Documentation/ Master records and catalogues/ Assigning categories in bulk
Assigning categories in bulk
Classifying products one at a time stops working the moment the master gets past a few hundred. The bulk assignment changes one field on every product you have ticked, and touches nothing else.
Database › Product master › tick the rows › Assign category
On this page
Which fields it takes
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Family | First-level classification. It groups spend into big blocks. |
| Raw material | Second level, hanging off a family. It is the detail you analyse purchasing by. |
| Cost centre | Splitting spend by area, department or outlet. |
| Brand | The item's maker or brand. |
They are the same four classifications as on a product's record. What changes is that here they go on many at once.
How to do it
- Filter the list until the products you want to change are what you can see.
- Tick the rows. The header tick box takes every row on the page.
- Press Assign category.
- Choose which category you are changing.
- Choose the new value from the list.
- Press Apply.
The dialog says how many products it is about to act on and spells out the guarantee: the other fields are not touched.
When it finishes, the message confirms with a number. The selection is cleared and the list reloads with the new values.
One field per run
Each run changes one field only. To set family and raw material on the same group of products you have to go round twice.
Since applying clears the selection, the second run means ticking the rows again. Which is why it is worth working on a stable filter, a particular search, rather than ticking by hand: you just repeat the filter and tick everything again.
Clearing in bulk
The list of values always includes a special clear option, which removes the assignment instead of changing it. The screen explains it: choose a value, or use clear to take the assignment off every product you have ticked.
It is there for undoing a classification that went on wrongly, or for emptying a category before deleting it.
Clear does not ask a second time. Check the number of products the dialog gives you before you apply it.
An efficient way to classify a master
Classifying several thousand products is manageable if you do it in blocks and in the right order:
- Create all the categories first. Families, then raw materials, which need a family, then cost centres.
- Work by search term, not by pages. Search for "oil" and assign the right family and you have classified every variant of it in one go.
- Start with the family across the whole master, and only then come down to the raw material detail. It is quicker than going product by product filling in both.
- Leave the odd ones to the end. Filter on an empty family when you have finished: what is left is the long tail, and it is usually very little of your spend.
An Excel export beforehand helps you decide which blocks are worth it: sort by description and you see straight away what groupings actually exist.
What it touches and what it does not
| What | Effect |
|---|---|
| The field you chose | Replaced on every product you ticked. |
| Every other field on the product | Untouched: description, codes, VAT, units and converter. |
| Documents already processed | Not changed. |
| Reports | They show the new classification the next time you run them. |
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The button opens nothing | No products are ticked. | Tick at least one row. |
| The list of values is empty | No categories of that kind have been created. | Create them under product categories, or import them. |
| The wrong category went on | The wrong value was chosen. | Do it again with the right one: the field is replaced, not added to. |
| Only the products on one page changed | The header tick box takes the rows on the page you can see. | Narrow the list with a filter, or go page by page. |
| An error comes back when you apply it | The value you chose no longer exists, or the operation never reached the server. | Reload the screen and try again. The message shows the reason returned. |