About Products
The ByMe Platform makes it possible for consumers to experience products in a digital manner.
What are these products?
What information do they convey?
How are they managed as a Product Range?
When and where are they visible?
What are the features that make it easier to manage the Range at scale?
Product Information Overview
A ByMe Product is the digital representation of a real-life retail product. As such it conveys:
- Descriptive information: short and long description in various languages, reference
- Commercial information: price(s), availability dates....
- Representation information: 3D Model (geometry or assembly), 2D model and thumbnail images
- Experience information: type, behaviors, rules, application-specific information
Some of these informations are mandatory or not, depending on the ByMe Product type, the application, the chosen range architecture, and the desired behaviors.
Simple product ranges are created easily in the ByMe information structure.
More elaborated Product Ranges may require more advanced notions such as Parameters, Generic Products, Overrides, Rules, etc.
Creating and Updating Products
Products are created and updated by Range Managers in one of the following ways:
- Manually, through 3DCloud
- Programmatically, through the ByMe API
Product Identification
Products are uniquely identified by the "id" attribute, typed String. This identifier is:
- the key to access products through APIs
- the attribute of inter-product pointers such as parameters, as well as catalogs, templates
The id of a product must be unique across all Legal Entities of the ByMe Platform (including potential other ByMe customers), in order to support Cross-Legal Entity product reuse scenarios.
This uniqueness constraint is usually implemented by prefixing ids with the name of the Product’s Legal Entity in order to avoid id collisions.
This attribute was previously referred to as "externalId".
Product Classification and Typing
The ByMe platform provides several dimensions of product typing and classification.
Product / Generic Product: Class
Each product in the ByMe platform is either a (plain) Product or a Generic Product
Generic Products are documented in the corresponding section.
Main Type
The ByMe platform manages four main types of products:
| Main Type | Usage | Representations |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture | Used for furniture items: cabinets, sofas, decoration objects etc. | 3D Display: BMA, BM3 2D Display: BMA, BM3 or SVG |
| Material | Used for shapeless products, such as floor of wall coverings | 2D/3D Display: BM3Mat |
| Stair | Used to represent stairways | 3D Display: BMA, BM3 2D Display: SVG |
| Opening | Used to represent windows, doors, etc. | 3D Display: BMA, BM3 2D Display: SVG |
This main type is not set by the Range Manager, but inferred by the ByMe Platform from the type.
Making Products Visible to End-Users
Product <--> Product Catalog <--> Application Distribution
In order for a product to be visible in a ByMe application distribution,
- The product needs to belong to a product catalog
- The product catalog needs to belong to an application distribution
The product and product catalog must belong to the same Legal Entity.
The lifecycle information must also be properly set.