Quality

Quality checks the product data of your shop for known problems, for example missing images, short texts or products without a category. Every problem found is an issue. You can fix issues product by product or for many products at once, mark them as intended, or hand them out as tasks. plinth keeps a history, so you see whether the data gets better.

Where to find it

The module has three entries in the menu:

• Products > Quality: the overview with all checks and figures.
• Products > Product by product: fix one product after the other.
• Products > My tasks: the tasks assigned to you.

More pages open from buttons at the top right of the overview: History, Bulk edit and Scan now. The list All issues opens when you click a brand or an editor in the overview.

What you need

Your administrator gives you the rights in the group Quality, see Access. Which right you need depends on what you want to do:

You also need:

• A shop that is connected to plinth, see Onboarding.
• A shop that is not read-only if you want to fix something. Looking at issues also works in a read-only shop.
• An AI key and the switched-on AI feature Category suggestions (data quality) if you want AI suggestions for categories, see AI. Everything else works without AI.

How do I read the overview?

1. Open Products > Quality.
2. Look at the tiles at the top. Healthy is the share of active products without a critical or high issue. The other tiles count the open issues by severity.
3. Click a tile to show only the checks of this severity. Click a chip below the tiles to show only one area.
4. Read the table. Each row is one check. Open counts the issues that still need fixing, New the ones found since the last scan, Fixed the ones the last scan no longer found.
5. Click the arrow at the start of a row to read what the check means and to see a few example products.
6. Click the name of a check to open its list of issues.

Below the table you see the open issues per brand and per editor. An editor is the person who last edited a product.

Severity

Areas of checks

The checks are sorted into areas. You find them as chips in the overview and in the column Area.

Each check explains itself in its detail row. Where a guide exists, the link Guide to this check leads to it.

How do I start a scan?

A scan checks all products again. By default it runs every night on its own.

1. Open Products > Quality.
2. Click Scan now.
3. Wait until the banner Scan running disappears. This can take a few minutes. You find the scan under Jobs as well.

Between two scans plinth also checks the products that were changed in the shop, so the lists stay current during the day.

How do I work through a list of issues?

1. Open a check from the overview.
2. Use the search field to filter by number, name or issue. Use Brand to show one brand only.
3. Choose a tab: Open shows what still needs fixing, Exceptions what was marked as intended, Fixed what a later scan no longer found.
4. Click a product, or Fix at the end of the row, to open it in Product by product.

Mark an issue as intended

Some issues are fine as they are. Mark them as an exception. They then no longer count as open.

1. In the tab Open, tick the products.
2. Enter a note if you like.
3. Click Yes, OK (exception).

To take an exception back, open the tab Exceptions, tick the products and click Withdraw exception.

How do I fix products one after the other?

1. Open Products > Product by product, or click Product by product in the overview. plinth opens the product with the most serious issues.
2. Read the issues in each section: Name and brand, Search engines, Description, Visibility, Other issues. Sections without an issue are marked fine.
3. Correct the fields. For SEO title and meta description plinth shows a suggestion below the field.
4. Click Save and continue. plinth saves to the shop, checks the product again and opens the next one.
5. Click Skip to go to the next product without saving.

Check again now reads the product from the shop again and checks it right away. Open in Shopware opens it in the Shopware administration.

Note: Categories, properties and changes for several products at once are done in Bulk edit, not here.

How do I fix many issues at once?

A bulk fix changes many products in one step. It always shows a preview first, writes only after you confirm and can be undone.

1. Open a check from the overview. Below the explanation you see Fix with: and the fixes that fit this check.
2. Click Fix all … of this check to take every open issue. To take only some, tick the products in the list and click Fix selected: ….
3. Fill in what the fix asks for, for example a category, a manufacturer or a text template.
4. Choose Selected products or all matches.
5. Click Preview. plinth shows the old and the new value per product. Nothing is written yet.
6. Enter the number of products in To confirm, enter the number of products.
7. Tick Dry run (writes nothing) if you want to test the run first.
8. Click Apply. The fix runs in the background; you see the progress on the page.

You can also start from Bulk edit in the overview. There you first pick the type of fix.

Note: Large fixes need a second person. The fix then waits with the status awaiting approval. Someone else with the right Approve bulk fixes opens Fixes (audit log) and clicks Approve. The limit is set in the settings.

Rule or AI

Each fix shows its method:

• Rule: the result comes from fixed rules, templates or the value you pick. Nothing is sent to an AI. Most fixes work only this way.
• AI suggestion: the AI proposes a value per product. This exists for Assign category and Set main category.

