Overview

The interface

The sidebar and the header look the same on every PIM screen, and between them you move around, search, switch organization and open your account.

Every screen in the PIM has the same frame around it. A sidebar down the left takes you between the parts of the product. A header across the top names where you are and has your account on it. A strip under the header shows anything the PIM needs to tell your whole organization. Everything below that is the page you opened, and it is the only part that scrolls.

You use the frame for two kinds of thing. The first is getting somewhere, which is the sidebar, the second list inside a section, and the search in the header. The second is everything that is not about one screen. That covers which organization you are in, who you are signed in as, which emails you get, and what an import you left running did.

The frame is on every screen and there is nothing to set up. It folds up in a browser window under 900 pixels wide, and on a phone, and each section below says what moves.

Before you start

Your role decides two things about the frame, and nothing else on this page depends on it.

What you are looking for	The role you need
`Integrations` in the sidebar	Admin
`Data Sources` in the `Uploads` list	Manager or Admin

So the sidebar has six entries for an Admin and five for everyone else. Your role is set per organization and per product, which is why the same account can see both of those in one organization and neither in another. Roles are set in team, roles and permissions.

How to find your way around

Pick a section in the sidebar
The sidebar runs down the left of every screen. Click one of its entries: Home, Catalog, Assets, Reports, Uploads or Integrations. The one you are in stays marked while you work.
Pick a page in the section's own list
Catalog and Uploads open with a second list, between the sidebar and the page. Click an entry in it, such as Brands under Catalog.
Search instead of clicking
Search is at the right end of the header, and it is there on every screen. Click it, or press Ctrl+K, which reads ⌘K on a Mac.
Open your account from the avatar
Your avatar is the circle at the far right of the header. Click it for Docs, Feedback, Homepage, Settings and Sign out.

That is the whole frame. Two lists on the left get you to a screen, and the header gets you to search and to your account. Anything the PIM needs to tell you arrives on its own.

Everything below explains those pieces one at a time, and the last two sections cover the messages that appear over your page. You do not need any of it to move around.

Every option in detail

The sidebar

The sidebar runs down the left of every screen, with your organization at the top of it and the sections of the PIM under that. A short bar marks the entry you are in.

The entries and their order are fixed. You cannot add one, hide one, rename one or drag one into a different position, and no setting anywhere in the PIM changes that.

What each section has in it, and which of them your role opens, is the table in getting started with PIM.

The second list inside a section

Two sections open with a list of their own, between the sidebar and the page. That list is how you open the screens inside the section.

Section	What its own list has
`Catalog`	`Products`, `Brands`, `Categories`, `Tags` and `Specifications`
`Specifications`, itself an entry under `Catalog`	A third list: `Groups`, `Definitions` and `Values`
`Uploads`	`Imports` and `Exports`, plus `Data Sources` for Manager and Admin

Imports and Exports switch without loading a page, so moving between those two is instant. Every other entry in these lists opens a page of its own.

The page title in the header follows this list rather than the sidebar. Open Brands under Catalog and the header reads Brands, not Catalog.

Switching organizations

The card at the very top of the sidebar is the organization switcher. It shows the name of the organization you are working in, a badge, and a pair of small arrows.

Click that card and a panel opens under a heading reading Organizations, listing every organization your account is in. A check mark is beside the one you are already in, and that row cannot be clicked.

Click any other name and the PIM switches to it. Your catalog, your assets, your uploads, your integrations and your reports all change at once, because everything in the PIM is owned by one organization.

Create Organization is at the bottom of that same panel. Clicking it sends you to the account app, because organizations are made there and not here.

Your role is set per organization and per product, so switching can change what your sidebar shows. An account that is Admin in one organization and Editor in another loses the Integrations entry on the way across.

What the badge beside your organization name is telling you

The badge names what the organization is on. It reads Trial while a trial is running, and Free when the organization is on no paid plan. Otherwise it names the plan itself, and plans and billing explains where that name comes from.

The header

The header runs across the top of every screen, to the right of the sidebar. It names where you are on the left and has your account on the right.

Control	Where it is	What it does
The page title	The far left	Names the screen you are on, and keeps up as you move
The screen’s own control	Right of the title	A table puts its saved views picker there once you have saved a view, and `Reports` puts its date range there. Most screens leave the space empty
`Search`	Right of that	Opens search over your whole catalog
The apps grid	Right of `Search`	A button of small squares, named `Tools`. It opens the Ready for Commerce launcher in the account app
Your avatar	The far right	Opens the menu below

Your avatar is the circle at the far right of the header, showing your initials. Click it and a short menu opens.

