Entity types, attributes and attribute sets

The openlane data model defines what each record contains: its attributes, how they are grouped and which technical specifications it displays. It is based on three elements: entity types, attributes and attribute sets.

Entity type

Every record in openlane belongs to an entity type. The entity type identifies the kind of record—a product, a media item or a marketing tool—and determines its behaviour: whether users can create it manually, whether its SKU is generated automatically and whether it has tech specs.

There can be several entity types for the same kind of record. For example, a catalogue can distinguish between models and items for sale: both are products, but they have different attributes and rules. One entity type can be set as the default for each kind of record.

Entity type settings are described in Entity type settings.

Attributes

Attributes hold a record's data: its commercial name, description, images, categories and prices. They are defined per entity type: two products with different entity types have different attributes, although some attributes may share the same name.

Each attribute has a type that determines what it contains: a single text value or one per language, a number, a choice from predefined values, or a link to media, categories or other products. You choose the type when creating the attribute and cannot change it later. The available types are described in Attribute types.

Attributes and tech specs

An attribute can belong to one of two categories, chosen when you create it:

• Attribute: a standard attribute. It appears in every record of its entity type.
• Tech.Spec.: a technical specification, such as dimensions, material or power. It appears only in records whose attribute set it is assigned to, and has a public label for each language, intended for customer-facing text.

Tech specs are described in Tech specs and public labels.

Attribute set

An attribute set groups products with the same technical specifications, such as “Chairs” or “Lamps”. A product's attribute set is the value of its AttributeSet attribute; the available values come from the reference data list of the same name.

The attribute set determines which tech specs appear in the record: a tech spec appears only if it is assigned to the product's attribute set. If you change a product's attribute set, the record displays the tech specs for the new attribute set. Standard attributes do not depend on the attribute set.

For media, the media type serves as the attribute set.

Tabs and groups

In a product record, attributes are organised into tabs and, within each tab, into groups. You choose the tab and group in the attribute settings.

Tabs and groups are sorted by their full names, and the first two characters of each name are hidden in the product record. Names therefore begin with two characters used only for sorting: a tab named 01 General appears first as “General”, followed by a tab named 02 Marketing, displayed as “Marketing”. Tabs and groups with no attributes visible to you are not displayed.

Within a group, attributes follow the order set by the administrator. Attributes with the same sort order are sorted alphabetically by label.

Groups of linked records

An entity type can be a group: its records collect other linked records. For example, a model can collect its variants. The link is provided by an attribute containing linked products, specified in the entity type settings.

For a group, you can define how validation errors propagate: from the group to its linked records, from the linked records to the group, or in both directions. The options are described in Entity type settings.