An attribute is an additional piece of information that you store for a product that describes a specific characteristics of the product. Attributes allow the capability of filtering and searching the catalog based on these attributes, provide additional information for product pages, and enable the capability of comparing products.

There are two attribute modes:

• SmarterCommerce: the user can create as many attributes as necessary to describe the products in the catalog.
• Matrix: in this case the attribute is created based on information that is coming from JDE Matrix items. When a new matrix attribute is created the application reads the segment values from the items in JDE that use the selected template and style.

Examples of product attributes can be size and color. First the attribute is created, such as size. Then, values for this attribute can be created. For example, for size create values S, M, L, and XL. To associate a product with its attributes go to Products maintenance.

If the attribute mode is Matrix, an option is available in the attribute value list to “Refresh Matrix Values”. By clicking on this option the application reads the segment values from the items in JDE that use the selected template and style and inserts them as attribute values. There is no restriction to manually add additional values to a Matrix Attribute. For example, if in JDE the segment for color has Red, Black, and White you can add any other value and associate this attribute to any type of product, not only to matrix products.

For a matrix product you do not have to manually associate the matrix attributes of its own template. There is a process that updates this information in App Search/Elastic based on the selected children in Catalog/ Matrix Restrictions that the matrix product has.