Item	Where it takes you
Your name, with your role under it	Your profile in the account app
`Docs`	This documentation
`Feedback`	The form further down this page
`Homepage`	The Ready for Commerce website
`Settings`	The PIM’s own settings, further down this page
`Sign out`	Ends your session

The name at the top is your first and last name, or your email address when you have not set a name, with your role in the PIM under it.

Settings and Feedback open over the page instead of taking you off it. Whatever you had open stays open behind them, and Esc closes them again.

Sign out signs you out of every Ready for Commerce app, not only the PIM, and takes you to the sign-in screen. Signing in again gets all of them back.

Sending someone a link right to Settings or to the feedback form

Both dialogs have an address of their own even though they open over the page, so either one can be pasted into a message to a teammate.

The feedback form goes further and fills its Type, Priority and Subject from that address, so a link can arrive with the form already started.

Choosing light or dark, and which emails you get

Settings in the avatar menu opens a dialog with two sections listed down its left side: Notifications and Appearance. Those two are everything the PIM keeps about you. Your name, your team, your organization and your plan are in the account app.

Appearance has one control, Color Mode, with Light, Dark and System, where System follows whatever your computer is set to. The header has no switch for this, so Appearance is the only place you can set it.

Your choice is kept in the browser you are using and not on your account, so it does not follow you to another computer.

Notifications has four switches, in two groups. All four start on, all four can be turned off, and each one saves the moment you flip it.

Group	The switches in it
`Integrations & Sync`	`Connection issues`, and `Sync errors`
`System`	`Export ready`, and `Import complete`

What each of the four notification switches sends you an email about

Switch	You get an email when
`Connection issues`	An connected account needs reconnecting or reauthorizing
`Sync errors`	A sync of your catalog or your data runs into a problem
`Export ready`	An export you asked for is ready to download
`Import complete`	An import finishes

Those four cover the PIM’s own work. The email Ready for Commerce sends you about your account, your team and your billing is a separate set of switches in the account app, listed in profile and preferences.

Sending us feedback

Feedback in the avatar menu opens a dialog called Send Feedback. It is the only way to write to us from inside the PIM, which has no chat and no help button.

Field	What you put in it
`Type`	`Bug Report`, `Feature Request`, `Improvement`, `Question` or `Other`
`Priority`	`Low`, `Medium`, `High` or `Critical`
`Subject`	One line summing it up
`Description`	What happened, or what you would like
`Attachments`	Screenshots, a screen recording or a PDF, dropped on the box or picked from your computer. `From URL` adds one by address instead

Everything above the attachments is required. Submit sends it and Cancel closes without sending. While it is sending you cannot close the dialog, so Esc and clicking outside both stop working until it is done.

What you send comes to us as an email, and it goes one way. There is no ticket number, nothing to check on later, and no reply inside the app.

Every kind of file you can attach

.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .webp, .mp4, .webm, .mov and .pdf.

Drop anything else on the box and it is rejected right there, with a message listing what is accepted.

On a phone or a narrow window

Under 900 pixels wide the frame folds up, and it unfolds again the moment the dialog is wide enough.

What	Where it goes
The sidebar	Behind a menu button at the top left of the header. It closes itself as soon as you pick something out of it
A section’s own list	Behind the page title, which becomes a button with a small arrow. Press it and the list slides up from the bottom of the screen
The screen’s own control	Stays beside the title

Limits

What	Limit
A feedback subject	200 characters
A feedback description	5,000 characters
Attachments on one message	5
One attachment	10 MB
How long a message at the bottom of the screen stays	5 seconds
Where the frame folds up	900 pixels wide

What the interface cannot do

You cannot	Do this instead
Reorder, rename or hide a sidebar entry	Nothing. The entries and their order are the same for everyone
Switch light and dark from the header	Open `Settings` from the avatar menu and go to `Appearance`
Close a banner	Fix what it names, and the banner goes on its own
Read a message at the bottom of the screen after it clears	Turn the matching email on in `Settings`, under `Notifications`
Create an organization here	`Create Organization` in the switcher sends you to the account app
Change your name, your team, your organization or your plan here	All four are in the account app
Follow up on feedback you sent	Send another one

What appears over your page

Two kinds of message find you wherever you are in the PIM, and neither one is tied to the screen you happen to be on.

