Some WooCommerce Categories Synced to Commerce Manager

  • Resolved dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)


    3 years, 6 months ago

    Hi
    I am trying to gather information of how, when and maybe “where from” does the Facebook for WooCommerce Plugin sync WooCommerce Product Categories over to the Commerce Catalog.

    Some background. All the products that have been synced to facebook/instagram have been synced with this plugin. Nothing else as come between. This means that all the information I have to my disposal must come from the sync that has been made with the plugin.

    When I go into Commerce manager and want to create a set I am presented with the option of using categories as a filter. Some of these categories I recognize from my WooCommerce setup and some of them I don′t. Curiously the sync process has been able, in some cases, combinations have been created, that is products that have been configured in 2 Categories are displayed as for example “101 Copenhagen, Instagram”. In the Commerce Manager they are presented as one, although they are clearly 2 categories.

    My question(s) are though related to the fact that not all my categories seem to sync and more interestingly some curious categories seem to have been created in the Commerce Manager.

    Question 1:
    Having established the fact that categories were, maybe not at present, being synced how to I sync all of my categories to the Commerce Manager (Shops)?

    Some newer categories (1 month old) have been transferred but not all the products are linked in the Commerce Manager. Some categories that I have had for a really long time don′t seem the have been transferred.

    Question 2:
    I see a category called 543523 in my Commerce Manager. I found that odd. I also found it odd that it linked 4 products that really aren’t fully linked together through categories in WooCommerce. That is, not all of them are in the same category.
    However, and this is where it turns into something interesting, this group of 4 products contains 2 products that have it in common that they are the only 2 products I have tried to define with a “Google Product Category” and the category was “Records & LPs”

    A quick lookup for that online
    543523 – Media > Music & Sound Recordings > Records & LPs

    Voila. My mysterious category name is the google product category number. And that’s like “OK” if products that have not been defined as that in WooCommerce wouldn’t appear in it.

    Furthermore I can see this in my log:

    )
body: {"name":"N\u00fa Ninja \u2013 Catalogue","id":"989618121529414"}

05-23-2021 @ 17:36:05 - Google Product Category to Facebook attributes mapping for category with id: 543523 not found
05-23-2021 @ 17:36:05 - Google Product Category to Facebook attributes mapping for category with id: 543523 not found
05-23-2021 @ 17:36:09 - Request
Request
method: POST
uri: https://graph.facebook.com/v9.0/989618121529414/items_batch
user-agent: Facebook-for-WooCommerce/2.5.0 (WooCommerce/5.3.0; WordPress/5.7.2)
headers: Array
(

    Google product category 543523 not found.

    So my question is: Does this plugin support google product categories and do you guys have any idea of why my configuration of those resulted in my having a category definition with the name 543523

    With absolute best regards
    Dagur

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Plugin Support Sol J. a11n

    (@solstudioim)

    Hi there @dagurdagsson

    Thanks for your question!

    When I go into Commerce manager and want to create a set I am presented with the option of using categories as a filter. Some of these categories I recognize from my WooCommerce setup and some of them I don′t. Curiously the sync process has been able, in some cases, combinations have been created, that is products that have been configured in 2 Categories are displayed as for example “101 Copenhagen, Instagram”. In the Commerce Manager they are presented as one, although they are clearly 2 categories.

    It’s expected that you most possibly don’t recognize them because Facebook for WooCommerce doesn’t sync WooCommerce Categories by default — I will explain later.

    Facebook for WooCommerce instead using the Google Product Category, reference to Facebook API on that is here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/catalog/guides/product-categories/#google-prod-cat

    Question 1:
    Having established the fact that categories were, maybe not at present, being synced how to I sync all of my categories to the Commerce Manager (Shops)?

    Some newer categories (1 month old) have been transferred but not all the products are linked in the Commerce Manager. Some categories that I have had for a really long time don′t seem the have been transferred.

    Again, I’d like to clarify that WooCommerce Categories aren’t sync to Facebook catalog, the category uses in Facebook catalog is based on Google Product Category as mentioned previously.

    To sync WooCommerce Categories into your Facebook Catalog, you will need to use Product Sets.

    Here is the series of steps you need to take:

    • Navigate to Marketing > Facebook > Product Sets
    • This is where you will create a product set in Facebook Catalog and sync that to WooCommerce Categories, then select the corresponding WooCommerce Category you want to associate that product set with
    • Then possibly you need to manually sync things again, navigate to Marketing > Facebook > Product Sync, then click Sync products. Wait a bit, the new product sets will appear in your Facebook Catalog under “Sets”.

    Question 2:
    I see a category called 543523 in my Commerce Manager. I found that odd. I also found it odd that it linked 4 products that really aren’t fully linked together through categories in WooCommerce. That is, not all of them are in the same category.
    However, and this is where it turns into something interesting, this group of 4 products contains 2 products that have it in common that they are the only 2 products I have tried to define with a “Google Product Category” and the category was “Records & LPs”

    A quick lookup for that online
    543523 – Media > Music & Sound Recordings > Records & LPs

    Voila. My mysterious category name is the google product category number. And that’s like “OK” if products that have not been defined as that in WooCommerce wouldn’t appear in it.

