Also known as Shopify Automated Collections. Those are the Collections, where you attach tts by defining Rules.
See what each field/column from our “Smart Collections” template means including possible allowed values and examples.
Fields marked as “Export Only” cannot be imported/set in Shopify but can be exported with Matrixify export.
Smart Collections
When importing a file, to tell the app that you are importing Smart Collections, you need to ensure that the sheet/tab name is set to “Smart Collection” or “Smart Collections”.
For example:
Even if the sheet/tab name is not set correctly, you will be able to manually change and set the entity you are importing after uploading file in the app.
See more on the Matrixify app import process and import user interface.
Download Smart Collections Demo file
See Tutorials about Collections
| Column | Description / Example Value |
|---|---|
| ID | ID is automatically generated number by Shopify to identify the item.It is filled in by an Export.When creating new Smart Collection, leave this value empty. |
Allowed Values Number Example
22920047631 |
| Handle | This is what your store visitors will see in the Collection URL address like this:
https://mystore.com/collections/cool-looking-tshirts
URL address has a great impact on SEO, so be sure to give it a meaningful name.
Regardless, what you write here, the app will convert it to lowercase, and remove all non-URL friendly symbols.
You can leave it empty when creating new Collections – in that case, the app will generate it for you from Title.
If the handle will have non-Latin characters like Chinese, Arabic or Russian, or any other language, it will get “transliterated” to the similar-sounding Latin letters by default. You can switch this option off in Options upon importing by unchecking “Transliterate Handles to English alphabet”.
Whatever you will put in the Handle column, the app will convert it to the required Handle format, which is acceptable by Shopify.
When updating Handle the app by default will also create a Redirect from old Handle to the new one. You can turn this off in the Import options with importing a file.
In Shopify, all Handles have a limitation of 255 characters, so any Handle longer than that will be truncated to 255 characters.
Allowed Values
Any characters allowed in a URL
Example
cool-looking-tshirts |
| Command | When importing Smart Collection row – tell the app, what to do with it:
• NEW: will try to create a new Smart Collection with the provided details. If such Smart Collection will already exist (with the same ID or same Handle), then the result will be Failed.
• MERGE: will try to find existing Collection, and update it with data from the row. If such Collection will not be found, then it will create new.
• UPDATE: the app will search for an existing Smart Collection and update it. If an collection cannot be found then it will fail to import.
• REPLACE: WARNING! Use this Command value to fully replace the whole collection, not individual fields. Using this Command value, the app will delete the collection from the store completely and create a new one only from data in the file, resulting in losing all data that is not included in the import file.If such Smart Collection with provided ID or Handle exists, then the app will delete it. After that, it will create a new one. If an existing Smart Collection will not be found, then still the app will create a new one. The difference from UPDATE is that it will not keep any of columns, which were not included in the import file since the Smart Collection will be deleted and re-created.
• DELETE: the app will delete the existing Smart Collection, which is found by ID or Handle. If such Smart Collection will not be found, then the result will be Failed. This DELETE command is very handy for deleting Smart Collections in bulk.
• IGNORE: the app will ignore this Collection and will skip it.
If no Command is specified, then the app will assume the MERGE command.
Allowed Values
NEW MERGE UPDATE REPLACE DELETE IGNORE
Example
MERGE |
| Title | Title of the Collection
Allowed Values
Text
Example
Cool Looking T-shirts |
| Body HTML | This is a long description of the Collection.
You can write here just a plain text or format that text using HTML code.
You can put here additional images, videos, links to other Collections, Products or sites, tables, and so on.
You can learn about HTML capabilities online, for example, W3Schools.com or use some online video courses, like from Treehouse.com or Udemy.com.
The best way to create HTML Description is to write a Description in the Shopify Admin for one Collection, format it as you like, and then do the export. Then you will see how that translates to HTML and will be able to apply the same to other Collections.
The app is also doing some helping with the descriptions automatically to make it easier to use and fix popular issues:
• Converting text to UTF-8 encoding.
• Automatically removing invalid characters like “x000D” , “” , and such (ask Matrixify Support if there are any other characters invalid that need to be removed).
• Converting plain text to HTML if this is not an HTML already – so that you have proper newlines and basic formatting.
