Help

Mapping Your Feed to Catalog Fields

The Mapping tab lines your feed's columns up with the catalog fields ad networks expect — ID, Title, Price, and the rest. Drag a column onto a field, add a fallback source, and confirm coverage with the Fill column.

Updated September 22, 2026

The Mapping tab lines your feed's columns up with the catalog fields ad networks expect. Drag a feed column onto a field, stack a fallback, and read the Fill column to confirm coverage. Required fields left unmapped are called out so nothing ships incomplete. Changes stay in a draft until you Publish.

What the Mapping tab does#

Every ad network expects a fixed set of fields — a product needs an ID, a title, a price, and so on. Your feed's columns rarely line up with those names on their own, so the Mapping tab is where you tell Renable which of your columns feeds each catalog field. Once a field is mapped, every import fills it from the column you chose.

Open a catalog from your project's Catalogs list, then choose Mapping. Like everything else in the catalog workspace, your changes save to a draft and don't take effect until you Publish — see Transforming your feed for how the draft-and-publish model fits together.

The Catalog fields table#

The main table, headed "Catalog fields", lists every field a channel can export, sorted into groups so a long list stays scannable:

  • Identity — the fields that identify a product, including its ID and product identifiers.
  • Content — title, description, and other copy.
  • Images — the main image and any additional images.
  • Pricing — price and sale price.
  • Availability — stock and availability status.
  • Attributes — everything else, including attribute pairs (see below).

Two chips at the top of the table keep score: "{N} mapped" tells you how many fields have a source, and "{N} required missing" warns when a required field still has none.

Required fields and how gaps are shown#

Seven fields are required for a product to be eligible in ad networks, each marked with an asterisk on the table:

  • ID
  • Title
  • Description
  • URL
  • Main image
  • Price
  • Availability

A required field with no source at all counts toward the "{N} required missing" chip at the top of the table. A required field that is mapped but comes back empty for some products shows a warning tone and an "N empty" note on its row, so you can see partial coverage before an ad network rejects those products. Fill or map every field called out this way, then publish. For the difference between what's mandatory and what merely improves reach, see Required vs. recommended feed fields.

The Feed columns rail#

The left rail, "Feed columns", lists every column Renable found in your feed — all of them, not only the ones that turn up in the sample rows it previews. The header says when your feed was last read, and the refresh button beside it fetches the feed again, refreshing the sample and the column list together. Each column shows:

  • A mapped or unmapped dot — whether that column is already feeding a catalog field.
  • A type badge — the column's type (Text, Number, Date, Boolean, or List).
  • A sample value in ghost text, so you can see what the column actually contains. When none of the sample rows has a value, Renable shows an example from elsewhere in your feed instead, in italics.
  • How full the column is — the share of your feed's rows that carry a value in it, as a percentage on the row with the exact count in the tooltip. A column that exists but is empty on nearly every row is worth spotting before you map a field to it.
  • A warning icon when a value couldn't be read as its declared type.

Reading a large feed end to end takes a moment. While that runs, the header says Renable is analyzing the feed, and counts the rows read so far once it has a count to show; the rail lists the sample's columns in the meantime and fills out when the read finishes. Sometimes that read stops short — the feed ends unexpectedly, too many rows in a row can't be read, the feed is larger than Renable reads in one pass, or it carries more columns than the rail lists. The header says which of those happened and the rail shows what was found up to that point; read such a list as incomplete, not as proof that a column is missing.

Below your feed's columns, a "Rule outputs" sub-list shows fields that a rule sets rather than a raw column — each links back to the rule that writes it, so you can tell mapped-from-a-column apart from set-by-a-rule at a glance.

Columns only some of your products have#

A column can be in your feed without being in the sample — a size chart only some products carry, a sale price set on a handful. Because Renable reads the whole feed for the column list, the rail shows that column anyway, with an example value and how full it is.

To see how your mapping treats a product that actually has one, hover or focus the column's row in the rail and use "Trace a product that has a value in this column". Renable finds one in your feed and opens the trace on it, so you can follow that value through your rules and mapping. If the product it finds is too large to preview, Renable says so — "The product with a value in size_chart is too large to trace." — instead of opening a trace.

