Fields

Optimize your Data Feed
A well-maintained and curated data feed is essential for getting the most out of FactFinder. Below is a detailed guide to understanding and managing fields within the system.

What’s it for

The Fields Settings section provides a comprehensive overview of all fields used by FactFinder. It allows users (with appropriate permissions) to:

View field information
Add, remove, or configure fields

Critical settings
Changing fields can severely affect the search functionality. If unsure, contact the Service Desk or Consulting before proceeding.

Location

To access Fields:

Open the side menu in the left part of FactFinder application working area;
Address More Settings… option to access nested options;
Address Fields option in Basic Settings expandable section.

Overview

You can either get a short overview, or also add, modify and delete fields.

Filtering the contents

To manage and navigate fields easily, use the following controls:

Using Fields Visibility Toggle visibility for specific field types.

Rules defined in this section do work all at once.

Using Field information

Choose the type of information displayed in the table.

Each choice defines the set of columns to display.

This filter does not affect the actual list of Entries in the table.

Search field

Search by Name or Field Role attributes.

Hide all Entries

Temporarily hides fields deleted in the current session.

Using Filter field type Show only fields matching selected types.

Field types

Text

The main field type for FactFinder-NG, can contain any unicode sequence. Use dot (.) as a decimal if needed. Use Float instead for purely numeric values.

Alpha-humeric

Can contain letters and numbers. Ideal for IDs like GTINs or article numbers.

Date

Can contain an ISO-8601 or Unix timestamp, or a custom format date (e.g. yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z).

Starting with FactFinder-NG version 3.0, supports configurable date formats for field imports.. You can now define custom date formats directly in the field properties:
Once a format is entered, the system will interpret incoming data:
According to the configured format
Or in standard ISO-8601 format
Or as a Unix timestamp (in milliseconds)
This formatting applies only during data import.
All exported/output dates will still use the ISO-8601 format.

examples:

date format	date after formatting
`"yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss z"`	`2001.07.04 AD at 12:08:56 UTC`
`"yyMMddHHmmssz"`	`010204120822CET`
`"yyMMddHHmmssVV"`	`010204120822Europe/Berlin`
`"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ"`	`2001-07-04T12:08:56.235+0200`
`"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSXXX"`	`2001-07-04T12:08:56.235+02:00`

Float

For numeric fields, which contain floating point numbers (e.g. 24.95)

Integer

For numeric fields, which contain only integers

Multi

For more information about about multi-attribute fields, see Product Export documentation

Category Path

For more information about about category paths, see Product Export documentation

GTIN

Stores GTINs (Global Trade Item Numbers) with a validation according to the regex [0-9]{8,13}

Corresponds to the pattern of EAN-8, EAN-13, GTIN-8 and GTIN-13.

Boolean

Accepts true or false. In the import CSV the value TRUE, True, true or 1 can be used for the boolean "true". FALSE, False, false or 0 in the CSV stand for the boolean value "false", case-insensitive.

Property

For property fields, which contain measuring units. These fields contain a value and a unit, e.g. 0.5kg . Many of the common units for length, mass, speed and time can be used.

Adding a Field / Editing a Field

Enable Channel Configuration Editing to access edit options:

Add Field button becomes available for User.
Preview button changes to Edit button.

In both cases, User would be prompted to fill in, or change, following information:

Field Settings

The fields' settings can be grouped into the 3 categories import settings, field role and search settings.

The import settings:

The field role settings:

The search settings:

The parameter "Weight" in the search settings can be used to de-prioritize fields. The value "0" corresponds to the default weight. A negative value gives less weight to a field. Positive values are not supported.

Info
The field type should always match the content of the field. That means that for example number fields like "Price" should have the type "Float".

Copy (Duplicating) a Field

To Copy an existing field, use the Copy button.

Appearing modal window defines:

The field for which the Copy action was called;
The Channel for which the Copy action should create a duplicate. Chosen Channel can be changed manually by picking a channel from the dropdown menu.

Multiple chosen Channels can be added by clicking Add Channel button.

Once configuration is finished, click Copy to confirm the procedure.

Clicking Cancel discards the changes made in modal window and closes it.

Deleting a Field

To Delete existing field, use the Delete button.

Deleting fields is only available when Channel Configuration Editing is enabled.

Triggers a confirmation modal before deletion is finalized.

Fields Statuses

Status messages appear in the field table to indicate:

Warnings
Errors
Successful changes
Validation issues

Messages appear in corresponding area for particular Field in the table

Following messages may appear:

For More Information

See the FactFinder-NG documentation for details on Multi-attribute fields and Category paths