eCommerce Collections

Collections are a powerful way to organise and display both content and products across your eCommerce website. They allow you to create dedicated pages that highlight specific information, product ranges, or shopping experiences tailored to your customers.

Collection Types

The Collection Summary Page - /collections

There is a new option to display a Collection on the Collection Summary page. This page lists all active Collections that have the "Show on Collection Summary pages" option enabled. If either condition is not met, the Collection will not appear on the page. If you manage multiple sites, you can choose which site’s Collection Summary Page will display the Collection.

When the “Show on Collection Summary pages” option is disabled, the Collection's URL can still be used to reference the Collection, for use within your Facet Navigation and external links. Disabling this option will hide the Collection from the Collections Summary page.

On this page, customers can find relevant Collections by searching for a title or filtering by a tag.

Customers can filter Collections by selecting one or more tags. When multiple tags are selected, the platform will display Collections that match either of the selected tags (e.g., “Wind” or “Winter”, if both tags are selected).

Managing and Creating Collections

Creating a New Collection

To create a new Collection, navigate to the Collections page in Cloud MT, found under the Content Management drop-down in the menu.

This page will display a grid with a list of existing Collections. 

Click the New Collection button at the top left-hand side of the page to start creating a new Collection.

Clicking this button will take you to the New Collection creation page. To switch between the type of Collection you are creating, click into the drop-down menu at the top to select from the three distinct types of Collection.

Collection Setup

Once you have selected the type of Collection you wish to create, you will have additional options to further configure and customise the Collection, ensuring it is fully optimised and ready to go live on your eCommerce website.

Images, Content and Advanced Options

Adding or changing an Image: Click the blue icon below the preview. A pop-up will appear, allowing you to select an image from your gallery or upload a new one for the Collection.

Removing an Image: Click the “X” button to clear the image assigned to the Collection.

You can also add additional content* to the Collection, such as images or embedded videos. Clicking the “View Advanced Options” drop-down will show further advanced SEO options, where you can set the Meta Description and Canonical URL for the Collection.

Making changes to a new or existing Collection

1. Find the Collection in the grid within the Collections page in Cloud MT. You can filter this grid to find the Collection you are wanting to make changes to by sorting or filtering the column headers.
2. Click the “Edit” link, under the “Actions” column next to the Collection that you want to make changes to within the grid. You can also copy and paste the link to this Collection in your browser, to view the Collection on your eCommerce website.

For easier filtering within this grid, you can add or remove columns by using the “Column Chooser”. Drag and drop new columns from the selection pop-up into the grid. To remove a column, drag the column header back to the selection pop-up.

Once a Collection has been created, you can preview this on your eCommerce website by clicking the “Preview” button at the top right-hand side of the page. You will also be able to view the last date and time when the Collection was modified successfully.

Adding Items to a Product Collection

You can add items to a Product Collection in two ways:

Assigning Products	Each product has an “In Collection” checkbox that indicates whether it is part of a Product Collection. When adding individual items to a Product Collection, a grid will display all active items within Cloud MT to choose from. To add a product to a Collection, simply click the ‘In Collection’ tick box next to the item after filtering or finding the item within the grid. To remove an item, untick the box.
In the above example, only “Standard Item Price B” will show on the Collection page as “Standard Item Price C” is set as inactive in Cloud MT.
Assigning Facets	Facet Collections allow you to choose up to three sets of facets to display products within the Collection. You can select one, two, or three Find & Filter address combinations to pull products from and place into the Collection.
Click the “Set Facets” button or the input box highlighted above to choose the Find & Filter address used to add products to a Collection. Like Facet Navigation pages, you can set facets from any of the options shown below.

Collection Tags

Once a Collection has been created, you can add tags to further organise and sort your Collections. This allows customers who are browsing your Collection Summary Page to discover relevant Collections with products and information related to the tag they have filtered for. Tags are saved instantly against the Collection without the need to click the “Save Collection” button.

Click and type into the search box to add a tag to a Collection. A drop-down will be shown with relevant tags related to your search term. Click a tag to assign it to the Collection.

If the tag does not exist, you can create a new tag by clicking the green button. The tag will then be available in the drop-down menu, to select and assign to the Collection.

Editing and deleting your Collection Tags is done from the Collection Tags page in Cloud MT. Click the menu option at the top of the Collections page to navigate to this page.

The amount of Collections allocated with a specific tag is also visible from the grid on this page. Click the “Edit” link next to a tag in the grid to change the tag's name. Creating new tags can also be done from this page, as shown below.