The opposite case is marked where you'd notice it. A rule or a field that reads a column your feed doesn't have right now carries a small "not in the current feed" mark on that rule or row. It isn't an error — the value simply resolves to nothing until the column comes back, and everything else still works. Renable only marks a column that way once it has read your whole feed right through. A feed it could only partly read — for any of the reasons above — is never used to call a column missing, and the rail's header says when that's the case.

Mapping a column to a field#

Field rows are drop targets. To map a field:

  1. Find the field in the Catalog fields table.
  2. Drag the matching column from the Feed columns rail onto that field's row.
  3. Check the field's live sample updates to the value you expect.
  4. Publish the catalog when you're done — nothing reprocesses until you publish.

To take a field back out, use "Remove mapping" in the menu at the end of its row. That's different from emptying the value: a field you emptied still counts as mapped, so use Remove mapping when you want the field genuinely unmapped — and expect it to reappear in the "required missing" count if it's one of the required ones.

Choosing the product the samples show#

The live samples in the table resolve against one product at a time. Choose it with the product picker above the table. Open it to pick from the sample rows Renable previews, or type a product ID, a name or any other value in your feed's columns to search your whole feed: products from the sample are listed first, then matches from the rest of your feed. A product you pick from the whole feed is previewed the same way as a sample product — your draft rules run on it first, then the mapping.

A product whose feed data is exceptionally large — megabytes of text in one product — is still listed when it matches, but it reads "Too large to preview" and can't be picked. Renable previews a product exactly as your feed holds it and never a cut-down copy, so it tells you instead of showing values your feed doesn't produce. Pick another product to check your mapping.

The product you choose stays selected while you edit, and the Rules tab's value editor uses the same one. Changing where the catalog reads its product feed from resets it to the first sample product. When the workspace moves on to a newer copy of your feed than the one you picked a product from — after you fetch the feed again with the refresh button in the "Feed columns" header (its tooltip reads "Fetch the feed again — refreshes the sample and the columns"), for example — Renable looks for that product in the new copy once it has been read. If the product is unchanged, it stays picked, even when other products in your feed share its product ID (as variants often do). If its values changed, the samples show its current values. The picker goes back to the first sample product only when that product can no longer be found — it is gone from your feed, or several changed products now share its ID and none of them is the one you picked. If Renable can't check at all, it says so and keeps your product picked, shown as it was when you picked it.

Fallback stacks: a second source when the first is empty#

A field doesn't have to draw from one source. In a field's value editor you can stack a fallback — a second source used only when the first comes back empty. Renable shows a live sample beside each entry in the stack, so you can see which source wins for a real product. Order the stack from most-preferred to least: the first non-empty value is the one that ships. The value editor also carries a Product picker at the top — the same picker, searching your whole feed as you type — so you can switch which product the samples resolve against without leaving the editor.

An empty value in your feed means "not provided" — Renable falls back to whatever you've set up next. So a product whose column is there but blank is treated exactly like a product whose column is missing altogether: the next entry in the stack gets its turn.

Fallbacks are how you cover gaps — map a field to your primary column, then fall back to a second column, a fixed value, or a value looked up from another feed. To pull a value in from a stock or supplier feed as a fallback, see Joining another feed.

When a rule already set the field#

Your mapping is the default for a field, not the last word: rules run first, and the mapping fills in afterwards. So a rule — or a rule that arrives from a Ruleset your catalog applies — that writes Title wins for the products it matches, and your mapping still covers every other product. When that happens the field's row carries a small badge — "provided by {name}", "overrides {name}" or "adds to {name}" — so you can see who actually supplies the value without leaving the tab.

You can change that per field. Each field row has a menu with three choices:

  • Always set — your mapping wins, replacing whatever a rule produced.
  • Only if not already set — your mapping fills the field only when nothing earlier produced a value for it.
  • Add to the list — your mapping's value is added to what's already there instead of replacing it. Offered only for fields that hold several values (additional images, reasons to buy, product attributes).

A fourth entry, "Use the default for this field", puts the field back to the sensible behavior: a single-value field like Title fills in only when nothing else set it, and a multi-value field like additional images adds to the list. Leave it there unless you have a reason not to.

A value that resolves to nothing never counts as set — a rule whose expression comes back empty leaves the field free, so your mapping still fills it. To write a field from inside a rule in the first place, see Fixing your feed data with rules.

