Icecat Release Notes 163: Icecat PDF in XML 2.0

In these Icecat Release Notes 163, we explain the Icecat PDF in XML 2.0. Further, we will highlight the taxonomy-specific description for brand users and account managers. Please, find here the previous Icecat Release Notes.

Icecat PDF on XML 2.0

In this release, we launched the publication of Icecat PDFs in product XML version 2.0. The XML 2.0 represents a revised iteration of our XML API, featuring an enhanced and reorganized tags structure. As previously communicated, all Full Icecat users have already transitioned to version 2.0. In the forthcoming weeks, we anticipate extending this transition to Open Icecat users as well. So, please stay tuned for more updates.

Icecat PDF – It’s handy for brands that don’t have PDF brochures available themselves. It helps their channel partners and consumers who like the PDF format. Because of copyright concerns, we limit the Icecat-generated PDF to Open Icecat brands, as we secured syndication rights for these. The PDF function generates a standard PDF based on the available product data in case that there is no PDF available from the respective brand.

So, this PDF asset will be available for Open Icecat products. When no branded PDF leaflet is available for an Open Icecat product, Icecat generates and publishes a PDF. This asset is pushed in the respective product’s XML file as a link. The Icecat PDF is published within the product multimedia object tag with the following structure:

<ProductMultimediaObject>
<MultimediaObject ContentType="application/pdf" 
Date="2019-01-29 09:02:28" 
Description="Generated PDF" 
KeepAsURL="0" 
MultimediaObject_ID="0" 
Type="leaflet" 
UUID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" 
langid="1" 
Height="0" 
PreviewHeight="0" 
PreviewSize="0" 
PreviewUrl="" 
PreviewWidth="0" 
Size="0" URL="https://icecat.biz/rest/product-pdf?productId=18313566&lang=en" Width="0"/>
</ProductMultimediaObject>

Account Manager and Brand type users will be able to add Taxonomy Specific Descriptions

As you probably know from previous release notes, we introduced a Taxonomy Specific Description block on Vendor Central product pages. However, during the initial implementation, only Icecat editors could create and edit such assets. With this release, we have expanded the list of authorized users to include Brand type users, allowing them to perform CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations in the Taxonomy Specific Description block.

Other improvements in Icecat Release Notes 163:

• Added Taxonomy filters on product level in Vendor Central. Taxonomies which have no specs for a category of a particular product will not be shown under the Specs block anymore on the product page.
• Renamed the URC parameter for the Media API to UserReference to satisfy the readability policy of Icecat.