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Smart Collections

Smart Collections

Also known as Shopify Automated Collections. Those are the Collections, where you attach tts by defining Rules.

See what each field/column from our “Smart Collections” template means including possible allowed values and examples.

Fields marked as “Export Only” cannot be imported/set in Shopify but can be exported with Matrixify export.

Excel Sheet Name

Smart Collections

To tell the app that you are importing Smart Collections you need:

  • If using CSV file then the file name needs to contain the word “Smart Collection”, for example, “my-shopify-smart-collections.csv”
  • If using XLSX file then the sheet/tab name in the file needs to be “Smart Collection”. The file name for the XLSX file does not matter.

Need a quick start?

Download Smart Collections Demo file

See Tutorials about Collections

Smart / Automated Collections Columns Available for Export & Import

Basic Columns

Column Description / Example Value
ID ID is automatically generated number by Shopify to identify the item.
It is filled in by an Export.
When creating new Smart Collection, leave this value empty.

Allowed Values

Number

Example
22920047631
Handle This is what your store visitors will see in the Collection URL address like this:

https://mystore.com/collections/cool-looking-tshirts

URL address has a great impact on SEO, so be sure to give it a meaningful name.
Regardless, what you write here, the app will convert it to lowercase, and remove all non-URL friendly symbols.
You can leave it empty when creating new Collections – in that case, the app will generate it for you from Title.

If the handle will have non-Latin characters like Chinese, Arabic or Russian, or any other language, it will get “transliterated” to the similar-sounding Latin letters by default. You can switch this option off in Options upon importing by unchecking “Transliterate Handles to English alphabet”.

Whatever you will put in the Handle column, the app will convert it to the required Handle format, which is acceptable by Shopify.

When updating Handle the app by default will also create a Redirect from old Handle to the new one. You can turn this off in the Import options with importing a file.

In Shopify, all Handles have a limitation of 255 characters, so any Handle longer than that will be truncated to 255 characters.

Allowed Values

Any characters allowed in a URL

Example
cool-looking-tshirts
Command When importing Smart Collection row – tell the app, what to do with it:

  • NEW: will try to create a new Smart Collection with the provided details. If such Smart Collection will already exist (with the same ID or same Handle), then the result will be Failed.
  • MERGE: will try to find existing Collection, and update it with data from the row. If such Collection will not be found, then it will create new.
  • UPDATE: the app will search for an existing Smart Collection and update it. If an collection cannot be found then it will fail to import.
  • REPLACE: at first, if such Smart Collection with provided ID or Handle exists, then the app will delete it. After that, it will create a new one. If an existing Smart Collection will not be found, then still the app will create a new one. The difference from UPDATE is that it will not keep any of columns, which were not included in the import file since the Smart Collection will be deleted and re-created.
  • DELETE: the app will delete the existing Smart Collection, which is found by ID or Handle. If such Smart Collection will not be found, then the result will be Failed. This DELETE command is very handy for deleting Smart Collections in bulk.
  • IGNORE: the app will ignore this Collection and will skip it.

If no Command is specified, then the app will assume the MERGE command.

Allowed Values
NEW
MERGE
UPDATE
REPLACE
DELETE
IGNORE
Example
MERGE
Title Title of the Collection

Allowed Values

Text

Example
Cool Looking T-shirts
Body HTML This is a long description of the Collection.

You can write here just a plain text or format that text using HTML code.

You can put here additional images, videos, links to other Collections, Products or sites, tables, and so on.

You can learn about HTML capabilities online, for example, W3Schools.com or use some online video courses, like from Treehouse.com or Udemy.com.

The best way to create HTML Description is to write a Description in the Shopify Admin for one Collection, format it as you like, and then do the export. Then you will see how that translates to HTML and will be able to apply the same to other Collections.

The app is also doing some helping with the descriptions automatically to make it easier to use and fix popular issues:

  • Converting text to UTF-8 encoding.
  • Automatically removing invalid characters like “_x000D_” , “” , and such (ask Matrixify Support if there are any other characters invalid that need to be removed).
  • Converting plain text to HTML if this is not an HTML already – so that you have proper newlines and basic formatting.
  • Optionally removing images from HTML (if checkbox enabled in Import Options).
Allowed Values

Text, HTML

Example
Those all are nice T-shirts, and this is their <b>description</b>.
Sort Order This defines, how the Products will be sorted inside that Smart Collection.

