is ready.

17. When you have finished setting up the new Collection and are ready for it to be seen by everyone else:

a. Navigate to the page.

b. Click the State: Private button.

c. Click Publish.

Now your new Collection will be able to be setup to be seen by everyone else.

18. In most cases, your Products page will include links to the Product Categories setup. So you need to add a link to the new category to this page.

a. Navigate to Products.

b. Click Edit.

c. Use the instructions here to insert an image for the new category.

d. Use the instructions here to add the category name and add a link to the new category.

e. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.