When deleting a tag, it will be removed from all Collections it is assigned to. This action is irreversible.

Parent and Child Collections

Once a Collection has been created, you can assign a relationship to another Collection by expanding the “View Advanced Options” drop-down at the bottom of the page. A Collection can either be a Parent Collection or a Child Collection of a parent. A Collection cannot be assigned as both a child and a parent.

Child Collections will appear as related Collections at the bottom of the Parent Collection’s page, displaying the Image, Title, and Short Description. An example of this relationship at the bottom of the page, is shown below.

Click “View and Manage Children” to add new Child Collections to the one you are editing and create this as a parent. The pop-up will allow you to add Child Collections to the new Parent Collection being edited.

Ticking the “Is Child” checkbox in the right-hand side column of the grid within the Manage Child Collections pop-up, will assign that Collection as a Child Collection under the one you are currently editing. The Collection being edited will now be a Parent Collection and cannot be assigned as a Child Collection under another. Unticking the “Is Child” flag will remove that child Collection from the parent.

When a Collection is set as a Parent Collection, the number of Child Collections is displayed in the Relationship section. Removing the parent status will also remove all assigned children.

When editing a Child Collection, you can remove it from its parent, but a child cannot have its own children. The Relationship section also shows the Parent Collection and provides a direct link to its record in Cloud MT.

Making changes to an existing Collection

When you name a Collection, a URL fragment will be automatically generated from the Collection's name (/collection/url-fragment). When you make changes to the name of a Collection, a warning will appear as the URL fragment will also be changed. The option to create a redirect for the updated Collection URL is then shown. Click the link displayed and select “Create Redirect”.

Creating a redirect will navigate users from the old Collection URL to the new URL, minimising the impact to your SEO performance. You can manage your redirects from within the Redirect Manager in Cloud MT. Information on using the Redirect Manager can be found here.

Making Bulk changes to a Collection in Cloud MT via a Wizard

Whilst you can add products to a Product Collection by assigning items, the Product Collection Wizards are still available for bulk amendments on the Bulk Wizards page. This only applies to Product Collections which have had products assigned. The Add to Collection Wizard cannot be used for a Product Collection where facets have been assigned.

Wizard	Description
Add to Collection
Clear Collection

Assigning a Collection to a Find & Filter Landing Page

When a Find & Filter results page is either converted (or forced) to be a Find & Filter Landing Page, you can assign a Collection to appear at the top of the page. You can select any type of collection which is listed at the top of the article, to pull through to the Landing Page within in the Grid.

Further information on setting up a Find & Filter Landing Page is linked below.

• Cloud MT // Find & Filter Automatic Landing Pages
• Cloud MT // Advanced ALP Creation

1. To assign a Collection to a Find & Filter Landing Page, navigate to the grid using the link here, or from within the menu shown above.
2. Filter for the URL that is being converted or forced to a Landing Page within the Grid, and search for the Collection you are wanting to add to the page using the drop-down menu, shown below.

3. Once the website cache has updated, the collection will show at the top of the Landing Page, with an option to ‘View All’ items within the chosen collection.

Basket Collections “/cart” 

You now have the option to assign a Product Collection to the Basket (also known as the Cart!) page of your website, right before the customer has navigated to the Checkout. Whilst you can assign a Product & Content Collection to the Basket page, only the products assigned to the Collection will pull through to the section below the Basket.

The “Essential Items Collection”, which displays beneath the customer's Basket, is assigned from within Site Specific Options in Cloud MT, here.

To add products to the Basket checkout page, navigate to the Essential Items Collection drop-down and filter for the Product Collection that you want to pull items from, for these to display beneath the basket. The drop-down will only display your active Product Only and Product & Content collections within Cloud MT.

Collection Restrictions

There are a few restrictions deliberately imposed upon Collections.
This has been done to ensure that you do not accidentally disrupt the integrity of your Citrus-Lime eCommerce database or cause conflicts between existing Facet URL fragments and the ones you may think to create using Collections.

The following list details that which you cannot do when using Collections:

1. You cannot create Collections with the same name as existing Facets derived from the normal Find & Filter Options (Department + Browse Filters, Product Group + Browse Filters, Activity and Materials).
2. You cannot create Collections with the same name as existing Facets derived from the Google Categories section (Colour, Gender and Age) nor Brands or Season, either.
3. You cannot create Find & Filter Navigation Options that combine a Collection with any other option available during the Facet Navigation set-up process.
4. The end user browsing your eCommerce Website cannot view Collections as Filter Options in regular Find & Filter result sets.