Essentially, this is the same as a drop-down choice you have in the Admin, when you edit the Smart Collection.

Allowed Values
Alphabet
Alphabet Descending
Best Selling
Created
Created Descending
Manual
Price
Price Descending
Example
Best Selling
Template Suffix Template Suffix allows you to specify another Template from your Theme for this specific Collection. For example, you might want to specify different template for a Women T-shirts collection, which has different page layout.

Work with your developer to create new Template or read Shopify documentation about adding additional templates for Collections. Once new Template is created, you can set in this column to activate it for needed Collections.

That different template will show as dropdown for Collections in Shopify Admin, when new Collection Template will be created in your Theme. For example, if the new Template file name is “collection.women.liquid”, then – to activate this Template for this Collection, write “women” as the Template Suffix.

Allowed Values

Text

Example
women
Updated At

Export only

  

It will be automatically updated, whenever you change the Collection data.

Allowed Values

Date & Time

Example
2018-12-17 18:20:07 +0200
Published Tells, whether this Collection should be Published on your “Online Store” Sales Channel. If you will set it to FALSE, it will be hidden from Online Store, and clients will not be able to find it.

If you will leave this cell empty, then it will hide that Collection form Online Store.

If Collection is not Published, you can publish it from Shopify Admin by finding this Collection, or importing the update of this column, marking Published to TRUE.

If you will write anything else in this column, the Collection will not get imported, and you will get an error “Bad Request” in Import Results row for this item, just to be safe it was intentional.

Allowed Values
TRUE
FALSE
Example
TRUE
Published At

Export only

 It will be automatically updated, whenever you publish the Smart Collection to Online Store channel.

You cannot set specific publication date.

Allowed Values

Date & Time

Example
2018-12-17 18:20:07 +0200
Published Scope Tells where the Collection is published

  • global: is published on both the Online Store channel and the Point of Sale channel.
  • web: is published only in Online Store channel
Allowed Values
global
web
Example
global
Products Count

Export only

 Number of Products in the Collection.

Allowed Values

Number

Example
5
Row #

Export only

 Will have row number from 1 till the end for each row. So that if you change the sorting in your exported file to easier update your data, you can sort it back by “Row #” and return it to the original sorting. Because, you know, all the item data should be together – and if you change the sorting, you need to sort it back.
Top Row

Export only

 It will have value “TRUE” for each “top row” of the item. That can help you filter in Excel to get only the base rows, in case you need to get rid of repeated rows for each item. Some sheets already had this as Primary Row column earlier, but we have added it now to all the sheets now and renamed to Top Row so it’s more clear.
Image Src Link to the image. This link must be publicly available.

A collection can have only one image.

Once an image is imported, it doesn’t need to be hosted anymore with this link, because Shopify will download this image and store on their own servers.

If you don’t need to update image for Collection, just remove this column from Import file, and it will leave image unchanged when you do your import.

Allowed Values

URL

Example
https://images.com/image.jpg
Image Width

Export only

 The width of the image, in pixels.

Example
1062
Image Height

Export only

 The height of the image, in pixels.

Example
527
Image Alt Text Alt Text for the Collection image. Great for SEO, because then search engines will know, what is inside the image.

Allowed Values

Text

Example
Some descriptive name of the image
Must Match Here you define, how Rules will be applied to Smart Collection – by entering one of those possible values:

  • all conditions: Product is added to Collection, if all Rules are TRUE
  • any condition: Product is added to Collection, if at least one Rule is TRUE

Essentially, it’s the same as in Shopify Admin, when you manually edit the Smart Collection.

Allowed Values
all conditions
any condition
Example
any condition

 

Rules

Each Smart Collection has set of rules, that defines what products go into the automated collection.

Those rules are actually the same, as you can enter in Shopify Admin for collection. The best way to understand how to fill those in, is to enter one through Shopify Admin, and then do the Export. Then in the Excel you will see, what is what, and will be able to repeat that same principle when creating many collections to import in bulk.

For example, to include only Products, which are in stock, Rule will be:

Variant Inventory | Greater Than | 0
Column Description / Example Value
Rule: Product Column Here you define, which Product Column should be the rule applied for.

Those are the same options, which are available in Shopify Admin, when you create the Smart Collection Rule.

