Product Sync

The module used for importing/syncing Products into a commercetools project. It also provides utilities for generating update actions based on the comparison of a ProductProjection against a ProductDraft.

• Usage
• Prerequisites
  • SphereClient
  • Required Fields
  • Reference Resolution
  • Syncing from a commercetools project
  • Syncing from an external resource
  • SyncOptions
  • errorCallback
  • warningCallback
  • beforeUpdateCallback
  • beforeCreateCallback
  • batchSize
  • cacheSize
  • syncFilter
  • ensureChannels
• Running the sync
  • Persistence of ProductDrafts with Irresolvable References
  • More examples of how to use the sync
• Build all update actions
• Build particular update action(s)
• Caveats

Usage

Prerequisites

SphereClient

Use the ClientConfigurationUtils which apply the best practices for SphereClient creation. If you have custom requirements for the sphere client creation, have a look into the Important Usage Tips.

final SphereClientConfig clientConfig = SphereClientConfig.of("project-key", "client-id", "client-secret");

final SphereClient sphereClient = ClientConfigurationUtils.createClient(clientConfig);

Required Fields

The following fields are required to be set in, otherwise, they won't be matched by sync:

Draft	Required Fields	Note
ProductDraft	key	Also, the products in the target project are expected to have the key fields set.
ProductVariantDraft	key, sku	Also, all the variants in the target project are expected to have the key and sku fields set.

Reference Resolution

In commercetools, a reference can be created by providing the key instead of the ID with the type ResourceIdentifier. When the reference key is provided with a ResourceIdentifier, the sync will resolve the resource with the given key and use the ID of the found resource to create or update a reference. Therefore, in order to resolve the actual ids of those references in the sync process, ResourceIdentifiers with their keys have to be supplied.

Reference Field	Type
productType - Required	ResourceIdentifier to a ProductType
categories	Set of ResourceIdentifier for a Category
taxCategory	ResourceIdentifier to a TaxCategory
state	ResourceIdentifier for a State
variants.prices.channel	ResourceIdentifier to a Channel
variants.prices.customerGroup	ResourceIdentifier to a CustomerGroup
variants.prices.custom.type	ResourceIdentifier to a Type
variants.assets.custom.type	ResourceIdentifier to a Type
variants.attributes *	Only the attributes with type ReferenceType, SetType with elementType as ReferenceType and NestedType requires key on the id field of the ReferenceType.

Note that a reference without the key field will be considered as existing resource on the target commercetools project and the library will issue an update/create an API request without reference resolution.

Syncing from a commercetools project

When syncing from a source commercetools project, you can use toProductDrafts method that transforms(resolves by querying and caching key-id pairs) and maps from a Product to ProductDraft using cache in order to make them ready for reference resolution by the sync, for example:

// Build a ProductQuery for fetching products from a source CTP project without any references expanded for the sync:
final ProductProjectionQuery productProjectionQuery = ProductProjectionQuery.ofStaged();

// Query all product projections (NOTE this is only for example, please adjust your logic)
final List<ProductProjection> productProjections =
    CtpQueryUtils
        .queryAll(sphereClient, productProjectionQuery, Function.identity())
        .thenApply(fetchedResources -> fetchedResources
            .stream()
            .flatMap(List::stream)
            .collect(Collectors.toList()))
        .toCompletableFuture()
         .join();

In order to transform and map the Product to ProductDraft, Utils method toProductDrafts requires 'sphereClient', implementation of ReferenceIdToKeyCache and products as parameters. For cache implementation, You can use your own cache implementation or use the class in the library - which implements the cache using caffeine library with an LRU (Least Recently Used) based cache eviction strategyCaffeineReferenceIdToKeyCacheImpl. Example as shown below:

//Implement the cache using library class.
final ReferenceIdToKeyCache referenceIdToKeyCache = new CaffeineReferenceIdToKeyCacheImpl();

//For every reference fetch its key using id, cache it and map from Product to ProductDraft. With help of the cache same reference keys can be reused.
CompletableFuture<List<ProductDraft>> productDrafts = ProductTransformUtils.toProductDrafts(client, referenceIdToKeyCache, products);

