Getting Started with Publication – Rezolve Ai Support Portal

Introduction to publication

This guide will explain what Publications are and how to manage them effectively in Fredhopper's Merchandising Studio.

All manually set up configurations or rules need to be published in your Merchandising Studio before they are active and live on your site. Saved configurations or rules can be viewed in Preview, which allows you to review your settings to ensure that you are applying the correct configuration. Only when these are published will they be available in your front end. The point at which published changes will appear on your live site will vary depending on your cache process.

Let's see how the publication process works in Fredhopper's Merchandising Studio, based on workflow between a Visual Merchandiser and their Team Leader:

A visual merchandiser will create, amend or delete and then save a configuration or rule in the Merchandising Studio. They then have the option to review this in Preview to check it meets their expectations. They have the option to go back to amend or delete as appropriate, otherwise, it can be sent for publication.

Depending on your business workflow, there may be a team leader who is responsible for publishing items that have been sent for publication, or users may have been given the rights to create (write) and publish. The Team Leader has the option to review in Preview before publishing. If they are happy with the configuration, it can be published, if not it can be rejected, and the visual merchandiser can edit and re-publish if required. Once the configuration or rule has been published, it will be sent to the live site at the earliest time depending on the cache process.

Published configurations or rules can be reverted back to 'editing' status at any time; more information below.

Prerequisites

You will need to have both read & write permissions for 'Publishing' within the Fredhopper Merchandising Studio
You will need to have both read & write permissions for the relevant scopes within Fredhopper Merchandising Studio

Publication status

Configurations and rules created in your Merchandising Studio will always display a status on the right-hand side of the homepage, for example on the Campaigns homepage:

Editing

Waiting for publication, also known as 'Pending' status

Published

To view the status, hover over the status icon.

Publication homepage

Navigate to the publication homepage, where you can manage, publish and reject configurations or rules waiting for publication. The homepage provides a list of all items waiting for publication, additionally, you can see a history of all items that have already been published, allowing you to revert the publication if required.

Here you can change your scope - if you just want to see items related to a particular scope.
The publication management area allows you to view all the items waiting for publication or see all items that have already been published.
Here you can see the scope for each item in the list.
Shows you the type of feature that is waiting to be published.
Details the name of the rule or configuration waiting to be published.
Provides the editor's name who created the rules waiting for publication.
Quick reject option provided here, click on the X icon for the rules you'd like to reject.

How to publish a configuration or rule in your Publication list

From the Business Manager navigation bar, go to Publication.
Select the item or items you want to manage (publish or reject), by ticking the checkbox/s
Click either 'Create publication set' or 'Reject publication'.
1. Create publication, once you have clicked this option, you will be provided with a summary of what you are about to publish, check it is correct and click Publish.
2. Reject publication, once you have clicked this option, a warning box will appear to confirm that you are about to reject a publication, click OK to reject, or cancel to stop the action.

Cancel a publication

You can always cancel the publication for a configuration or rule. In doing so, the configuration or rule will no longer be live on your site. This action will also result in it becoming unpublished, you will need to send it for publication again.

Let's say we want to cancel the publication for a campaign that is live across our site:

Navigate to the campaigns menu.
Find the published campaign that you want to cancel.
Open the campaign.
Click Cancel Publication from the menu options.

Deactivating a publication

When troubleshooting, you may want to deactivate a rule to see what is causing the results to be displayed on your live site. Deactivating a configuration or rule will put it in a dormant state until it is republished and made active. A deactivate icon status will be shown as red rather than green.

To deactivate a rule or configuration

Navigate to the item
Select the Active/Inactive toggle on the right-hand side of the item so that it is red.
The rule will show as "Editing - inactivate" status. You should send it for publication again, and then activate it, so it is live on your site.

System Publications

Changes to system settings must be published in order for them to be live across the Merchandising Studio. Publishing system settings are dealt with differently from the general feature publications as above. Your system settings are configured during your implementation stage. Changes made to system settings should be supported by your superuser or by a Technical Consultant at Attraqt.

Settings in your Merchandising Studio will display a status much the same as mentioned above.

Every System page will provide you with a status icon and description of the status, if you make any changes to the systems pages, you will need to send the change for publication, and these will be published as described above.

Best practices

Remember to publish your saved changes - if you want them to affect your live site!
Deactivate publications when necessary. This means that the configuration or rule will be available to reactive & re-publish at a future point in time.
Remember to archive any rules or configurations that are not currently required. This can be restored and republished at a later date.
Use labels to classify different rules. This can help keep organised as well as give merchandisers a quick visual reference as to the importance and potential impact of a rule.