Set a product's attributes: colours, sizes, materials

An attribute is a choice a product has, such as its colours, its sizes or its material. A shop shows them on the product page (in the Additional information tab) and lets customers filter by them. Content Uploader fills them from a spreadsheet, with several values in one cell if a product has several.

A WooCommerce shop has two kinds, and the editor offers both under Attributes:

• The shop's own attributes, made in WooCommerce under Products → Attributes, such as Colour. Every product shares them, and their values (Black, Grey) are the shop's own list, so a filter can offer them. They are listed in the editor by the name the shop gave them.
• Attributes made on the product, such as Material, which only that product has. You add them to the configuration by their name.

Set the attributes#

Open the configuration and find the section Attributes:

1. For each attribute you want to set, choose how it gets its values: Source column, Fixed values, Leave unchanged or Remove from every item.
2. A column that has the attribute's name (a column called Colour for Colour) is chosen for you. Choose the separator the cell uses between values: a comma, a semicolon, a pipe or a line break.
3. To set an attribute the shop does not list, write its name under Add an attribute by its name, then choose Add attribute. A column with that name is chosen for you.
4. Under each attribute, choose what the shop does with it:
   • Show on the product page (on to start with): whether the attribute appears on the product page.
   • Used for variations: for a variable product, whether its variations choose among the values of this attribute (variable products).
   • Add values the shop does not have yet, for the shop's own attributes: with it on, a value the shop's attribute lacks is added to it. With it off, such a row is refused. It is offered only when the account Content Uploader publishes as may add values.

What a row does#

• The cell is split at the separator and each value is trimmed. Repeated values count once. A product can have up to 100 values for an attribute, of up to 200 characters each.
• The values replace the product's values for that attribute. Another attribute of the product that the file does not set is left as it is, in the place it had.
• An empty cell takes the attribute off the product. A product that does not have it is left as it is. Leave unchanged never touches the attribute, and Remove from every item takes it off every product in the file (empty cells).
• A new attribute goes after the product's other attributes. For the shop's own attributes, the order the shop shows the values in is the shop's own, set in WooCommerce.
• Attributes are written through WooCommerce's own functions with the rest of the product, in the same save.

In the review#

The review lists the attributes a file changes with the other fields, with their values and what the shop does with them:

• A product the shop already has and that Content Uploader never published is compared with the attributes it holds now, so only what differs is listed (update products already on your shop).
• A product Content Uploader published before is compared with what was last published. The first time a file sets an attribute for it, the column Last published says Not sent, because no earlier file sent that attribute, as in the picture; a cell that is empty for a product without that attribute shows Not sent and Empty, and takes nothing away.
• A new product's card lists its attributes, and the preview in the editor lists them for each sample row.
• A later file is compared with what you last published. Two configurations that set different things for the same products do not report each other's attributes.

Not offered#

Term descriptions and the order of a shop attribute's values are not offered. The attributes a variable product's variations choose among are set here too, with Used for variations ticked (variable products).

When something is wrong#