With the categories feature, Xentral transfers your product tree to Shopware 6 and assigns the products to the correct categories there. To make this work without duplicate categories, you align existing categories before the first synchronization and change them afterward only following a fixed procedure. This article shows you how to start the synchronization, assign products, and later create, rename, or delete categories.
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The Shopware 6 integration is set up and the feature Match categories (Xentral > sales channel) is activated, see the article Shopware 6: General settings.
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If categories already exist in Xentral and Shopware, e.g., from a previous connection: The structure and names of the product tree are identical in both systems. Without synchronization, the integration does not yet know these categories.
Note
Activate the category synchronization only when the structure of your product tree is final. Subsequent changes can lead to errors and duplicate categories.
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Navigate to Settings > Integrations.
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Click on the gear icon for your Shopware 6 integration and switch to the Workflows tab.
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In the Category area, select the Entry point for the article tree if needed and define whether Xentral transfers only the categories below it.
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In the Category area, activate the Active switch and click on Save. If you are still in the test phase, leave all other areas inactive.
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Open the journal via the path Automation > Journal, filter by your Shopware 6 integration and the entity Category, and trigger the synchronization.
The synchronization usually takes two to three minutes. Afterward, the product tree is linked with Shopware.
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Open a product in Xentral and, in the Product tree tab, assign it a category that you have just synchronized.
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Make sure that the product is included in the product assignment of your Shopware 6 integration, see the article Shopware 6: Assigning products.
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In the product, click on Synchronize products under Details > Online shop options.
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Check in Shopware whether the product is assigned to the correct category.
In the process, Xentral permanently links each category with its counterpart in Shopware. This way, Xentral reliably finds the category again in future transfers.
Creating a new category: Xentral automatically transfers new categories to Shopware once a day. If a new category is to appear in the shop immediately, trigger the synchronization for the entity Category in the journal.
Deleting a category: If the Automatically delete category in sales channel? switch is active in the Category area of the workflows, Xentral also removes a deleted category in Shopware after a few moments, including its subcategories.
Renaming or moving a category: Proceed in this order so that no duplicate categories are created:
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In the Category area of the workflows, deactivate the Active switch and save.
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Change the category in Shopware and in Xentral until the product tree is exactly the same in both systems.
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Activate the Active switch again and save.