• Optionally removing images from HTML (if checkbox enabled in Import Options).
Allowed Values
Text, HTML
Example
Those all are nice T-shirts, and this is their <b>description</b>. |
| Sort Order | This defines, how the Products will be sorted inside that Smart Collection.
Essentially, this is the same as a drop-down choice you have in the Admin, when you edit the Smart Collection.
Allowed Values
Alphabet Alphabet Descending Best Selling Created Created Descending Manual Price Price Descending
Example
Best Selling |
| Template Suffix | Template Suffix allows you to specify another Template from your Theme for this specific Collection. For example, you might want to specify different template for a Women T-shirts collection, which has different page layout.
Work with your developer to create new Template or read Shopify documentation about adding additional templates for Collections. Once new Template is created, you can set in this column to activate it for needed Collections.
That different template will show as dropdown for Collections in Shopify Admin, when new Collection Template will be created in your Theme. For example, if the new Template file name is “collection.women.liquid”, then – to activate this Template for this Collection, write “women” as the Template Suffix.
Allowed Values
Text
Example
women |
| Updated At
Export Only | It will be automatically updated, whenever you change the Collection data. Allowed Values Date & Time Example
2018-12-17 18:20:07 +0200 |
| Published | Tells, whether this Collection should be Published on your “Online Store” Sales Channel. If you will set it to FALSE, it will be hidden from Online Store, and clients will not be able to find it.
If you will leave this cell empty, then it will hide that Collection form Online Store.
If Collection is not Published, you can publish it from Shopify Admin by finding this Collection, or importing the update of this column, marking Published to TRUE.
If you will write anything else in this column, the Collection will not get imported, and you will get an error “Bad Request” in Import Results row for this item, just to be safe it was intentional.
Allowed Values
TRUE FALSE
Example
TRUE |
| Published At
Export Only | It will be automatically updated, whenever you publish the Smart Collection to Online Store channel. You cannot set specific publication date. Allowed Values Date & Time Example
2018-12-17 18:20:07 +0200 |
| Published Scope | Tells where the Collection is published
• global: is published on both the Online Store channel and the Point of Sale channel.
• web: is published only in Online Store channel
Allowed Values
global web
Example
global |
| Row #
Export Only | Will have row number from 1 till the end for each row. So that if you change the sorting in your exported file to easier update your data, you can sort it back by “Row #” and return it to the original sorting. Because, you know, all the item data should be together – and if you change the sorting, you need to sort it back. | | Top Row
Export Only | It will have value “TRUE” for each “top row” of the item. That can help you filter in Excel to get only the base rows, in case you need to get rid of repeated rows for each item. Some sheets already had this as Primary Row column earlier, but we have added it now to all the sheets now and renamed to Top Row so it’s more clear. | | Image Src | Link to the image. This link must be publicly available. A collection can have only one image. Once an image is imported, it doesn’t need to be hosted anymore with this link, because Shopify will download this image and store on their own servers. If you don’t need to update image for Collection, just remove this column from Import file, and it will leave image unchanged when you do your import. Allowed Values URL Example
https://images.com/image.jpg |
| Image Width
Export Only | The width of the image, in pixels. Example
1062 |
| Image Height
Export Only | The height of the image, in pixels. Example
527 |
| Image Alt Text | Alt Text for the Collection image. Great for SEO, because then search engines will know, what is inside the image.
Allowed Values
Text
Example
Some descriptive name of the image |
| Must Match | Here you define, how Rules will be applied to Smart Collection – by entering one of those possible values:
• all conditions: Product is added to Collection, if all Rules are TRUE
• any condition: Product is added to Collection, if at least one Rule is TRUE
Essentially, it’s the same as in Shopify Admin, when you manually edit the Smart Collection.
Allowed Values
all conditions any condition
Example
any condition |
Each Smart Collection has set of rules, that defines what products go into the automated collection.
Those rules are actually the same, as you can enter in Shopify Admin for collection. The best way to understand how to fill those in, is to enter one through Shopify Admin, and then do the Export. Then in the Excel you will see, what is what, and will be able to repeat that same principle when creating many collections to import in bulk.