Before you start loading data into Fredhopper it is important you understand the main concepts of the Fredhopper Data Model. Also make sure you have a complete understanding of the Fredhopper data types, you can always use the decision tree to find the best data type for your product attributes. Once you have an understanding of the main concepts you can either choose to provide Fredhopper with standard CSV or use the Fredhopper Data Manager to generate input XML. 

• Use 3rd party analytics data
• Choose your Fredhopper data input formats
• Fredhopper Data Manager
• Set up Fredhopper related universes
• Understand the Fredhopper Data Model and Concepts
• Google OAuth 2.0 Migration Guide
• Efficient light weight incremental updates

Mapping source data with Fredhopper

The process outlined below is crucial in your Fredhopper implementation as it defines what data will reside in Fredhopper, and in what manner. Dependent on this definition, the data indexed in Fredhopper can be used for different purposes, like search, navigation, merchandising. Fredhopper Professional Services or your local partner can assist you in this crucial step.

1. Define your Fredhopper items: The first step is to define what will be items in Fredhopper and how these will correspond to your products:
   • How does an item in Fredhopper correspond to your products?
   • Will Fredhopper hold master products, or product variations?
   • Which items should/should not be found through Fredhopper?
   • Should Fredhopper contain past or future products?
2. Review functional requirements: In step 2 you want to review your functional requirements and determine which functionalities/functional page elements are to be powered by Fredhopper. This step is often supported by Interface designs (wire frames or visual designs). Typical questions to be answered are:
   • How many sites should be powered by Fredhopper?
   • What are organisational requirements as to manage multiple sites in Fredhopper?
   • What functionalities should Fredhopper enable?
   • What items should Fredhopper Search?
   • What are default rankings in Navigation and Search?
   • How can users resort a list?
   • What are your Merchandising requirements?
   • What category/landing pages are envisaged?
3. Define your Fredhopper attributes: In step 3 you define all the attributes that Fredhopper will hold. Fredhopper recommends the use of its excel data template to detail this. The sheet groups attributes according to their nature (item identifiers, names/descriptions, prices etc.), requires you to define the data mapping and Fredhopper base type and requires you to define the usage of the data points in Fredhopper.
4. Fill out Fredhopper data template: The Fredhopper data template helps you to assess how your data points will be used in Fredhopper. For each source data point you define the Fredhopper name and its data type in Fredhopper. Data points can live in Fredhopper to enable free text search, navigation, lister sorting or just display. Guidelines for use of data types are as follows:
   • Hierarchical: use (only) for hierarchical categorisation of items
   • Int/Intset/Float: use for facets, sorting, promotions, range queries
   • List/List64/Set/Set64: use for facets, sorting, promotions
   • Text: use for locale independent codes and names for search and display
   • Asset: use for display and search only fields like (long descriptions), for identifiers like image references
   • Ref: use to link items in secondary universes to items in primary universes.
5. Review data template: Review your data template with both marketing/E-commerce staff as well with Data/IT staff:
   • Where to acquire data from
   • Is there transformation or cleaning of the data needed?