How to Use Product Attributes and Categories in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations

Product managers and designers can run into confusing problems with product attributes and categories when trying to set up new products or versions in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.

Unfortunately, figuring out how to handle attributes and categories by relying on the Microsoft documentation can be frustrating. When I show clients the ins and outs of this functionality, they appreciate the ability to view their products in a catalog-like structure and customize their product attributes.

Let me show you how to set up product attributes and categories, how to resolve the common problem of missing attributes, and the best way to view a product category hierarchy.

Table of Contents:

• What Are Product Attributes and Categories in D365 F&O?
• How to Set Up Product Attributes and Categories in D365 F&O
• Why Can’t I See the Attribute I Added?
• What’s the Best Way to View a Product Category Hierarchy?

Note: Even though most customers, commentators, and consultants still call it Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations or D365 F&O, Microsoft now technically licenses it as Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

What Are Product Attributes and Categories in D365 F&O?

Product attributes and categories in D365 F&O are a feature of product information management that lets you categorize products and associate custom attributes with them.

A product category hierarchy is a structured classification system used to group and organize products into categories and subcategories, making it easier to manage product data and apply product information more consistently. Product categories can be tailored specifically to the business’s unique needs and allows for full flexibility of the attribute data associated with the products. D365 F&O offers the ability to create multiple category hierarchies; however, only one type, the Commerce product hierarchy, should be used when setting up a product-specific hierarchy.

Businesses may have multiple types of categories, each used by a different department. For example, a procurement team may use a procurement category to structure the products by different vendors or different purchase counties of origin. This allows them to sort a view of products in a way that makes more sense to their duties as purchasers.

Product attributes are specific pieces of information that help define the overall makeup of the product. They can be stored in multiple different data formats: integers, decimals, Booleans, dates, and text. Each one of those product attributes is then grouped into product attribute groups and assigned to a category node on the category hierarchy.

How to Set Up Product Attributes and Categories in D365 F&O

Set up a product category:

Navigate to Product information management  > Categories and attributes  > Category hierarchies.

Click ‘New’.

Enter a name and description of the new product category.

Click ‘Create’.

In the grid, select the created category and click ‘Associate category type’.

In here, we will be able to associate the product category with a system-built association. These associations are a fixed set that relate to different parts of the system and different use cases. For this example, we will be creating a Commerce product hierarchy since that is the most common one that is used by product managers and product designers. It is also worth noting that you can only associate one product category as a Commerce product hierarchy.

To do this, click ‘New’ and select ‘Commerce product hierarchy’ in the type column and the recently created Product category in the Category hierarchy column.

Click on ‘Retail Product Category’ to open the category hierarchy.

Select the category node on the left-hand side menu you want to add a new node on and click ‘New category node’. For example, if I want to add a new node in Menswear, click on it in the tree and then ‘New category node’. Enter the Name, Friendly name, and Description of the new node, and click ‘Save’. Continue until you have added all necessary nodes.

How you specially set up these category nodes will be up to the product manager or product designers at your company. It is worth doing this carefully and thoughtfully because, while you can edit it in the future, it can be difficult or time-consuming to do so. This is because you cannot remove or reorder nodes if there are any Attribute groups or Released products assigned to them.

Set up Product Attributes

Now that we have a valid Commerce product hierarchy setup, we can begin creating product attributes.

First, we will set up product attribute types.

Navigate to Product information management > Categories and attributes > Attribute types.

Attribute types are used to store attribute data on the released product. Multiple different types of attribute data types can be used:

• Text
• Currency
• DateTime
• Decimal
• Integer
• Boolean
• Reference
• Video
• Image

The best and simplest way to initially configure Attribute types is to create a standard Attribute type for each data type. For example, starting with Text, let’s create an Attribute type:

Click ‘New’.

Enter an Attribute type name, set the Type to ‘Text’, and set Fixed list to ‘No’.

This will create a generic Attribute type allowing for the entry of free-text fields.

Let’s repeat the process for other data types:

Enter an Attribute type name, set the Type to ‘Currency’, and set Fixed list to ‘No’.

This will create a generic Attribute type allowing for the entry of any currency data.

Continue to follow this process for all other attribute data types that are needed. Once all are added, we can begin to add more specific attribute data types involving fixed lists and value ranges.

Fixed lists can only exist on Text and Integer Attribute types and are commonly used to store text data that can only contain certain values. For example, an Attribute type could be called ‘Hat-Material’ and would contain a list of all materials used by the company in their production of hats.

