Inside Akeneo #2 – Data quality & completeness

Another important channel-related mantra to keep in mind for our future users is : « There is no mandatory attribute in Akeneo« . It means that an user will never be prevented to create or save a product because he only has a small part of the required data for your product.

In Akeneo we are making a clear distinction between « working with products » and « exporting products« . PIM is all about product lifecycle – so we believe that it’s perfectly OK to work with incomplete products. But not to export incomplete products.

So we need to define what is a complete product. This definition can vary :

• from a family to another : a TV will not require the same kind of data than a book or a shirt
• from a locale to another : you can have a complete product for your english catalog but still in a translation process for your german one
• from a channel to another : maybe your iPad application doesn’t need the same amount of data than your e-commerce website

In Akeneo, through a very simple screen, you will be able to define very precisely what are the required attributes to consider a product as complete :

Once those requirements defined, you will be able to have some real metrics on your data quality. You will be able to filter products per completeness level or see directly from your product page the completeness of your item