Cleaning values as you map#

When a column's raw value isn't quite what you want in the field, you don't have to accept it as-is. Every value in the mapping supports "+ Add step" — the same value functions used in rules: trim whitespace, replace text, change case, strip HTML, round a number, format a date, or map one set of values onto another, run in sequence. Because these steps are shared with rules, they're covered once, in Fixing your feed data with rules.

Column types and why they matter#

Each feed column has a type: Text, Number, Date, Boolean, or List. Renable infers the type from your sample and shows a "Inferred — click to declare" badge; click it to set the type yourself when the guess is wrong. A column the sample rows carry no value for has nothing to infer from, so it's treated as Text until you declare a type — the badge says so.

  • Date takes an optional parse pattern — leave it blank to read dates in your catalog's locale automatically.
  • List takes a separator — "Comma or semicolon (default)" or a custom one — so a multi-value column splits correctly.

The type you declare here does more than label the column: it drives which comparisons appear when you use that column in a rule. Number and Date columns unlock range comparisons like is greater than and is between; Boolean columns offer is true and is false. Declaring a column's type on the Mapping tab keeps its conditions correct everywhere it's used.

The Fill column: coverage at a glance#

The Fill column shows the percentage of products in your last import that got a value for each field. It's the fastest way to spot a field that maps cleanly for most products but leaves a slice empty — a 100% fill means every product has that field; a 60% fill means four in ten don't.

Because the number comes from the last import, and imports run your published configuration, a Fill percentage reflects the mapping that was live at that import — not any edits still sitting in your draft. When you change a field's mapping, its Fill percentage is dimmed and marked with an asterisk to tell you it's now stale: it describes the old mapping, not your current one. Publish and re-import to refresh it.

Attribute pairs#

The Attributes group holds custom fields, including attribute pairs — extra key-and-value pairs Renable can pass through to ad networks. Some feeds carry these as two matching list columns: one holding the attribute names, one holding the values in the same order. Renable detects the common shape when it sets your mapping up, and the result appears as an "Attribute pairs" row showing which two columns feed it.

You can set them yourself with "Add attribute pairs" below the table: pick the column holding the names and the column holding the values. A catalog has one attribute-pairs row, so the button appears only while there isn't one — when there is, edit or delete it from the row itself.

The row also carries a combine setting, the same choice the individual field rows offer:

  • Add to the list (the default) — the pairs are added alongside attributes anything else produced.
  • Always set — the pairs replace attributes produced earlier.
  • Only if not already set — the pairs fill in only when nothing has produced attributes yet.

To pick pairs up automatically after your feed changes, use "Regenerate from feed" (below), or ask Aimée to set them.

Map unmapped fields#

When your feed has a column for a catalog field nothing is mapped to yet, the button above the table reads "Map N unmapped fields". It adds Renable's suggestion for just those fields and touches nothing you have already mapped, so there's no confirmation step and nothing to lose — if you don't like one of the results, use "Remove mapping" on its row. When every field your feed has a column for is already mapped, the button is greyed out and says so.

This is the one to reach for after a feed picks up new columns. "Regenerate from feed", below, is the heavier tool: use it when you want to start over.

Regenerate from feed#

If your feed's columns have changed a lot — new columns, renamed ones — "Regenerate from feed" rebuilds the mapping from your feed's columns. Renable re-suggests field mappings and attribute pairs for the columns your feed has now.

Regenerating is not free of consequences: your custom rules are kept, but custom attribute mappings and edited field mappings are replaced. In other words, any field mapping you changed by hand goes back to Renable's suggestion. Use it when your feed's shape has genuinely changed, not as a routine refresh.

If you see an upgrade prompt instead of the table#

A catalog on an older feed setup shows a prompt to upgrade rather than the grouped mapping table. Follow that prompt to upgrade the catalog, and the Catalog fields table, Fill column, and value steps described here become available.

Or ask Aimée#

You don't have to wire the mapping by hand. Tell Aimée what a field should draw from — "map the title to the product_name column," or "fill brand from the manufacturer column and fall back to the vendor column" — and she can set the mapping, declare column types, manage attribute pairs — including their combine setting — and publish once you approve.

She reads the same column list you do, how full each column is included, so "which of my columns is nearly always empty?" and "does my feed have a colour column at all?" are questions she can answer without you going looking.

Where to go next#