Use the rules testing feature in Merchant Center to preview the impact of your attribute rules. The rules testing feature allows you to see how drafted rules would impact and change your product data, prior to applying the drafted rules.
Before you begin
Before you're able to run a test of your rules, you must create a draft of your rules. To create a draft:
In your Merchant Center account, click on the Settings and tools icon
.
Select Data sources.
Under the 'Product sources' tab, select a product source.
Click the Your attribute rules tab.
- If you have more than one feed label connected to this data source, make sure that you select the feed label that you would like to apply the rule to.
If you haven't created attribute rules for the attribute that you want to edit, click Add attribute rule and select the corresponding attribute from the drop-down list.
If you want to edit an existing set of attribute rules, you can search for the attribute using the search bar and click the attribute that you want to edit.
Configure your 'Data Sources'.
Add 'Modifications' (optional).
Click Save as draft.
- After creating a rule, you can instantly preview the attribute value changes by clicking the Show preview option.
- If you have multiple rules for the same attribute, the preview will show the change made by each rule in the list. You can cycle through products in your data source, or search for a product ID to preview the attribute change for that product.
- If your rules will result in an item issue, it will be seen at the bottom. If we don't expect your rules to cause any item issues for this attribute, you will see 'Everything looks good'.
Navigate back to the main Rules tab. You will now see a box stating that you have a draft.
Test your rules
After you've created a rules draft, you can begin to test the draft and preview how it would impact your product data. To test your rules:
Click Your attribute rules tab.
Click Test rules.
Wait for the report to generate. This test may take between 10 and 20 minutes.
Click View test results to confirm that the new rules are doing what you intended.
If the rules aren't working the way you intended, update any rules that may need adjusting.
To run another test with your new updates, click Test changes.
- If you want to run a new test using the same drafted rules and updated product data, click Retest.
Once you're satisfied with your rules, click Apply changes. Your draft rules will go live and be applied to your product data.
Status summary
This section shows how your new or updated rules would impact the status of your products.
The table includes the total number of 'Approved', 'Disapproved' and 'Excluded' products for your destination, based on the effects of your currently applied rules. It also shows how those numbers would change if you applied your drafted rules. If you submit product data for multiple destinations, such as Shopping ads and local inventory ads, you can choose which destination you would like to see product data for.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Approved | This status includes items that would appear in the Needs attention tab as 'Active', 'Pending' or 'Expiring'. |
| Disapproved |
If an item is 'Disapproved', that means that it can't be shown in your chosen destination. This includes any and all of the disapproval reasons that you'd see in the Needs attention tab of your Merchant Center account. |
| Excluded | These are items that you chose to exclude from your destination. To manage whether your items are excluded or included, you can use the excluded destinations [excluded_destination] and included destinations [included_destination] attributes, as well as your feed settings. 'Excluded' isn't the same as 'Disapproved'. Excluded items may be approved, but they won't appear in your destination. |
Below the status summary table, you'll also see:
- Groups of products whose status would change as a result of new or updated rules.
- For each group, the way in which the status of the products would change, such as approved to disapproved.
- For each group, the number of products whose status would change.
- For each group, up to five examples of which products would change and how after the new rules are applied.
Attribute change summary
In this section you'll see:
- The attributes that would be impacted by new or updated rules.
- For each attribute, the number of products that would see a change in that attribute.
- For each attribute, up to five examples of how the attribute would change after the rules are applied.
Issue summary
In this section, you'll see which existing item issues would be resolved, which new item issues would be introduced, and which existing item issues would remain unchanged as a result of your rules. For each issue, you'll also see:
- The number of products affected by the issue.
- Up to five examples of products affected by the issue, and the current and new values for the attribute related to the issue if applicable.
In some cases, you may see the same issue appear in various sections of the issue summary. This can happen when you resolve an issue for one set of products in your data source, but don't resolve that same issue for another set of products.