Please note, to use Metafields for Rules ensure you are Activating field and values for automated collections

Allowed Values
Title
Type
Category
Vendor
Variant Title
Variant Compare At Price
Variant Weight
Variant Inventory
Variant Price
Tag
Metafield: <namespece.key>
Variant Metafield: <namespece.key>
Example
Metafield: custom.size
Rule: Relation Here you define, what relation should be applied for that product column and the condition.

Those are the same options, which are available in Shopify Admin, when you create the Smart Collection Rule.

There are some limitations and interesting combinations as to which Rule relations can be applied to which columns, and what results you can achieve. Read more about Automated collections.

For Rule “Tag” you can use only the “Equals” relation.

“Is Empty” and “Is Not Empty” can only be used for the “Variant Compare At Price” Rule.

Allowed Values
Greater Than
Less Than
Equals
Not Equals
Starts With
Ends With
Contains
Not Contains
Is Empty
Is Not Empty
Example
Greater Than
Rule: Condition Here you write the condition value you want to set.

Allowed Values

Text

Example
0

Linked Products

Each Smart Collection can have products that are automatically added to that collection – by the rules (conditions).

You can use this data to see which Products are actually in which collections, and you can import those to change the product position in the Smart Collection.

Column Description / Example Value
Product: ID The Product ID from the Shopify. It is used to identify the Product which exists inside the Smart Collection.

Allowed Values

Number

Example
23847628343423
Product: Handle The Handle of the Product. It functions as an alternative way to identify the product if it cannot be found by Product ID. Especially useful when sorting products among different shops where you don’t know the ID of the product.

Allowed Values

Text

Example
t-shirt-red
Product: Position The position of the product in that collection. If you have any values with empty value here, then those will keep their order as they appear in the import file.

The position value will be shown only when “Sort Order” is set to “Manual”.

Allowed Values

Number

Example
5

Metafields

Read the description on the Metafields page.

SEO Fields

SEO fields are actually Metafields with the following names:

  • SEO Title Metafield name is “Metafield: title_tag”
  • SEO Description Metafield name is “Metafield: description_tag”

Export Filters

In the Matrixify app, you can apply filters to Export only specific items from your Shopify Store.
When creating new export, select what you wish to export, and under that entity click on the “Filters” button.

Note: total displayed item count and estimated time won’t be affected by the filters applied.

Filter Description
Handle Allows you to export specific collections by their Handles, separated by a comma.

Possible Conditions
  • equals to any of
  • contains any of
  • contains none of
Example
my-collection-handle, other-collection-handle
Title Allows you to export Products whose Title contains specific text.

“Matches pattern” condition allows entering wildcard symbols.
* – asterisk symbol will represent any amount of any characters
? – question mark will represent any one character

Possible Conditions
  • contains any of
  • equals to any of
  • matches pattern
  • contains none of
Example
Part of Title, other title
Title * End of Title
Updated At Allows exporting Collections which were last updated in the Shopify within a specific date range.Relative date condition allows you to export Collections that have been updated in the last full amount of time.

For example – Last 1 Days, would export Collections from last full day, so yesterday.

Possible Conditions
  • on or after
  • on or before
  • date range
  • relative date
Published At Allows exporting Collections which were published in the Shopify within a specific date range.Relative date condition allows you to export Collections that have been published in the last full amount of time.

For example – Last 1 Days, would export Collections from last full day, so yesterday.

Possible Conditions
  • on or after
  • on or before
  • date range
  • relative date
Products Count With the “Products Count” filter you can export collections that have a specific amount of Product in it based on your set condition.

Possible Conditions
  • equals
  • less than
  • less than or equal to
  • greater than
  • greater than or equal to
  • between
Example
5
Metafield Filters the Orders export by Collections Metafields.

Specify Metafield by:

  • Namespace
  • Key
  • Value
Possible Conditions for Text value
  • equals to any of
  • not equal to any of
  • contains any of
  • contains all of
  • contains none of
  • matches pattern
  • contains
  • does not contain
  • is empty
  • is not empty
Possible Conditions for Number value
  • equals
  • less than
  • less than or equal to
  • greater than
  • greater than or equal to
  • between
  • is empty
  • is not empty

 

Good To Know

  • To import several rules for each Smart Collection, just repeat the row with at least the same ID, Handle or Title (whichever comes first), and set the Rule values. You don’t have to delete contents of base rows – that makes copying easier.
  • To not update some columns, remove those columns from the Excel file. Then the Import will not touch them.
  • If you will have the Column with an empty value, then this column will be changed to empty.
  • You can have an unlimited count of Metafields.

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