Item Catalog A comprehensive and regularly updated item catalog is the foundation of Froomle’s recommendation engine. On top of knowing which items to recommend, Froomle uses item metadata for three critical functions: Filtering & Constraints - Filter recommendations by category, price range, brand, or custom attributes Reporting & Analytics - Attribute recommendation performance to specific items, categories, or content types Response Enrichment - Include item metadata in recommendation responses, eliminating the need for additional back-end lookups and reducing latency A well-maintained catalog ensures recommendations are accurate, timely, and relevant to your users. Preparation Provide sample items and the current catalog schema. Confirm update frequency and expected traffic spikes. Decide how removed or unpublished items should be handled. Before you start the real-time synchronization of new items, it is strongly recommended to do a one-time batch dump of your existing item catalogue to Froomle. This ensures the recommendation engine has sufficient inventory to work with from day one, rather than waiting for new items to accumulate. Ensure that all items from your catalog are synchronized to Froomle. This is especially critical if you use RSS feeds, as they may not contain your complete inventory. Verify that every item in your system is eventually sent to Froomle, either through the initial batch dump or through continuous synchronization. Additionally, be aware that slow or delayed synchronization directly impacts recommendation quality and relevance. If items are updated infrequently or with significant latency, Froomle may serve stale recommendations based on outdated metadata (pricing, availability, status, etc.). Choose a synchronization method and frequency that keeps your item data fresh enough for your use case. Main stakeholder Customer data/catalog owner (supported by integration developers). Results Finalized item schema and required fields documented. Sync method selected and cadence agreed. Backfill plan defined and test ingestion validated. Deactivation rules for outdated items clarified. Define item identifiers and types Every item is identified by (item_type, item_id). Use item types only for fundamentally different content (for example, articles vs. videos). Item IDs must remain stable across items, events, and recommendations. See Item schema essentials for details. Agree on metadata structure Check Item schema essentials and provide as many fields as possible. Rich metadata enables both curated and automated experiences and strengthens reporting. Live Synchronization Items are added as they change in your system. We support three main approaches with different architectures and tradeoffs. See Connector options for details. Push to Items API ⬆️ Your system pushes item metadata directly to Froomle’s API endpoints whenever an item is created, updated, or deleted. See Items API for connector details. ✓ Low latency between system change and Froomle awareness ✓ Easily update or unpublish your items ✓ No exposed endpoints needed - your system controls the flow ✗ Higher operational complexity on your infrastructure ✗ Need to handle retries, batching, and error recovery Pull from Article Feed ⬇️ Froomle pulls item metadata from an RSS, Atom, or similar feed that your system exposes, periodically checking for new or updated items. See Feed formats and examples for RSS/Atom/XML/JSON/CSV details. ✓ Industry-standard format (RSS/Atom, XML, JSON, CSV) supported by most CMS platforms (WordPress, Drupal, etc.) ✓ Froomle-managed polling - no need to implement push logic ✗ Polling delay and overhead between item publication and Froomle ingestion (typically 10-30 minutes) ✗ Built-in feed support (e.g., RSS) is often limiting in structure ✗ You need a small number (1~5) of RSS that contain all items for an environment ✗ Requires maintaining an accessible, stable feed endpoint Batch Synchronization For batch processing, the entire item catalogue (or a large subset) is synchronized periodically. Use this approach when you need simplicity and can tolerate scheduled updates. SFTP/File Upload 📁 You upload a complete or incremental file dump of your item catalogue to an SFTP server that Froomle monitors. See Batch upload for connector details. ✓ Simple file-based transfer - no API integration needed ✓ Handles large volumes efficiently in batch mode ✗ Significant delay between item changes and Froomle awareness ✗ Need to handle incremental updates to avoid re-processing all items Need help deciding? Items API You need real-time updates and have development resources Article Feed You’re using a CMS platform and can tolerate 10-30 minute delays SFTP/File Upload You have a static catalogue or scheduled exports and want simplicity Handle recency and deactivation Align on how long items are eligible for recommendations and how to deactivate content that should no longer appear. Accurate timestamps with time zones are essential for recency rules. See Operations and best practices. Next step Continue with getting recommendations.