Manage composable products in the PIM

Link your products to their components, accessories, or spare parts directly in the PIM. Composable products help you model complex product structures in a consistent way, without workarounds.

Understand composable products

Composable products let you link a product to other products in your catalog. For example, you can link a digital camera to its charger, or a washing machine to its pump and filter.

With composable products, you can:

• Get value faster: model product structures without extensive research, workarounds, or experiments.
• Keep your catalog consistent: replace manual SKU typing with structured links to reduce errors.
• Model products more intuitively: pick linked products from a product picker with images and search filters.

You can create product links in 2 ways, depending on your use case:

• The Single Product Link Attribute type, to link one product.
• The Product Link column in a Table Attribute, to list several products with extra information.
   

Choose the right product link

Link one product with a Single Product Link

The Single Product Link is an Attribute type that links one product to another, directly in the Product Edit Form. Use it when only one linked product makes sense.

For example, at a luxury fashion brand, each premium designer handbag is linked to its matching replacement strap.

With the Single Product Link Attribute, you can:

• Manage Completeness: customize Completeness rules and apply them to Families.
• Set Permissions: assign Permissions as for any other Attribute.
• Localize and scope values: choose whether the Attribute is localizable and scopable.
• Create variants: generate variants directly from a product link.
• Use it in the Product Grid: display the Attribute as a column and search by product link.
• Find products to link: filter the products to add by Family and status (enabled or disabled).
• Recognize products: see the main image of the linked product.
• Control where it applies: define which Families can use the Attribute.
• Keep one link only: only one product can be added as the product link.

List several products with a Product Link column

The Product Link column type is available in Table Attributes. Use it to list several linked products, each on its own row, with extra columns to describe each link.

For example, a washing machine lists its spare parts in a Table Attribute: the pump on one row, the filter on another, each with its own quantity.

With a Product Link column, you can:

• Add metadata: combine it with measurement, number, text, Reference Entity, select, date, or boolean columns.
• Localize and scope values: choose whether the Attribute is localizable and scopable.
• Choose the variant level: define at which level of enrichment the Attribute is enriched.
• Use it in the Product Grid: search for products that contain a link to a product.
• Find products to link: filter the products to add by Family and status (enabled or disabled).
• Recognize products: see the main image of each linked product.
• Order rows: customize the display order of the rows.
• Control where it applies: define which Families can use the Attribute.
• Add the same product several times: duplicates are allowed when the Product Link column is not the first column.
• Keep data consistent: replace manual SKU entry with a structured column, and rows are removed automatically when the linked product is removed.

Set the first column

The first column of a Table Attribute can be a select, a Reference Entity, an incremental number, or a product link. You can also use Product Link columns in other positions if your first column needs to stay a select, a Reference Entity, or an incremental number.

When the first column is a product link, the product picker lets you select one or several products at once.

Track relationships with backlinks

Backlinks show you which products link to the product you are viewing. They come from both Single Product Link Attributes and Product Link columns in Table Attributes.

To see them, open a product and go to Association types > Backlinks in each of your Product Edit Forms. The list shows all linking products, whatever their Locale or Channel.

Understand updates and deletions

You can only update a product link at the level where it is defined. If the Attribute is at Product Model level, you cannot update it on the variant product.

When you delete a product that is used in a link, the PIM updates the linking product as follows. In all cases, the updated date of the linking product changes.

You cannot delete a product that is used as a variant axis.

Understand Permissions on linked products

• In the UI: if you cannot view or edit a linked product, it is greyed out and a message invites you to contact your administrator. You can still clear the value or, in a Table Attribute, reorder the row.
• In the API and exports: the UUID or Product Model code of a linked product is included in the response, even if you cannot view it. This shows that the link exists and lets you reorder links. Permissions still apply if you try to access the linked product directly through the API or the UI.

Check limits and compatibility

Table Attribute limits

Product Link columns follow the usual Table Attribute limits:

For more details, see Table Attributes.

App compatibility

FAQ

To help you choose between these two solutions for building composable products in the PIM, we’ve addressed some key functional questions.