**Next | Product Management | Live Preview

Next Product Onboarding

Live Preview 

 

 

Welcome to the Kornit X Platform

Kornit X is happy to welcome you to the platform. We work closely with Next to allow fulfillers to set up their personalised products to be ready for sale on the Next website.

The following document has been written to aid Next fulfillers with creating products which need to be set up as 'Live Preview' lines.  

What is a Live Preview Product?

A live preview product offers the customer the chance to personalise their product on screen and see a live, interactive preview showing how the final product will look.

Regarding getting the products into the Kornit X Product Onboarding System, this will be covered by the PIF sheet you will have provided the Next team with previously.  

To access this system please refer to the following link – CLICK HERE.

A user will already have been created by the Kornit X team and these login details will be provided before accessing document.  

Set Up Your Products

Every part of this section will be done within the “Product Onboarding” menu. To access this simply head to “Platform” > “Catalog” > “Product Onboarding” 

1 - Allocate Your Products

First, you need to allocate the products to your user. The correct user should be the only one that appears in the dropdown for you. To do so following the steps:

 

Click the “Waiting to Start” link to access the products. Go through and tick all of the products you wish to setup.  

Go through and tick all of the products you wish to setup.  

 

Press the “Bulk Edit” button to get the following window. From the dropdown for “Allocated User” you need to select the user you are currently signed in as. By doing so this will move the products to ‘Allocated’ on the Dashboard. 

 

2 - Open Your Products

You will now be able to access your “Allocated” products. To do so simply click on the number of lines under the "Allocated" header and you will be taken to a view to see all of the “Allocated” lines.

The following are the steps to take to get these lines ready.   

- Work is done on products on a 1by1 basis. Simply head to the “Actions” menu and select “Edit”. 

- First you need to select the “Start” button which will move the product status to “In Progress” on the Product Onboarding dashboard.

- Now the products status has been updated you can now select the “Open Product” button to open the product in a new tab. 

3 - Set Product Type 

When you open the product you will see the following view, the product will be preset with the types of “Customisable” and “No Preview” but the following changes need to be made.  

 

The first option that needs to be enabled is the type “Stock”. By setting this type you can ensure the product will become visible in the Kornit X Stock Inventory.  

For products with a size or colour option, the main parent product should not be marked as 'Stock' as the stock value in Inventory is loaded against the option only.  This will ensure that the size/colour option will appear in Inventory, but not the main parent product.

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Following this you need to unselect the “No Preview” option from the dropdown.  

Finally, you need to "Save" and typing will have been set and will be left as "Customisable" & "Stock"

4 - Set the Default App 

Once the typing has been set, we recommend that users go to the App Defaults menu where the Next app can be set. Setting this means users can preview the product in the exact app that Next preview online and it means for approvals the products will appear within the app.  

First users need to remain on the Basic Details area and click onto the “App Defaults” tab menu as shown below.  

 

Once loaded, users can set the “Default App” by clicking on the dropdown. Within the Dropdown users need to copy in the app which can be copied from this document here as “next2_mobile”.

Once selected users need to “Save”.  

Once saved, users can preview the product either by clicking to “Open App” into a separate window or alternatively within the “Preview Test” which will load the product from the platform.  

 

5 - Add Aspect Imagery 

Once the above steps have been followed, users need to begin adding their product imagery. This product image will be called an “Aspect” and the aspect acts as the image customers will add text to on the website. For more information on Aspects and mastering the quality of preview image please click the following 2 links – Link 1 and Link 2.  

! Please note that this imagery is separate from the product images that will have been provided to Next via their PIF sheet/DAM Portal.  

The steps to add imagery are detailed below:  

First, users need to load into the “Preview” menu as shown below. 

Upon loading this menu users will see there is an Aspect already created called “Dummy” which you will amend and add images to. To edit simply click the “Edit” icon shown here. 

You need to upload your 800 by 800-pixel image to the “Main Image” option by clicking the “Upload” button.  

 Some examples of the types of blank images other customers of Next used can be found here.  

 

 

Once an image has been uploaded users need to finally amend the “Dummy” name on the preview to match the product, for example a Sign product can just be labelled as “Sign Preview” for example.  

 

Finally, you can click save and move onto the next part of the creation.  

6 - Amend Your Print Area

Once the Aspect Imagery has been added users can head onto the next part which is amending the print area to be able to add text functionality later. The steps to amend your Print Area will be detailed below.  

First, users need to load into the “Print” menu as shown below. 

Once loaded, users will see a “Dummy” print area which is already made when the products are added to Onboarding. To amend you need to click the “edit” button as shown.  