    You’re correct, the plugin uses Google Product Category as I mentioned before.

    So my question is: Does this plugin support google product categories and do you guys have any idea of why my configuration of those resulted in my having a category definition with the name 543523

    Indeed, the plugin supports and uses Google Product Category system to sync WooCommerce store products to Facebook Catalog.

    Google Product Category

    In regards to the use of Google Product Category, you can configure what default category your products likely match to a Google Product Category by going to Marketing > Facebook > Product sync, then select the appropriate category you think most match your store products:

    https://d.pr/i/jlJQyc
    Link to image: https://d.pr/i/jlJQyc

    If you don’t set the default Google Category here globally, you can set on the product level by going to the Facebook tab, if you’re having a simple product (not variable product), then adjust the category accordingly:

    https://d.pr/i/X3cCh9
    Link to image: https://d.pr/i/X3cCh9

    I hope that helps!

    If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to let us know!

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi

    Thank you for the answer. Given that you state that WooCommerce categories aren’t transferred, do you have any idea/explanation of how these (shown in picture) categories where transferred over to Facebook?

    https://prnt.sc/13c88k0

    With regards to the use of Google Product Categories. The definition below (shown in picture) has resulted in the error received in the log:

    05-23-2021 @ 17:36:05 – Google Product Category to Facebook attributes mapping for category with id: 543523 not found

    https://prnt.sc/13c8g76

    I haven’t gone through the process of defining a Google category for each item, because I haven’t seen them go through (bad wording).

    Lastly I was hoping someone could clarify one thing. I have now, and have also in the past, created a “Product Set” with the help of the Plugin – and mapped it to a WooCommerce Category. The “Product Set” that I have created doesn’t seem to have been transferred to Facebook. I have tried to perform a Full Sync without success and the only possible explanation I have is whether the sync process of a FB Product Set needs a new product to initiate a transfer – that I haven’t tried.

    With best regards
    Dagur Fannar

    Plugin Support Sol J. a11n

    (@solstudioim)

    Hi @dagurdagsson

    Thanks for your reply.

    1)

    Thank you for the answer. Given that you state that WooCommerce categories aren’t transferred, do you have any idea/explanation of how these (shown in picture) categories where transferred over to Facebook?

    https://prnt.sc/13c88k0

    This could be that those data was synced back then using the old version of Facebook for WooCommerce. In the past, it was possible to sync WooCommerce categories to Product Type field of the product in Facebook catalog – reference.

    But that code has been deprecated.

    2)

    `With regards to the use of Google Product Categories. The definition below (shown in picture) has resulted in the error received in the log:

    05-23-2021 @ 17:36:05 – Google Product Category to Facebook attributes mapping for category with id: 543523 not found

    https://prnt.sc/13c8g76`

    I believe this is also affected by old sync, as the Google Product Category feature in our plugin has got a few improvements and changes.

    3)

    Lastly I was hoping someone could clarify one thing. I have now, and have also in the past, created a “Product Set” with the help of the Plugin – and mapped it to a WooCommerce Category. The “Product Set” that I have created doesn’t seem to have been transferred to Facebook. I have tried to perform a Full Sync without success and the only possible explanation I have is whether the sync process of a FB Product Set needs a new product to initiate a transfer – that I haven’t tried.

    I have never got any issue in regards to this, creating Product set and associate it with WooCommerce Categories by going here Marketing > Facebook > Products sets. Here is the latest Product Set I created from WooCommerce and synced to my Facebook catalog:

    https://d.pr/i/pbdbLe
    Link to image: https://d.pr/i/pbdbLe

    https://d.pr/i/5VkdwX
    Link to image: https://d.pr/i/5VkdwX

    I conclude the issue then is specific to your setup.

    Overall, to resolve the 1-3 issues, I’d recommend you to check/do the following:

    • Please ensure the plugin is up to date
    • Make sure Wp Cron is active
    • Make sure PHP time limit has a high value, ideally set it to 1200, to ensure the plugin has enough time to process the sync
    • Clear WooCommerce database transient here WP Admin > WooCommerce > Status > Tools > WooCommerce transients > Click – Clear Transients (Button on right).

    I hope that helps!

    I strongly you do the above and iff you have any other questions, do not hesitate to let us know!

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi

    The Plugin is up to date. WP Cron is active and I increased the time limit from 600 to 1200. I also cleared the Transients.

    Still a fairly simple FB Product Set, that has been linked to a Woo Category, does not sync.

    I’m getting the feeling that the best option will be to start over again, since I made the mistake of using the old version of the plugin.

    Plugin Support Shohan Hossain Nabil – a11n

    (@sohanhossain)

    Hello @dagurdagsson,

    >I’m getting the feeling that the best option will be to start over again, since I made the mistake of using the old version of the plugin.

    Of course, it would be the best choice if it is possible to do that.

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi

    Im continuing some debug and I was wondering if you could clarify 2 things.

    In the setup instructions (https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/facebook-for-woocommerce/) it states this “Please leave ‘Instagram Shopping’ unchecked”

    Now I have not done that. What consequence does that have?

