About SessionM catalogs

This article introduces the concepts and terminology that you need to understand to work with catalogs in the SessionM Platform.

In this article:

What does a SessionM catalog do?

A SessionM catalog plays an integral part across the SessionM Platform, functioning as an essential part of integrations where transactional ingest takes place. While managed within the Catalog Management Module, catalogs are spread across a number of modules, including:

  • Offer Management - Catalogs are leveraged to select applicable items for discounting and exclusions when designing an offer (e.g, “Buy a Large French Fry, Get a Free Small Milkshake”).
  • Loyalty/Incentives - Platform users that are configuring loyalty programs are able to use catalogs to choose eligible/non-eligible items for point earning (e.g, “No points awarded for items that include alcohol”).
  • Campaigns - Campaigns can be designed around various customer behaviors, including items purchased (e.g, “Double Points Awarded on Clearance Pants”).

The importance of accuracy

With relationships spanning the platform, it is critical to ensure that catalogs are accurate, uploaded properly and managed proactively. Catalogs that are not uploaded in an accurate manner, or at all, create risks for the following to occur:

  • Incorrect points added to a customer’s loyalty account.
  • Errors that surface at the point-of-sale or incorrect discount calculation when a customer redeems an offer.
  • Data missing or incorrect in activity log (feed), which would be reflected on the customer’s profile.
  • Campaign related issues.

This guide will walk through the various methods, techniques, and requirements that will enable platform users and integrators to examine and qualify catalog data prior to ingest, upload catalog data into the SessionM Platform, and configure catalog data in the correct manner that will allow for success in use cases leveraging this data across the platform.

Key catalog terms

Below are common terms and phrases that are used across catalog upload and management. Key terms to focus on include:

  • Auto-mapping - The platform’s ability to automatically perform the mapping task between store catalog items and master catalog items (via SKU or name). This concept is only relevant in a disparate catalog scenario.
  • Category - A parent of a group of items or categories. For example, the Shoe Category can contain many types of shoes (items) within the category. The Footwear Category is also a category but contains many types of footwear categories within it, including the Shoe Category. A category can house either items or child categories, not both.
  • Disparate Catalog - A catalog scenario in which there are different Item IDs (the item information transmitted to SessionM within a transaction) across various transactional touchpoints, such as Store vs. Online or Store 1 vs. Store 2.
  • Item - The lowest level objects of a catalog hierarchy. The information that is transmitted to SessionM within the body of a transaction.
  • Mapping - The relationship that is formed between items within a Master Catalog and items within a Store Catalog in a disparate catalog scenario. Mapping can be done automatically by SKU or item name or manually within the UI of the Catalog Management Module.
  • Master Catalog - A catalog that is created in a disparate catalog scenario which includes all items and is used as the master representation of the items across the SessionM Platform when item names/IDs vary across the various Store Catalogs.
  • Modifier - An item that is used strictly to modify another item within the catalog as opposed to being sold separately. Used more commonly in the restaurant/food verticals. For example, a burger (item) can be ordered with pickles (modifier) and ketchup (modifier).
  • Publishing - The backend service that ensures catalogs and catalog-related data is correctly surfaced within the SessionM Platform. Currently, catalogs are loaded into the Catalog Domain and publishing ensures that the data is transmitted into relevant modules like Campaigns.
  • SKU - A value assigned to an item that remains constant across all catalogs. For example, while an item’s name or Item ID may vary across channels or locations, the SKU for that item will remain the same. A useful value that can be leveraged during the Auto-mapping process.
  • Store Catalog - A catalog that exists in a disparate catalog scenario and includes all of the items and categories (with applicable IDs) that are available for that store. In a Unified Catalog scenario, there is only one catalog which functions both as the store and master catalog.
  • Unified Catalog - A catalog scenario in which there is a single catalog across all stores/channels/etc where the item IDs remain the same. Regardless of what is carried in stock across locations, a Unified Catalog will always speak to SessionM using the same Item ID for an item in transaction across store vs. online or store 1 vs. store 2.
  • Validation - Used in a disparate catalog scenario, features within the Catalog Management Module that identify items that have not been properly mapped across store and master catalogs.