Syncing from an external resource

• When syncing from an external resource, ResourceIdentifiers with their keys have to be supplied as following example:

final ProductDraft productDraft =
    ProductDraftBuilder
        .of(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("product-type-key"), ofEnglish("name"), ofEnglish("slug"),
            singletonList(masterVariant))
        .key("product-key")
        .categories(asSet(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("category1-key"), ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("category2-key")))
        .taxCategory(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("tax-category-key")) 
        .state(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("tax-category-key"))
        .build();

java final PriceDraft priceDraft = PriceDraftBuilder of(MoneyImpl.of("20", "EUR")) .channel(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("channel-key")) .customerGroup(ResourceIdentifier.ofKey("customer-group-key")) .custom(CustomFieldsDraft.ofTypeKeyAndJson("type-key", emptyMap())) .build();

• The product projection variant attributes with a type ReferenceType do not support the ResourceIdentifier yet, for those references you have to provide the key value on the id field of the reference. This means that calling getId() on the reference should return its key.

final ObjectNode productReference = JsonNodeFactory.instance.objectNode();
productReference.put("typeId", Product.referenceTypeId());
productReference.put("id", "product-key"); // note that reference key provided in the id field 

final AttributeDraft productAttributeDraft = AttributeDraft.of("productAttrName", productReference);

• For resolving key-value-document (custom object) references on attributes of type Reference, Set of Reference, NestedType or Set of NestedType, The id field of the reference in the attribute draft should be defined in the correct format. The correct format must have a vertical bar | character between the values of the container and key. For example, if the custom object has a container value container and key value key, the id field should be container|key",
  also, the key and container value should match the pattern [-_~.a-zA-Z0-9]+.

final ObjectNode customObjectReference = JsonNodeFactory.instance.objectNode();
productReference.put("typeId", CustomObject.referenceTypeId());
productReference.put("id", "co-container|co-key");

final AttributeDraft customObjectAttributeDraft = AttributeDraft.of("customObjectAttrName", productReference);

SyncOptions

After the sphereClient is set up, a ProductSyncOptions should be built as follows:

// instantiating a ProductSyncOptions
final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).build();

SyncOptions is an object which provides a place for users to add certain configurations to customize the sync process. Available configurations:

errorCallback

A callback that is called whenever an error event occurs during the sync process. Each resource executes its own error-callback. When the sync process of a particular resource runs successfully, it is not triggered. It contains the following context about the error-event:

• sync exception
• product draft from the source
• product projection of the target project (only provided if an existing product projection could be found)
• the update-actions, which failed (only provided if an existing product projection could be found)

 final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ProductSync.class);
 final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = ProductSyncOptionsBuilder
         .of(sphereClient)
         .errorCallback((syncException, draft, productProjection, updateActions) -> 
            logger.error(new SyncException("My customized message"), syncException)).build();

warningCallback

A callback is called whenever a warning event occurs during the sync process. Each resource executes its own warning-callback. When the sync process of a particular resource runs successfully, it is not triggered. It contains the following context about the warning message:

• sync exception
• product draft from the source
• product projection of the target project (only provided if an existing product projection could be found)

 final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ProductSync.class);
 final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = ProductSyncOptionsBuilder
         .of(sphereClient)
         .warningCallback((syncException, draft, productProjection, updateActions) -> 
            logger.warn(new SyncException("My customized message"), syncException)).build();

beforeUpdateCallback

During the sync process, if a target product projection and a product draft are matched, this callback can be used to intercept the update request just before it is sent to the commercetools platform. This allows the user to modify the update actions array with custom actions or discard unwanted actions. The callback provides the following information :

• product draft from the source
• product projection from the target project
• update actions that were calculated after comparing both

final TriFunction<
        List<UpdateAction<Product>>, ProductDraft, ProductProjection, List<UpdateAction<Product
>>> beforeUpdateProductCallback =
            (updateActions, newProductDraft, oldProduct) ->  updateActions.stream()
                    .filter(updateAction -> !(updateAction instanceof RemoveVariant))
                    .collect(Collectors.toList());

final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = 
        ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).beforeUpdateCallback(beforeUpdateProductCallback).build();

beforeCreateCallback

During the sync process, if a product draft should be created, this callback can be used to intercept the create request just before it is sent to the commercetools platform. It contains the following information :

