Magento 2 Dynamic Categories

The Dynamic Categories module for Magento 2 eliminates the work of assigning products to their categories which in default Magento setup is done manually.

Using this extension, a Magento 2 store obtains functionality to automatically associate products in its catalog to product categories. This association is done dynamically according to the set of conditions which are based on the product attributes. Additionally our extension provides smart attributes to make the conditions more flexible and functional.

The extension tracks the products in a catalog, and automatically adds or removes the product from the category whenever it meets or does not satisfy the conditions of the category. This can occur, for example, when the product changes its attributes.

It is useful and helps save time in lots of scenarios. One example is a category for promo products. Such items have a special price for a certain time period, and this period is unique for each promo product. Manually adding the new promo products and removing them after the promo expires is time-consuming and tedious. With Dynamic Categories, promo products will be added and removed, automatically saving the store's staff time and energy.

All created information on dynamic categories can be exported and imported to the Magento 2 store. However, the Dynamic Categories extension does not provide such built-in functionality in the Magento backend admin panel. In order to import and export the Dynamic Categories configuration, it is necessary to use external third-party tools.

The data can be exported and imported directly from the database of the store using any database manager that works for you. All information about dynamic categories that are created in the store is available in the database table mst_dynamic_category. Copy this table to make a backup or clone the setup, and import it whenever you need to restore the dynamic categories configuration.

The Magento 2 Dynamic Category extension provides a flexible filtering mechanism for filling the dynamic categories of your store with the exact products you need. This is done through a set of conditions that allow you to precisely specify the product attributes that will be used to filter out items from the store's catalog.

In addition to default Magento attributes that can be used for filtering products out, the Dynamic Category extension provides several additional attributes. One of those attributes is the source of the products. To filter the items by source, you can use the conditions such as the source of the product is/is not the specified source. The source which has to be a filter can be chosen from a drop-down menu during the condition creation.

To make a configuration of conditions for similar dynamic categories easier, the Dynamic Category extension provides an option to load a set of conditions from an existing dynamic category.

Use the option Load Conditions From to specify the dynamic category that will serve as a source of conditions to export. The set of conditions will be copied instantly after selecting the source category. This functionality is available starting in Dynamic Category version 1.0.17. Please check the version installed in your shop and update it if needed. Mirasvit provides existing users with free lifetime upgrades for any of its modules.

The conditions for the dynamic category creation are not limited to attributes that have set values only. For category filtering rules, it is possible to use any product attribute. Additionally, use the special free form attribute to create individual product attributes.

Our module provides the functionality to filter out products with the assigned sale status. It does not provide the direct ability to filter products in respect to the discount assigned.

The Dynamic Category provides a flexible mechanism that can be used in order to achieve identical result. This Magento extension supports a special free form attribute that can be added to a product in addition to already existing attributes. Use the value of this attribute to mimic the discount level for products.

For example, a shop wants to put items with 15% discount into a promo category and items with 25% discount should go to a super promo category. The special free form attribute for such products will be discount15 and discount25, respectively. Then simply add a condition Attribute1 is Exact value discount15 to place all products with the discount of 15% into this category.

By default, our extension sorts products by their position. The Dynamic Category extension doesn't manage the product position automatically on the dynamic category page. The position of the product in the category is specified via the default magento functionality. It allows you to sort products automatically and manually. The automatic sorting can be done by a stock level, age, color, product name, SKU, or price. Automatic sorting overrides the sort order that was set manually.

The user of Dynamic Categories can enhance product sorting capabilities of default Magento by additionally using an Improved Sorting extension. The latter allows you to change a default product sorting to sorting specified by some rules. Use this extension to assign sorting conditions to the dynamic category.

The Dynamic Category is capable of using price attribute a a condition for the product filtering. It can add products to dynamic categories based on catalog price rules. Shopping cart rules can not be used, since this rule can be activated under a particular cart context and selected products in it.