    And secondly.
    The same instructions show that the “Product identifier” can be explicitly defined. In the instructions (picture) it has been defined as “SKU + Product ID”.

    Has this functionality been deprecated, because in my setup I do not have this option?

    Best regards

    Plugin Support Sol J. a11n

    (@solstudioim)

    Hi there @dagurdagsson

    In the setup instructions (https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/facebook-for-woocommerce/) it states this “Please leave ‘Instagram Shopping’ unchecked”

    Now I have not done that. What consequence does that have?

    The consequence is that you can’t sync your products to Instagram for now. This is to be unselected because it usually triggers connection issues when you don’t have an eligible Instagram account.

    If in the future you have an eligible Instagram shopping account, you can reconnect and then select the Instagram account.

    About your second question:

    And secondly.
    The same instructions show that the “Product identifier” can be explicitly defined. In the instructions (picture) it has been defined as “SKU + Product ID”.

    Has this functionality been deprecated, because in my setup I do not have this option?

    Can you please take a screenshot of your setup? Sorry, I couldn’t understand what you mean about the Product Identifier as I checked I didn’t mention that before.

    I recommend https://snipboard.io for sharing screenshots – please follow the instructions on the page, then paste the URL in your reply.

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi

    With regards to the first one. I really thought there wasn’t a distinction between Facebook and Instagram in that sense. That there was 1 connection to the Business Manager account.

    With the second one.
    https://snipboard.io/jf9K0c.jpg

    My setup is on the right, whereas the one on the left is from the documentation.

    I’m probably going to restart the whole sync process. I’m constantly experiencing that products go into the state of “DeActivated”, although their configuration hasn’t been touched in WooCommerce. With that and this FB Product Set problem I think it’s best to completely restart. That will require a re-tag of some 100+ Instagram posts, but it isn’t something that I haven’t grown accustomed to. ??

    Best regards
    Dagur

    Plugin Support Sol J. a11n

    (@solstudioim)

    Hi there @dagurdagsson

    Ah I see, thanks for your report on the documentation, I’ve reached out to our docs team that it has to be updated. The correct one is the one that’s on the right.

    I’m probably going to restart the whole sync process. I’m constantly experiencing that products go into the state of “DeActivated”, although their configuration hasn’t been touched in WooCommerce. ??

    I am not sure what happened in your case, but possibly that updates between versions of the plugin, or changes in permission within your Facebook assets might have in some ways affected the integration that has caused intermittent issues like products to get deactivated.

    Also, you can usually click on the deactivated products and check for the details of why they’re deactivated and how to resolve them.

    With that and this FB Product Set problem I think it’s best to completely restart. That will require a re-tag of some 100+ Instagram posts, but it isn’t something that I haven’t grown accustomed to.

    I would suggest that you do a full resync instead of deleting the connection and redoing it.

    I hope that helps!

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi

    Thx for the attention to this ticket.

    With regards to re-doing. I have gone through the process of Full Resync, removing products from a category that was hooked to a FB Product Set and then adding it again without any luck.

    Going through the logs I never ever see the name of the FB Product Set. However I see that my WooCommerce categories are constantly being sent over. That leaves my quite confused about the statement that the plugin does not transfer WooCommerce categories.

    In that regard it is worth mentioning that I use WPML and in their configuration my second language (ES) is not configured to by synced – or to be visible.

    WPML
    “Facebook Visibility” – “WooCommerce Products with languages that are selected here will be visible to customers who see your Facebook Shop.” – second language is not selected.

    But nonetheless I see the appearance of the translation of my WooCommerce categories in the Log.

    Plugin Support Shohan Hossain Nabil – a11n

    (@sohanhossain)

    Hello @dagurdagsson,

    In that regard it is worth mentioning that I use WPML and in their configuration my second language (ES) is not configured to by synced – or to be visible.

    Thanks for letting us know about WPML. Since WPML has a specific option for Facebook Visibility there’s a possibility that the plugin might be contributing to this ongoing issue.

    I recommend reaching out to the WPML plugin’s support team and check if they can share some insight.

    Thanks!

    Thread Starter dagurdagsson

    (@dagurdagsson)

    Hi.

    After going through the process of removing a catalog and sorting through the WPML conditions – where now the only products that are synced are the 1st language and the FB Product Set is not set to translate – I can report that absolutely no FB Product Sets are being synced.

    Likewise the definition, with the plugin, of the Google category has been removed.

    I have gone through the Logs and there is absolutely no instance of the FB Product Set (I searched through with the name).

    Can you attach an example of how a log with a creation of a Product Set would look like

    Plugin Support Shohan Hossain Nabil – a11n

    (@sohanhossain)

    Hello @dagurdagsson,

    We need to investigate this further. Please contact us at WooCommerce.com > My Account > Support. You may need to create an account before you can access that page.

    Please include a link to this forum thread, so that we can keep track of what’s already been done.

    We will be able to help you further there.

    Thanks!

    Plugin Support Hannah S.L.

    (@fernashes)

    Automattic Happiness Engineer

    Given that we’ll be supporting you further via WooCommerce.com, I’ll go ahead and mark this thread as resolved to avoid confusion.

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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