• product draft that should be created

// Example (Set publish stage if category references of given product draft exist)

final Function<ProductDraft, ProductDraft> beforeCreateProductCallback =
        (callbackDraft) -> {
            Set<ResourceIdentifier<Category>> categoryResourceIdentifier = callbackDraft.getCategories();
            if (categoryResourceIdentifier!=null && !categoryResourceIdentifier.isEmpty()) {
                return ProductDraftBuilder.of(callbackDraft).isPublish(true).build();
            }
            return callbackDraft;
        };

final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = 
         ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).beforeCreateCallback(beforeCreateProductCallback).build();

batchSize

A number that could be used to set the batch size with which product projections are fetched and processed, as product projections are obtained from the target project on commercetools platform in batches for better performance. The algorithm accumulates up to batchSize resources from the input list, then fetches the corresponding product projections from the target project on the commecetools platform in a single request. Playing with this option can slightly improve or reduce processing speed. If it is not set, the default batch size is 30 for product sync.

final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = 
         ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).batchSize(50).build();

cacheSize

In the service classes of the commercetools-sync-java library, we have implemented an in-memory LRU cache to store a map used for the reference resolution of the library. The cache reduces the reference resolution based calls to the commercetools API as the required fields of a resource will be fetched only one time. These cached fields then might be used by another resource referencing the already resolved resource instead of fetching from commercetools API. It turns out, having the in-memory LRU cache will improve the overall performance of the sync library and commercetools API. which will improve the overall performance of the sync and commercetools API.

Playing with this option can change the memory usage of the library. If it is not set, the default cache size is 10.000 for product sync.

final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions =
    ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).cacheSize(5000).build(); 

syncFilter

It represents either a blacklist or a whitelist for filtering certain update action groups.

• Blacklisting an update action group means that everything in products will be synced except for any group in the blacklist. A typical use case is to blacklist prices when syncing product projections. In other words, syncing everything in product projections except for prices.

  final ProductSyncOptions syncOptions = syncOptionsBuilder.syncFilter(ofBlackList(ActionGroup.PRICES)).build();
  

• Whitelisting an update action group means that the groups in this whitelist will be the only group synced in products. One use case could be to whitelist prices when syncing products. In other words, syncing prices only in product projections and nothing else.

  final ProductSyncOptions syncOptions = syncOptionsBuilder.syncFilter(ofWhiteList(ActionGroup.PRICES)).build();
  

• The list of action groups allowed to be blacklisted or whitelisted on product projections can be found here.

ensureChannels

A flag to indicate whether the sync process should create a price channel of the given key when it doesn't exist in a target project yet. - If ensureChannels is set to false this products won't be synced and the errorCallback will be triggered. - If ensureChannels is set to true the sync will attempt to create the missing channel with the given key. If it fails to create the price channel, the products won't sync and errorCallback will be triggered. - If not provided, it is set to false by default.

final ProductSyncOptions productSyncOptions = 
         ProductSyncOptionsBuilder.of(sphereClient).ensureChannels(true).build();

Running the sync

After all the aforementioned points in the previous section have been fulfilled, to run the sync:

// instantiating a product sync
final ProductSync productSync = new ProductSync(productSyncOptions);

// execute the sync on your list of products
CompletionStage<ProductSyncStatistics> syncStatisticsStage = productSync.sync(productDrafts);

The result of completing the syncStatisticsStage in the previous code snippet contains a ProductSyncStatistics which contains all the stats of the sync process; which includes a report message, the total number of updated, created, failed, processed products and the processing time of the sync in different time units and in a human-readable format.

final ProductSyncStatistics stats = syncStatisticsStage.toCompletebleFuture().join();
stats.getReportMessage(); 
/*Summary: 2000 product(s) were processed in total (1000 created, 995 updated, 5 failed to sync and 0 product(s) with missing reference(s)).*/

Note The statistics object contains the processing time of the last batch only. This is due to two reasons:

1. The sync processing time should not take into account the time between supplying batches to the sync.
2. It is not known by the sync which batch is going to be the last one supplied.

Persistence of ProductDrafts with Irresolvable References

A productDraft X could be supplied in with an attribute referencing productDraft Y. It could be that Y is not supplied before X, which means the sync could fail to create/updating X. It could also be that Y is not supplied at all in this batch but at a later batch.