A banner appears in a strip between the header and your page, and it stays there until the thing it names is fixed. A short message appears at the bottom of the screen when something running in the background ends, and clears itself.

When no banner applies there is no strip at all, so most days you will see neither.

Billing banners

One billing banner shows at a time, and it is the most serious one that currently applies. They are listed here in that order, most serious first.

Title	It appears when
`Subscription Canceled`	The subscription was canceled and the product is locked
`Payment Failed`	The payment is past due
`Trial Ended`, or `Subscription Paused`	The trial ran out, or the subscription was paused for another reason
`Trial Ends Tomorrow`	1 day of trial is left and no payment method is on file
A title counting the days of trial left	Between 2 and 7 days are left and no payment method is on file

The last two are the only ones you can stop before they arrive. Add a payment method and neither of them appears at all.

Everyone in the organization sees the banner. An Admin gets it with a button on it. That button reads Add Payment, Update Payment or Manage Billing, depending on the state, and all three open the account app.

Everyone else reads the same warning with a line telling them to contact the organization owner, who is the one person who can change a subscription.

A blocked organization is not thrown out of the product. You keep the app, in whatever state the subscription allows, and the banner tells you the rest. What each state stops is worked through in plans and billing.

Repricer coverage banners

Two more banners appear only for an Admin, and only when your PIM and your Repricer disagree about a connected account. Each one names the accounts it is about.

Title	It appears when	The button on it
`Activate the Repricer integration`	The same connected account is connected in both products while the link between them is off, so both are publishing prices to the same place and can overwrite each other	`Activate integration`, which opens the Repricer integration here
`Integration connected only in the Repricer`	An connected account exists in the Repricer and not here, so the two cannot be paired	`Connect integration`, which goes right to that integration’s connect screen. Where more than one integration is involved it reads `View integrations` and takes you to the list

Both of these wait while a billing banner is up, and appear once that one is gone.

No banner of either kind has a close button, and none of them needs a reload. The strip works out what applies on its own, within a minute of anything changing.

Messages at the bottom of the screen

Work that runs in the background reports itself with a short message at the bottom of the screen, on whatever page you happen to be on. The message clears itself after 5 seconds.

Message	It appears when
`Import completed`, `Import failed` or `Import cancelled`	A file import ends
`Export completed`, `Export failed` or `Export cancelled`	An export ends
`Sync completed`, `Sync failed` or `Sync cancelled`	A sync with an integration ends
`Bulk action completed`, `Bulk action failed` or `Bulk action cancelled`	A bulk action over a selection ends

A failure is shown as an error and a cancellation as plain information, and neither one stops what you are doing.

These messages cover your whole organization, not only your own work. A teammate’s import finishing raises one on your screen too, which is why you can see one for something you did not start.

A bulk action you started and stayed with reports itself through the message that was already showing you its progress. This one only appears when you had moved on to another screen before it ended.

A message only appears if you have the PIM open when the work ends. Nothing is kept and there is no history, so email is what tells you about work that finished while you were away.

When something goes wrong

A banner is still there after you fixed it

The strip works out what applies within a minute, so give it that long before reloading. If the banner is still up after that, the thing it names is still true. Either a payment method you added in the account app has not been accepted, or the Repricer account it points at is still not connected here.

A message in the feedback form

Message	What to do
`This field is required`	You left `Subject` or `Description` empty. Fill it in
`Invalid value`	You left `Type` or `Priority` unpicked. Pick one of each
`Must be at least 3 characters`	Your `Subject` is too short
`Must be at least 10 characters`	Your `Description` is too short
`File type not accepted`, with a list of what is	The file is not one of the kinds listed further up. Convert it, or describe it in words instead
`File is too large`, with a size	The file is over 10 MB. Send a shorter recording, or a screenshot
`Maximum number of files reached`	You already attached 5. Remove one first
`Failed to submit feedback.`	Nothing was sent, so try again
`Something went wrong. Please try again.`	Nothing was sent, so try again

When it does send, a message at the bottom of the screen tells you so and the dialog closes itself.

A notification switch will not stay flipped

Failed to update preference appears at the bottom of the screen and the switch goes back to where it was. Nothing was saved, so flip it again.

If the whole section shows Unable to load notification settings instead of the switches, close Settings from the avatar menu and open it again.

No one told you an import or an export finished

You did not have the PIM open at the moment it ended, and nothing keeps a history of those messages. Email is the part that finds you either way.

Open Settings from the avatar menu, go to Notifications, and turn on Import complete and Export ready.