The day-to-day work of maintaining a catalog: finding the products that need attention, editing them, and getting them into a publishable state.
Most tasks start from the product list. If you are looking for what a field or a product type means rather than how to change it, see Concepts.
What refuses a publish
Section titled “What refuses a publish”A product variant can’t be published while an attribute marked Required has no value for it. A value set on the product counts for each of its product variants. Saving is never refused for this: you can save a product with a required value still empty, and only publishing is refused.
| The Required attribute is | It needs, for the product variant to be published |
|---|---|
| Not translatable | A value. A text counts when it is not empty; a measurement set needs every one of its measurements. |
| Translatable, and no language is a required language | A value in at least one language. |
| Translatable, and one or more languages are required | A value of its own in each required language. A value in a language’s fallback language doesn’t count. |
The same check runs however the product is published: from the product editor, with Publish on the product list, by a bulk edit, and by an import that publishes.
The refusal names the attribute and each required language the value is missing in. Publishing from the product editor shows Couldn’t publish the product — or Couldn’t publish the product variants when you publish chosen product variants — with, for example:
"short_title" needs a value in American English (United States). Add a value, and save again.
The attribute is named by its code. With several languages missing, the message lists them — … needs a value in American English (United States) and British English (United Kingdom). — and asks you to add a value in each language. For an attribute that is not translatable it names no language. Choose the language the message names as your working language, fill in the value, and publish again. An import’s log names the missing languages the same way: This field needs a value in American English (United States).
A publish is also refused when a value that must be unique is already in use, or when a file in a field didn’t finish uploading.