The library keeps tracks of such "referencing" drafts like X and persists them in storage (Commercetools platform customObjects in the target project , in this case) to keep them and create/update them accordingly whenever the referenced drafts exist in the target project.

The customObject will have a container: "commercetools-sync-java.UnresolvedReferencesService.productDrafts" and a key representing the key of the productDraft that is waiting to be created/updated.

Here is an example of a CustomObject in the target project that represents a productDraft with productKey1.
It being persisted as CustomObject means that the referenced productDrafts with keys foo and bar do not exist yet.

{
  "id": "d0fbb69e-76e7-4ec0-893e-3aaab6f4f6b6",
  "version": 1,
  "container": "commercetools-sync-java.UnresolvedReferencesService.productDrafts",
  "key": "productKey1",
  "value": {
    "dependantProductKeys": [
      "foo",
      "bar"
    ],
    "productDraft": {
      "productType": {
        "typeId": "product-type",
        "id": "main-product-type"
      },
      "masterVariant": {
          "id": 1,
          "sku": "white-shirt-1",
          "key": "white-shirt-1",
          "prices": [],
          "images": [],
          "attributes": [
            {
              "name": "product-reference-set",
              "value": [
                {
                  "typeId": "product",
                  "id": "foo"
                },
                {
                  "typeId": "product",
                  "id": "bar"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
      "key": "productKey1"
    }
  },
  "createdAt": "2019-09-27T13:45:35.495Z",
  "lastModifiedAt": "2019-09-27T13:45:35.495Z",
  "lastModifiedBy": {
    "clientId": "8bV3XSW-taCpi873-GQTa8lf",
    "isPlatformClient": false
  },
  "createdBy": {
    "clientId": "8bV3XSW-taCpi873-GQTa8lf",
    "isPlatformClient": false
  }
}

As soon, as the referenced productDrafts are supplied to the sync, the draft will be created/updated and the CustomObject will be removed from the target project.

Keeping the old custom objects around forever can negatively influence the performance of your project and the time it takes to restore it from a backup. Deleting unused data ensures the best performance for your project. Please have a look into the Cleanup guide to cleanup old unresolved custom objects.

More examples of how to use the sync

1. Sync from another commercetools project as a source.
2. Sync from an external source.
3. Sync with blacklisting/whitelisting.

Make sure to read the Important Usage Tips for optimal performance.

Build all update actions

A utility method provided by the library to compare a ProductProjection with a new ProductDraft and results in a list of t update actions.

List<UpdateAction<Product>> updateActions = ProductSyncUtils.buildActions(productProjection, productDraft
, productSyncOptions, attributesMetaData);

Examples of its usage can be found in the tests here.

Build particular update action(s)

Utility methods provided by the library to compare the specific fields of a ProductProjection and a new ProductDraft, build the update action. One example is the buildChangeNameUpdateAction which compares names:

Optional<UpdateAction<Product>> updateAction = buildChangeNameUpdateAction(oldProductProjection, productDraft);

More examples of those utils for different fields can be found here.

Caveats

The commercetools-java-sync library has some exceptions to the data it can sync, particularly around product variant attributes.

1. List of supported variant attributes, with a AttributeType: ReferenceType, that can be synced (See more: #87):

   referenceTypeId	supported
   “cart”	❌
   “category”	✅
   “channel”	❌
   “customer”	✅
   “key-value-document”	✅
   “order”	❌
   “product”	✅
   “product-type”	✅
   “review”	❌
   “state”	✅
   “shipping-method”	❌
   “zone”	❌

2. Support for syncing variant attributes with an AttributeType of SetType of ReferenceType (of elementType: ReferenceType) with any of the aforementioned referenceTypeId, accordingly applies.

3. Support for syncing variant attributes with an AttributeType of NestedType which has an attribute inside of it of ReferenceType with any of the aforementioned referenceTypeId, accordingly applies.
4. Syncing products with cyclic dependencies are not supported yet. An example of a cyclic dependency is a product a which references a product b and at the same time product b references product a. Cycles can contain more than 2 products. For example: a -> b -> c -> a. If there are such cycles, the sync will consider all the products in the cycle as products with missing parents. They will be persisted as custom objects in the target project.