Extra data in feeds

Mapping a property as an extraData

Sometimes your product/content feed has information you need to present that doesn't fit into the default fields, but you still need to include them. In this particular case they can be stored as ExtraData

Types of extraData

Data Type	Container
String, Number, or Boolean	extraData
Number (for filtering)	extraDataNumber
String Array	extraDataList

In the following example data, the product feed includes SKU value. SKU exists at the root of the product object, so we map it like we did with the direct child property in the very first example.

{
    "type": "product_page",
    "id": "{product id}",
    "sku": "{product sku}", 
    "productLink": "<https://example-shop.com/product/party-hat>",
    "prices":{
        "defaultPrice": 200,
        "originalPrice": 180,
    }
}

SKU is not a native variable to Hello Retail, and so we cannot map it directly in the return object in the feed.

In order to map non-native variables, we use a "container" field named extraData to store the mapped non-native variables.

function transform(product:any): TransformationResult {
    return {
        ...product, 
        extraData:{
            sku: product.sku
        }
    };
}

When to use extraData and extraDataNumber

extraDataNumber is a separate container for handling numbers for filtering like search ranges and comparisons in search results.

In this example we have a size property for a party vest:

{
    "type": "product_page",
    "id": "{product id}",
    "size": 32,
    "productLink": "<https://example-shop.com/product/party-vest>",
    "prices":{
        "defaultPrice": 200,
        "originalPrice": 180,
    }
}

We could have put this in extraData as well, but if we'd want to make a search range later, we use extraDataNumber instead:

function transform(product:any): TransformationResult {
    return {
        ...product,
        extraDataNumber:{
            size: product.size
        }
    };
}

Mapping a property as an extraDataList

In this example data, we have a number of color variants, defined in colors:

{
    "type": "product_page",
    "id": "{product id}",
    "colors": ["red","purple","yellow"]
    "productLink": "<https://example-shop.com/product/party-hat>",
    "prices":{
        "defaultPrice": 200,
        "originalPrice": 180,
    }
}

Because the colors property is a String Array, it is not possible for us to assign it to extraData. We must instead assign it to an extraDataList.

function transform(product:any): TransformationResult {
    return {
        ...product,
        extraDataList:{
            colors: product.colors
        }
    };
}

Mapping a single property from an array

Let's assume we had some meta data that we wanted to cherry pick from, to set an extraData value:

{
    "type": "product_page",
    "id": "{product id}",
    "metadata": ["red","hat","party"],
    "productLink": "<https://example-shop.com/product/party-hat>",
    "prices":{
        "defaultPrice": 200,
        "originalPrice": 180,
    }
}

Since the transformer is using standard javascript we can choose to map single properties out of arrays:

function transform(product:any): TransformationResult {
    return {
        ...product,
        extraData:{
            type: product.meta[1] 
        }
    };
}

Mapping a property that has special characters or spaces

In this example we have an attributes object containing properties with spaces and language specific letters.

{
    /* data from previous examples... */
    "attributes":{
        "sko mærke": "Adidas",
    }
}

This approach is similar to selecting values from an array:

function transform(product:any): TransformationResult {
    return {
        ...product, 
        extraData: {
            shoeBrand: product.attributes["sko mærke"] 
        }
    };
}