To create a fixed list Attribute type, follow the same steps above, but toggle the Fixed list to ‘Yes’ and then create all of the different data values below:

Like Fixed lists, Value ranges can only exist on certain Attribute types, specifically Currency, Decimal, and Integer. To create a new type, follow the same steps as above, then toggle the Value range to Yes, and enter the Value range values:

It is also possible to define a certain unit of measure for Integers and Decimals. This will store the values entered in the Attribute type in that certain unit of measure.

Once you have set up all of your necessary Attribute types, we can begin setting up Attributes. Attributes are what we are going to end up seeing on the Released product, and it is where we will store the product-specific data. It is common to have many more Attributes than you do Attribute types.

To create an Attribute, navigate to Product information management > Categories and attributes > Attributes.

Click ‘New’, select the Attribute type from the drop-down list that best matches the Attribute you are creating, populate the Friendly name (normally the same as the Name), and enter or select the default value.

In this example, I am creating an Attribute that matches the fixed list Attribute type of ‘Hat-Material’ that I created in the previous section.

Continue creating Attributes using the most specific Attribute type available. For Attributes that do not rely on specific Fixed lists or Value ranges, make sure to use the generic Attribute types that we created in the previous section. For example, if you need to create a generic text attribute, possibly for a paragraph of marketing material, create an Attribute that uses the Attribute type of ‘TextDomain’, which was our generic Attribute type for free text.

I would recommend ignoring the ‘Attribute metadata for external search index improvements’ for now. If you need to start looking into what exactly is accomplished by enabling or disabling these toggles, refer to the Microsoft documentation.

Continue adding Attributes until you have created everything that is needed. Once we have created all the Attributes we need, we can begin creating Attribute groups and adding Attributes to those groups.

Navigate to Product information management > Categories and attributes > Attribute groups.

Click ‘New’, enter the Name and the Friendly name, then click ‘Add’ to add Attributes to the Attribute group:

Attribute groups are what we are going to be adding to nodes on the category hierarchy. Those groups contain the Attributes entered here and are what will display on the Released product.

To add an Attribute group to the Category hierarchy, navigate to Retail and commerce > Commerce product hierarchy.

Select the node you want to add a new Attribute group to, expand the Product attribute groups fast-tab, and click ‘Add’:

Find the Attribute group in the list, highlight it, and click the arrow to move it over the selected list. Repeat until you have added all necessary groups. Click ‘Ok’.

The new Attribute group is now available to all products in that category node.

To add a new product to a category, open the Products fast-tab, click ‘Add’ to add manually by product number, or click ‘Add products’ and select the products to add from the list:

Products can also be added to a category via the Released products page. Navigate to Product information management  > Products  > Released products. Open the product record and select Product categories:

Click ‘New’, select Retail Product Category in the Category hierarchy field, and select the correct Category to place the product under:

To view your Product attributes, open the Released product record and select Product attributes:

Once it’s opened, you will see the Attributes associated with that product and their values.

Why Can’t I See the Attribute I Added?

If you cannot see a certain product attribute on a released product, it is due to these three reasons:

• The attribute is not a part of one of the attribute groups associated with the category assigned to the released product, OR
• The attribute group is not associated with the category assigned to the released product, OR
• The released product is not assigned to a category on the Commerce product hierarchy.

What’s the Best Way to View a Product Category Hierarchy?

There are two ways to view the Commerce product hierarchy that we set up in the steps above. Both are used for specific purposes.

The first is through the Retail and commerce module. Navigate to Retail and commerce  > Commerce product hierarchy. Here we can see and edit all of the options associated with each node on the product hierarchy. Earlier, we used this view to associate products with category nodes and assign Product attribute groups. There are many other options and fields you can set here for defaulting released product fields to products in each category. In general, this method of viewing should be used for adding/editing information on each category node.

The second way is to view it through the Product information management module. Navigate to Product information management > Categories and attributes > Category hierarchies. Select the Commerce product hierarchy from the list; in this example, it is named ‘Retail Product Category’ and click ‘Edit’ at the top to open it. In here, you can see the full category tree as well as products associated with each node. However, you will notice there is a lot less information and fewer fields than when viewing it in the Retail and commerce module. The most distinct difference is that in this view, you can add/edit/remove category nodes, which you cannot do in the Retail and commerce module. In general, this view should be used for editing nodes on the category hierarchy tree or reorganizing products associated with those nodes.

Set up, Configure, and Apply Best Practices for Product Attributes and Categories

Get a complete walkthrough on managing Product Attributes and Categories in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations. Check out my recorded webinar below:

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