Create an inventory plan and a business data template

You can use an inventory plan and a business data template to copy data from an inventory feed into a business data table.  

A business data template selects data from an inventory feed and copies it into one or more columns in a business data table. A simple template copies one inventory attribute directly from your inventory feed into one column in a table, while more complex templates use formulas to combine data from multiple attributes and may modify the data before copying it into the business data table.

Create an inventory plan

1. Navigate to an advertiser.
   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click Inventory management.
3. Click the Inventory plans tab.
4. Click the + New button which appears above the reporting table.
5. Enter a name for the plan.
   To help you distinguish the plan from other plans, consider including the words "Business data" in the plan name. You can see the plan's name in Search Ads 360 reports.
6. Under Purpose, select Update business data tables and select a business data table.
   The Inventory plan editor lists all of the business data tables that have been created in your advertiser.
7. From the Inventory account list, select the inventory feed that contains the data you want to copy into the business data table.
   The list contains all inventory accounts that you have linked to your Search Ads 360 advertiser.

   By default, the plan includes all products in the inventory feed you select.

8. To limit the list of inventory items included in the plan, use attributes from the inventory feed to create a filter. Each attribute in the inventory feed describes some aspect of a product, such as the brand name or category of product. The plan will include only those inventory items that match the filter:
   1. From the Attribute or metric list, select an attribute from the inventory feed.
      The list contains all of the product attributes defined in the inventory feed you selected.
   2. Select an operator, such as Equals or Starts with.
   3. Enter a value to match. Matching is not case sensitive. That is, Shoes matches shoes.

      For example, the filter Category level 2 Equals Shoes matches all products in your inventory feed for which the Google product category attribute includes the word Shoes at level 2, such as 
      Apparel & Accessories > Shoes > Outdoor shoes > Hiking boots & Shoes
      and
      Apparel & Accessories > Shoes > Outdoor shoes > Sneakers

   4. You can specify additional attributes. The plan will include only those products that match all of the attributes.

      For example, if you add Price Greater than $50 to the filter in the previous step, the plan includes only shoes that cost more than $50.

   5. To remove an attribute, click the X that appears at the end of the line.

9. Click the Preview button to see the list of products that match the filter.
10. When you've selected the products you want, click Save.

The new inventory plan appears in the Inventory plans reporting table. Search Ads 360 automatically pauses the plan so it won't attempt to apply the templates you create until you're ready.

Create a business data template

Here's an overview of creating a business data template (the details are below):

1. Start creating a business data template and optionally use filters to select specific types of inventory items that the business data template can copy data from.
2. Specify a matching key, a destination column, and data to copy into the destination column. The key tells the template which inventory items to copy from and which business data row to copy to. Once you've matched inventory items to a business data row, you need to specify which data to copy, and which columns to copy into.
3. Preview some of the rows in your business data table that will be populated with data from your inventory feed.

1. Start creating a business data template and specify optional filters

1. Navigate to an advertiser.
   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click Inventory management.
3. Click the Inventory plans tab. In the reporting table, click the name of an inventory plan.
   Make sure the Purpose column for the inventory plan you click contains Business data feeds. Only inventory plans created for business data feeds can contain business data templates.
4. Click New ▼ and select Business data table row template.
5. Enter a name for the template. The name appears in the reporting table for the inventory plan. 
6. Optionally enter a filter to select specific types of items that the business data template can copy data from. For example, use a filter to copy data only from "loafers" or other types of shoes in your feed.
   
   To enter a filter:
   1. Under Feed filters click + Attribute or metric and select an attribute from the inventory feed.
      The list contains all of the inventory attributes defined in the feed you selected for the inventory plan.
   2. Select an operator, such as Equals or Starts with.
      If you need complex filters, you can use regular expressions in the filter.
   3. Enter a value to match. 

      For example, the filter Category level 5 Equals (case insensitive) loafers matches all products in your inventory feed for which the Google product category attribute specifies the word loafers, Loafers, or LOAFERS at level 5.

