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Releases

When a catalog is published, a catalog release is created. A catalog release provides a snapshot of the product information taken at the time of publication. You can have one or more catalog releases available in your organization or in your store. If you publish a catalog for your organization, the catalog is available when the store is launched.

If you have more than one catalog published for your store, use catalog rules to specify when to display each catalog. For example, you can use catalog rules to schedule a catalog to appear during a particular date and time, such as a seasonal catalog. The catalog may have different pricing than the other catalogs.

When a catalog is ready to be used in a store, you publish it. You can create and publish catalogs for different contexts and channels.

Here are some pointers to understand a catalogs' lifecycle.

  • The default catalog is always the oldest published catalog and must have have at least one release.
  • At any time, the most recent three catalog releases are maintained. Hence, if there is a fourth catalog release, the first catalog release is automatically removed.
  • Until the catalog is published again, the previously created three catalog releases stay permanently.
  • If you want any other catalog to become the default catalog, you must create a catalog rule.
  • If you want the oldest published catalog to become the default catalog, you must remove the catalog rule.
  • Use the sort_order value in the variations to program your storefront to display the variation options in the order that you want.

Here is a diagram that describes a catalogs' lifecycle:

Catalogs' Lifecycle

Publishing catalogs​

When you publish a catalog, the live products in the hierarchies appear in a catalog release. A catalog release provides a snapshot of product information taken at the time of publication. You can have one or more catalog releases available in your organization or in your store. If you publish a catalog for your organization, the catalog is available when the store is launched.

If you have more than one catalog published for your store, use catalog rules to specify when to display each catalog. For example, you can use catalog rules to schedule a catalog to appear during a particular date and time, such as a seasonal catalog. The catalog may have different pricing than the other catalogs. You can have multiple published catalogs.

When a catalog is ready to be used in a store, you publish it. You can create and publish catalogs for different contexts and channels. You can see the differences between the last two consecutive catalog releases. See Publish a catalog.

You retrieve catalogs for your shopper experience by using the Catalog View API.