You first need to change the “Dummy” name to match what the product is, we recommend just copying the aspect name you set.  

You then need to update the preview size from 100 by 100 pixels to 800 by 800 pixels. By doing so the text areas will cover the entire product so this is necessary to ensure the product is made to a high quality Next anticipate for all of their suppliers. 

 Finally, you can click “Save” and move onto the next part of the creation.  

 

Personalise Your Products

7 - Create a Text Area 

As soon as the print area has been updated, users can head to the functionality section of the product and the Text tab, and you can begin to create your text areas as shown below.  

 

To create a text area, you simply need to press the “+ Text Area” button 

Upon clicking this option, you will be taken to the following blank text area which needs to be setup.  

 

First step is the give the text area a name. Examples of this could be “Name”, “Message” or “Line 1” which will appear within the Next app when clicking “Preview Test” but this needs to be customer friendly and indicate what needs to be entered into the text box.  

 

Following on from a name, the print area needs to be selected from the “Print Area” dropdown menu.  

 

Once this is done, the aspect image will appear on the page to allow you to position the text against the image.  

You then need to position the text; this can be done either by dragging the text within the image window or using the X&Y positions. 

You can then set any rotation or arc options against the text, and this can be done by entering the numerical values required. We advise testing with these options to make sure it works with the image and matches the actual product.

 

Finally, you can move to the next steps, first by choosing the text options that you wish to us.  

8 - Set Type of Text Area

Once the basics of the text area have been set it is up to you on which text area you wish to use. In the case of Next there are 4 different types of text which have been detailed below.  

Standard Text Input

This allows you to add a simple Text Input Box for the customer to complete, this is the most common text area used and examples of this include entering a name or surname and usually uses a small number of characters such as 12 characters max. This option should also be used for long messages which should be split into different lines of text such as “Line 1” and “Line 2”. To use this type simply leave the Options > Type dropdown set on “Standard”. We recommend adding ‘Placeholder Text’ to give the customer an example such as the one listed below.  

 

Date Picker / Calendar 

Using this option allows a calendar to be used within the app.  Date format can also be specified here, and the recommendation is to use the dd-mm-yy format which is preferred by JoJo Maman Bébé and used by other suppliers of theirs. To use this type simply change the Options > Type dropdown to be set to “Datepicker”. We recommend adding ‘Placeholder Text’ to give the customer an example date such as the one listed below.     

Dropdown List 

Using this option allows you to set a list of selectable options within a dropdown that customers can select from, such as for Mother's Day items there could be a list of options to choose from such as “Mum” or “Nan”.   Placeholder Text can be added for the default option as shown below.  

 

9 - Format Your Text Area 

Once the basic text area setup and option has been chosen, you can then format your text area. 

User Controls

Once the “User Controls” menu has been opened the first point is to go through and untick all of the following options such as “Allow Move”, “Allow Resize” and “Allow Rotate”. By doing so the text will be fixed as without these options text can be moved around on the product which is not what Next would expect.  

 

Placeholder Text

Placeholder Text can be added against the product as shown below but this depends on the type of text option chosen.  

 

Text Font

You should now set and format the font.  To do so simply head to the Formatting option shown below.  

 

The first option that can be set without formatting is the Default Font. Please note there might be a case where a product needs multiple fonts and to set this, please refer to the article linked here.  

Please note, if you have any specific fonts that are required for your products which are not already available within the Platform, please email your Next contact who will process your request.

 

Once the search button is selected from the font the below window will appear which will allow you to search for the font name and select the option to be used with the product. Please note users can search between Google or uploaded public fonts available to you to use. Once selected simply click the green tick and the font will be set.  

 

Text Size

After the font you can set the default size of the text, this will be in Pixel size, and we recommend testing to find the perfect sized text compared to the products. The use of sizes and offering multiple size options to choose from please refer to the article here.  

 

Text Colour

Next the option to set is the font colour. The system simply needs the hex code needed for the colour which can be entered into the “#” option as shown below. Multiple colours can be set on a product and to do so has been shown here.  

Text Alignment

With those options set you can also set the Horizontal and Vertical alignment. The most used options are Centre and Middle which are set to default, but users can select between either centre, left or right for horizontal and top, middle and bottom for vertical if they wish.  

Force Casing

One of the final options to set is the Force Casing and this will force the casing being used on the products text once entered. You can choose from the options to force the text to be upper, lower and finally title characters.  

Once the formatting has been filled in your text area should look like the below which has shown the text fitting into the iFrame unlike before and now matches the product more closely.  

