Assets and asset families
An asset is a media file with structure around it: an asset family, a code, and its own attributes. The practical difference from attaching an image to a product is reuse. One datasheet covering forty articles is stored once and referenced forty times.
Think of the shared drive from How PIM works:
4711_neu_final_2.jpg next to 4711_neu_final.jpg, and nobody knows which one
the shop uses. An asset has a code, belongs to a family that says what kind of
file it is, and is referenced from products by that code. The file can be
replaced; the code stays.
Asset families
An asset family is a kind of media, with its own attribute set. Typical families:
| Family | Attributes it might carry |
|---|---|
| Product images | view (front/side/detail), background, photographer |
| Datasheets | language, revision, valid-from date |
| Technical drawings | format (DXF/PDF/STEP), revision |
| Certificates | issuer, valid until |
Separating them matters because the metadata differs: a photo has a view, a certificate has an expiry.
Create one
- Go to PIM › Data model › Asset families.
- Select New asset family.
- Enter a Code and the Labels (i18n).
- Set a Naming convention if your files are named systematically. It has
three parts: the Source, the product value the file name is built from
(the SKU, typically), the Pattern the file name follows, and the
Allowed extensions. If your images are
4711-A_front.jpg, the convention can extract the SKU and the view from the file name, so uploads are recognised and filed instead of matched by hand. - Add the attributes this kind of asset should carry: go to PIM › Data model › Attributes, create each one with Entity type set to Asset and Entity ref set to the asset family's code.
Add assets
- Go to PIM › Assets.
- Select New asset and choose the Asset family.
- Give it a Code and pick the Source: Storage to upload the file into platform storage (the Storage medium field), or External URL to point at a file hosted elsewhere.
- Fill its Metadata: the attributes of the asset family.
Pointing at an external URL is useful when a DAM or a supplier CDN is already the source of truth. Two tenant settings govern it: Allow externally hosted assets switches the option off entirely, and Allowed external hosts limits which hosts a URL may point at. Both are checked when an asset is saved; assets that already exist keep working if the settings change later. A third setting, Default asset family, is the family an asset lands in when an import does not name one.
Link assets to products
- Create an attribute of type Asset (
asset_collection) on your products and set its Asset family. - Assign it to the relevant families, and set it as the family's Image attribute if it is the main product image.
- On each product, pick the asset. In bulk, set the asset Code in the import file.
Because it is a reference, replacing the file behind the asset updates every product using it. Replacing a revised datasheet across forty articles is one upload.
Practical advice
Do not store one image per product if the image is shared. Variants of the same glove usually share most photos; put those on the model, not on each variant.
Decide what the "main" image is explicitly. The family's image attribute is what lists, search results and punchout exports use. Leaving it unset produces a catalog with no thumbnails and a lot of confusion.
Watch file sizes. A 12 MB print-resolution TIFF is correct for a datasheet and wrong for a listing thumbnail. Keep the print original as its own asset family if you need it.