To use suggestions for categories:

1. Click Suggest by rules or Suggest with AI.
2. With AI, plinth first shows how many products are sent and the estimated cost. Confirm with Ask the AI.
3. Check the column Proposed category. Change any row, or clear a row to skip the product.
4. Go on with Preview as described above.

The AI only gets product name, brand and category names. A suggestion is never written without your preview and confirmation.

Undo a fix

1. Open Fixes (audit log) from a bulk fix page.
2. Find the run. You see who started it, when, and how many entries were written.
3. Click Undo. The products go back to the state before the fix.

How do I check the EANs of my products?

Every scan checks all EANs of the shop. The results are in the overview under Products > Quality in the areas Legal and Duplicates. Type "EAN" into the field Search checks or click the chip of the area.

How to proceed:

1. Click the name of the check in the overview. The list names the EAN in each row and, for invalid EANs, the reason, for example wrong check digit (should be ...) or length ... instead of 8, 12, 13 or 14.
2. For EAN with leading or trailing spaces, click Clean up EANs under Fix with:, check the preview and click Apply, see How do I fix many issues at once?.
3. You correct the other issues at the source, usually in the ERP. After the next scan they are listed under Fixed.
4. If an issue is intended, mark it with Yes, OK (exception).

Note: If the reason says destroyed by a spreadsheet (scientific notation, digits lost), Excel turned the EAN into a number like 4.01E+12. The real digits are lost. Look up the EAN with the supplier and format the column as text in future.

New products get their EAN from the import file. You assign your own product number to an EAN with EAN to SKU.

How do I set the main category?

The check for the main category has its own rule and report.

1. Open the check from the overview and click Rule report. The report is a dry run: it shows what the rule would do and writes nothing.
2. Read the three tiles. To set: products that get a main category. Keep: products whose main category is valid. Need a person: products the rule does not decide.
3. To see how the rule judges one product, enter its number under Test the rule and click Test.
4. Click Set main category to open the bulk fix.
5. Under Apply to, choose the products the rule decides, then use Preview and Apply.
6. For the products that need a person, pick the category per row, or use the suggestion buttons. Then choose the second option under Apply to and use Preview and Apply again.

Campaign categories such as sale pages never become a main category. Which categories count as campaign categories is set in the settings.

How do I work with tasks?

Complete my tasks

1. Open Products > My tasks.
2. Open a task. You see its products, comments and reminders.
3. Click Start work, then fix the products with Fix.
4. Click Mark as done and verify. plinth checks the products again. If all are fixed or marked as exceptions, the task is done. Otherwise it stays open and a comment lists the open products.

A task without a linked check has the button Mark as done instead; nothing is checked then. With Remind you set a reminder for a day.

Create and assign tasks

You need the right Assign and review tasks.

1. For single products: tick them in an issue list and click Create task. Or click New task in the task list.
2. Enter Title, Assigned to, Due and Priority, then click Create task.
3. For a whole check: click Assign tasks in the task list. Choose the check, split by brand or category, select people or teams under Distribute to and click Create tasks.

How do I see the history?

1. Open Products > Quality and click History.
2. Choose the period: 7, 30 or 90 days.
3. Read the charts for Healthy and Open issues and the comparison per brand and per editor. They appear after the second scan.

How do I export issues as CSV?

1. Open a check from the overview.
2. Click CSV export. The file contains the open issues of this check and opens in Excel.

On the rule report of the main category, CSV: needs a person exports the products that need a person. There is no CSV import in this module.

How do I change the settings?

You need the right Change quality settings.

1. Open Setup in the user menu and choose Campaign categories, or click Change in the settings on the rule report.
2. Go through the sections, for example Schedule, Scope and approval, Required fields in the shop, Images, Names and texts and Disable checks. Every row explains what it does.
3. Click Save at the end of the page.

Useful settings:

• Nightly scan switches the automatic scan on or off.
• Approval from this many products sets from which size a bulk fix needs a second person.

How current is the data?

plinth keeps a copy of the shop data and updates it every few minutes. At the top of each page you see As of … with the time of the last update, and Last scan: … in the overview.

• Loading shop data: the first sync is still running. The lists fill when it is done.
• Changes in the queue: …: changes from the shop that are not checked yet.
• To refresh one product right away, open it and click Check again now. To refresh everything, click Scan now.

Common errors and fixes

See also

• Products
• Bulk
• AI