 

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Text Boundary

If required, you can use a Text Boundary which can be set to ensure when a longer name or text is entered that the text does not run off the product. To set this you simply need to expand the “Advanced” menu as shown below:

 

The first thing to do is to head to the aspect image shown within the text area and ticket the “Show Boundary” tick box which will open up the blue window shown below which acts as the physical boundary that needs to be amended. Once shown the Boundary Preview and Dimensions need to be entered. The best way is to use your mouse and minimize the size of the boundary to properly fit the text as shown below. You can set the sizes by manually changing the numbers but the best option is to amend the blue box yourself. 

Auto Fit 

You can also enable the “Auto Fit” which when used will reduce the size of the text once the boundary has been reached and this means for longer text customisation as long as the max characters isn’t reached the size of the text will reduce in size.  

 

To properly test this please open the “Preview Test” and enter text, you will see once the boundary is reached the text reduces in size as shown below. For more information on boundaries please click here.  

 

User Input Required

The “User Input Required” option which must be set to enabled. This makes the entry for this text area mandatory and prevents the customer from completing the order without providing personalisation.  

 

Max Characters

We also recommend setting a max characters against the product which will stop text from running off the product. For example with a name we would set “12” but for lines of text you may use “30”.  

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Text Pattern

The final option to set is the “Text Pattern” which can be set to force certain characters to be used or not used acting as a sort of rules for available characters. For more information on these rules please refer to the following article here.

The options are the following:

      - Whole Number Only – means only numbers can be entered and this ideal where you only want a customer to add a number to their product.  

      - ASCII – Will stop any special characters such as emojis from being printed onto the product

      - No Numbers – Will stop numbers from being entered onto a text area.  

10 - Add an Image Gallery

If your product requires a range of selectable images for the customer to choose from, you can create an image area and add a gallery rather than a text area.

Create a Gallery

If you wish to create a gallery, you can find information on how to do this here: https://platform.kornitx.net/v3/settings/galleries#/ and clicking on the Inline Help icon i 

Create an Image Area 

To add an Image Area, users can head to the functionality section of the product and the Images tab - this is where you will add the gallery options. 

To create an image area, you simply need to press the “+ Image Area” button 

Upon clicking this option, you will be taken to the following blank text area which needs to be setup.  

 

The first step is the give the image area a name, relevant to the product being created.

Second you should select the print area you have already created from the Print Area Dropdown. 

Position and Dimensions will automatically populate based on the information added to the Print Area.

To allow the customer to select from the gallery, under ‘User Controls’, enable ‘Allow Input’ and ‘Gallery Only’ 

Under ‘Behavior’, you should configure as below: 

You should add a Place Holder Image (This should be a PNG file and will be displayed as default on the product) and select the relevant Gallery to be used.

Add Default App Config

In order for the Gallery to display on the product on site, you must update the Default App Config fom the App Defaults Menu - this can be copied from below:

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Review Ecommerce Data

There is usually no need to amend any of the set eCommerce data. Please note Next will already have this data but when they are passed to Kornit X the product names are abbreviated. Please do not amend the following 2 areas. 

1. Name 
   
2. Retail SKU 
   

As for areas you can change, if a Manufactures SKU is needed you can amend the Fulfiller SKU as this will not have an effect on Next.

!Note: If you update the Fulfiller SKU you will need to update Variants and Variant SKUs which you may be using on stock lines.  

Approve Your Products

Once the Products are ready all you need to do is send them over to Kornit X to approve them. Once Kornit X approve lines the Next team will then be able to approve your lines for you.

11 - Submit Your Products for Approval

The below list will document how to send them to approval and how to deal with any rejections.  

1. Once your product is done, please close your tab and you will be able to see the Product list view 
   
2. If you are happy with the product, press the “Submit for Approval” button 
   
3. Once you submit this for approval the Kornit X team will be able to approve your lines. This will update the dashboard view to show “Awaiting Supplier Approval” 
   
4. As soon as Kornit X check your products, if they are happy they will send the products over to Next for approval. The status will then be updated to “Awaiting Retailer Approval”. 
   
5. When Next approve they will finally move onto the “Ready For Publishing” status, this is when the products will go live on the Next website.  
   

12 - Dealing With Rejected Products

Kornit X or Next may reject the products after they have been submitted. If they do so, the products will be pushed back to Allocated on the dashboard. The products will be flagged with an alert to review the lines. 

Kornit X and Next will leave comments on failed lines. To view this click on the line and open the “History” tab. 

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