Who this connector is for
Akeneo is a PIM in which the product team builds the catalog out of families, attributes and product models, and fills in values separately per language and per channel. The connector makes sense when Akeneo is already running at your company, or is being rolled out, and is meant to stay the only place where descriptions and specifications are edited. The shop then consumes that data instead of becoming a second place to correct it.
Direction and scope of the data
Data flows one way: from Akeneo into the shop catalog. There is no intermediate file, no CSV export and no manual import.
| From Akeneo | In the Endora Commerce catalog |
|---|---|
| Products and variants | Products and their variants |
| Names and descriptions | Product name and description in language versions |
| Attributes | Product specifications shown on the product page |
| Categories | Assignment of the product to categories |
| Images and files | Gallery and attachments on the product page |
After a change in Akeneo, the shop shows buyers current descriptions, specifications and images, without the delay that manual work introduces.
One similarity between the two data models is worth knowing. In Akeneo an attribute value can differ per language and per channel. The Endora Commerce catalog also stores attribute values per language and per sales channel, so that distinction has somewhere to land.
Stock levels and orders are not a PIM’s job. A PIM connector and an ERP connector, for example Comarch ERP Optima, can run side by side on one installation.
What to prepare on the Akeneo side
Akeneo exposes its data through a REST API, and access requires a connection created in the PIM itself. Before go-live, prepare:
- A connection created in the Connect menu, under connection settings. For an online shop Akeneo recommends the “Destination” flow type, meaning a flow that mainly extracts data from the PIM. That way the connector’s traffic shows up in connection monitoring.
- Four credentials generated together with the connection: client ID, secret, connection username and connection password.
- A dedicated user role for the connection, separate from the roles of people working in the UI. The role decides which API resources the connection can reach.
- A user group, if you are on the Enterprise edition. There the group restricts visibility of parts of the catalog, so the connector sees only what the group has access to.
One practical note: regenerating the secret or the password in Akeneo stops that connection’s API calls immediately. After such a change, the connection details in the shop admin have to be updated right away.
The details are covered in Akeneo’s documentation: REST API authentication and managing connections.
What the shop administrator sees
The connector is a module with the id pim_akeneo, and it is switched off after installation. You switch it on in the module list in the admin panel. Once it is on, an Akeneo section appears in the menu, visible only to operators with the relevant permission. It contains:
- the Akeneo connection screen,
- import run details, a record of what a given import did.
Runs of all PIM connectors are described with a shared vocabulary, so a report reads the same way whichever system it comes from:
- trigger: manual, scheduled, or pushed by the PIM,
- mode: delta or full,
- outcome: completed, completed with issues, failed or skipped,
- counts: records considered, created, updated, skipped, withdrawn and failed,
- issues with a severity: info, warning or error.
Protected fields
Not every value has to come from the PIM. The platform lets you mark selected product fields as protected: the name and description in a given language, a single attribute, SEO fields, a gallery position, an attachment, a price in a specific price list and currency, or a category assignment. The number of values covered by protection is reported in the run summary.
Limits worth knowing about
- One active PIM. Trying to switch on a second connector is refused, with a message naming the connector that is active. The current one has to be switched off first.
- Switching off deletes nothing. The connection, identity maps, protected fields and run history stay in place and come back when the module is switched on again.
- No mapping editor in the admin. The Akeneo module currently has no screen for mapping attributes by hand. If your data model in Akeneo is unusual, raise it before implementation.
Akeneo or another PIM
The choice of connector follows from the PIM you have or are selecting, not from the shop platform. Besides Akeneo there are connectors for Pimcore, Ergonode and UnoPim. All of them use the same run vocabulary and the same protected fields, so changing PIM later does not change how the shop administrator works.
If your PIM has no ready-made connector, there is still the platform’s partner API: writing products by SKU and incremental retrieval of changes since a given timestamp.
