Product Domain

The Product domain within Open Cloud MDM serves as an operational hub dedicated to the management of product definitions. It plays a pivotal role in creating and maintaining a comprehensive product catalog that remains accessible to various systems across the enterprise.

At its core, the Product domain offers a range of essential product services. These services empower enterprises to effectively manage their operational product data. This data encompasses fundamental product details, unique product identifiers, key product administration system keys, and intricate product relationships. Additionally, the domain facilitates the management of product type hierarchies, utilizing a combination of rigid product subtypes, including Goods, Services, Financial, and Insurance, and adaptable soft product types, which are handled through Specs.

Specs, short for specifications, represent a critical mechanism within the system. They allow for the inclusion of attributes that are not pre-defined within the object model. Specs serve to define the hierarchical structure of dynamic attributes, specify their data types, and provide essential metadata through the use of XSD (XML Schema Definition) technology.

Furthermore, products within the Product domain can undergo categorization. Categorization is the process of classifying a product into specific categories. This procedure involves establishing associations between products and relevant categories. Importantly, a single product may belong to multiple categories, and these associations can span across various hierarchical structures. This versatile categorization approach ensures that products are effectively organized and readily accessible within the catalog.

Brief Overview of Core Features

Party Product Roles

• Purpose: Facilitates the management of associations between parties (entities) and products within an organization.
• Key Aspects: Allows parties to assume various roles related to specific products, such as vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, etc.
• Uses: Vendor management, supplier relationships, manufacturing partnerships, retailer-product associations, item analysis and quality control, and distribution network organization.

Product Category Attributes

• Purpose: Enables the capture and management of additional data associated with products, particularly focusing on dynamic or soft attributes based on product categorization.
• Key Aspects: Works in synergy with Category Hierarchies to define unique attributes for different products.
• Uses: Retail product detailing, e-commerce customization, automotive specifications, food product information, healthcare product characteristics, and consumer electronics specifications.

Product Categories and Hierarchies

• Purpose: Offers capabilities to classify products into organized hierarchical structures and manage product categories within these hierarchies.
• Key Aspects: Hierarchical classification, category management, product mapping, search functionality, category administration system keys, and cross-hierarchy associations.
• Uses: Retail product classification, manufacturing component organization, e-commerce product listings, pharmaceutical product classification, food industry categorization, and automotive parts inventory.

Product Equivalencies

• Purpose: Manages products that exist in multiple systems by establishing connections between them to ensure data consistency and interoperability.
• Key Aspects: Cross-system product identification, flexible identifier storage, data consistency, interoperability, and banking and financial applications.
• Uses: Cross-platform e-commerce, global retail chains, healthcare systems integration, manufacturing and supply chain, financial services, multi-system integration projects, and data migration/system upgrades.

Product Type Hierarchy

• Purpose: Defines a structured hierarchy of product types, each associated with specific sets of attributes, for organizing and categorizing products based on characteristics.
• Key Aspects: Predefined hardened product types, customization, subtyping, attachment of specifications (specs), and cascading specs.
• Uses: Banking product classification, retail merchandise categorization, manufacturing variants differentiation.

Product Identifiers

• Purpose: Manages known product identifiers assigned by third-party organizations or standards bodies to ensure accurate product identification, tracking, and interoperability.
• Examples: NSIN, CUSIP, ISIN, GTIN, UPC, NDC, part numbers, and barcodes.
• Uses: Financial services, retail and supply chain, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and production, and adherence to cross-industry standards (GS1, UNSPSC).

Product Relationships and Structures

• Purpose: Organizing and managing product information through relationships.
• Key Elements: Creation of relationships between products, mandatory relationship types, and root-variant product structures.
• Uses: Cross-selling, product bundling, complex product assemblies, identifying components, product family management, and customized offerings.

Product Search

• Purpose: Efficiently searching for products based on various criteria.
• Key Components: Primary and secondary search criteria, support for wildcard and look-alike searches, operators for soft criteria, optional inquiry levels, and category hierarchy searches.
• Uses: Product catalog management, customer support, sales and marketing, inventory management, category analysis, localized marketing, e-commerce support, and reporting.

Product Terms and Conditions

• Purpose: Managing terms and conditions associated with products and agreements.
• Key Aspects: Static and structured data, association with products and agreements, hierarchy and sub-conditions, and inheritance and overrides.
• Uses: Defining product offerings, legal compliance, specifying service level agreements, customization for managed accounts, dynamic rule evaluation, risk mitigation, contractual relationships, and audit tracking.

Resolution of Suspected Duplicate Products

• Purpose: Identifying and resolving potential duplicate product entities.
• Key Aspects: Identification of suspected duplicates, extension to other domains, support for Data Stewards, and resolution operations.
• Use Example: Resolving multiple entries for the same product to maintain data integrity.
• Configuration: Customizable behavior to align with data governance practices and business requirements.