   4. You can specify additional filters. The template will only select items in the feed that match all of the attributes.

      For example, if you add Price Greater than $50 to the filter in the previous step, the template will only copy product data from loafers that cost more than $50.

   5. To remove a filter, click the X that appears at the end of the line.

7. Click the Preview matching products button to see the list of items that match the filter.
8. Click Next.
   The editor for specifying a matching key and a destination column appears.

2. Specify a matching key, a destination column, and data to copy into the destination column

A business data template copies data from specific items in an inventory feed into a specific row and column in a business data table. To determine which row to copy into, the product data in the feed and the ID column of the business data row need to contain a matching value. This matching value is called a key. On the business data side, only the ID column can be used as a key. In the inventory feed, any inventory attribute or combination of attributes can be used.

Learn more about matching keys and see examples.

To specify a matching key, a destination column, and data to copy into the destination column:

1. After you start creating a business data template and optionally specify filters, Search Ads 360 displays settings for specifying a matching key and destination column.
2. Under Foreign key: inventory data, enter a formula that selects one or more inventory attributes and optionally uses functions to modify the inventory data so that it matches the values in the ID column of your business data table. Learn more about functions.

   Here are some examples of formulas:

   Example formula	Description
   inventory_item_brand	Matches business data rows with ID columns that contain values such as: SpeedyShoes ComfyWalkers Data from all inventory items with the same brand name will be available for copying into the business data row. For example, data from all "SpeedyShoes" items will be available for copying into the business data row whose ID is "SpeedyShoes".
   inventory_item_brand & " - " & inventory_item_category_level_5	Matches business data rows with ID columns that contain values such as: SpeedyShoes - loafers ComfyWalkers - loafers Data from all inventory items with both the same brand name and the same category level 5 name will be available for copying into the business data row. For example, data from all "SpeedyShoes" items in the "loafers" category level 5 will be available for copying into the business data row whose ID is "SpeedyShoes - loafers".

3. Under Feed driven column, select a column in your business data table to contain data from the feed.
4. Next to the column name, enter a formula that selects data from one or more inventory attributes, and optionally uses functions to modify the inventory data. The output of the formula will be copied into the business data table.
   
   Make sure the output of the formula matches the data type of the business data column. For example, if you're copying a number from the inventory feed into a business data column of type Text, the formula needs to convert the inventory data to text.

   Here are some examples of formulas:

   Example formula	Description
   round ( (c:"Availability" / c:"Capacity") * 100 )	Divides the "Availability" custom attribute by the "Capacity" custom attribute, multiplies the result by 100, and rounds to the nearest integer.    Only valid if the data type of destination business data column is Number or Decimal.
   max (   round (   (c:"Availability" /          c:"Capacity") * 100  >) )	As in the example above, this formula divides the "Availability" custom attribute by the "Capacity" custom attribute, multiplies the result by 100, and rounds to the nearest integer. However, this formula assumes that multiple items in the inventory feed may match the key specified for a single business data row. To prepare for this possbility, the formula applies the round function to all items that match a particular key, and then the max function returns the highest result. There are several other inventory functions that you can use to prepare for the possbility of multiple items matching a single key, such as any.
   to_string(min(Item_price))	Selects the minimum price from all inventory items that contain the same matching key, then converts the price to text.  Only valid if the data type of destination business data column is Text.

5. To copy data into another column in the business data table, under Feed driven column, select another column and repeat the previous step.
6.  Click Next. 

3. Preview business data rows

1. After you specify a key and data for the destination column, Search Ads 360 shows up to 50 of the rows in your business data table that will be populated with data from your inventory feed.
2. Look through the rows to make sure your formulas create the output that you expect.
3. You can click the Previous button, adjust your formulas as needed, and return to the preview. 
4. When you're satisfied with the preview, click Save template.

Search Ads 360 saves the template and pauses it. The template won't be applied to the plan's inventory data until you change its status to Active.