Product Settings
The Products settings area (sometimes called Catalog settings) is where you manage the building blocks of your catalog that apply across every product: your product grid, Categories, the reusable Attribute library, Add-ons, and company-wide AI Settings.
Navigation: Settings → Products
The area is organized into five tabs: Products, Categories, Attributes, Add-ons, and AI Settings.
Note: These are the catalog-wide rules. To build or edit an individual product, see Create a Product. The core catalog (products, categories, attributes, add-ons) is available on every plan, including Free; AI Settings is a Build-tier feature (covered below).
Products
The Products tab is your product grid — the full list of products in your catalog, filtered by category, with a toggle to show archived products. From here you open any product into the Product Builder, or create a new one.
For everything about building products — pricing, attributes, parts, and the Visual Configurator — see Create a Product.
Categories
Categories organize your products into logical groups and control how they appear in your storefront.
Managing Categories
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Display name for the category. |
| Description | Brief description shown to customers. |
| Group | Optional parent group for organizing related categories. |
| Collection | Enable to restrict mixing products across categories on a single order. |
| Order | Drag and drop to reorder categories. |
Category Groups
Categories can be organized into groups for a cleaner hierarchy — for example a Doors group containing Interior Doors, Exterior Doors, and Cabinet Doors, and a Windows group containing Casement and Sliding windows.
Collection Mode
When a category is marked as a Collection:
| Setting | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Enabled | Products in this category can only be ordered together with other products from the same collection. |
| Disabled | Products can be mixed freely with products from any category. |
Tip: Enable Collection mode for product lines that should stay consistent within a single order — for example a matching set of Shaker cabinet doors and drawer fronts. This works together with the Collection Lock toggle in Order Settings.
Reordering Categories
- Hover over the drag handle on any category row.
- Drag it to the desired position.
- The new order saves automatically.
Categories appear in your storefront in the order set here.
Attributes
Attributes define the configurable options on your products — wood species, finish, panel style, edge profile, dimensions, and so on. The Attributes tab holds your global attribute library: attributes you build once and reuse across many products, so a change in one place flows everywhere it's used.
The attribute list
Each attribute in the library shows its name, description, how many options it has, and how many products currently use it. From the list you can:
- Add a new attribute.
- Edit an attribute — this opens the full Attribute Builder, where you configure its type, options, option pricing, photos, dependencies, and document formatting.
- Delete an attribute you no longer need.
- Drag to reorder — grab any row and drag it to change the order attributes appear in.
Import CSV / Excel — build a whole attribute from a file
Building an attribute with dozens of options by hand is slow. Instead, use Import CSV (the purple button on the Attributes tab) to build an entire attribute — its options and columns — directly from an uploaded CSV or Excel file.
This is a genuine time-saver for large option sets, for example a species list or a full door-style catalog with prices. Upload the file, map the columns, and the attribute is created for you ready to review.
Tip: There's also an AI Photo Matcher for attributes that need a photo per option. Upload a supplier's PDF catalog and AI matches each catalog photo to the right option by its printed text label — not by the pixels. It's reachable from inside the Attribute Builder (look for Import Photos / Catalog Photos) and is a Commerce-plan feature. See the AI overview.
Per-attribute document formatting & Display Groups
When you edit an attribute (or a product's setup), the Attribute Builder also lets you control how that attribute prints on documents and group attributes into named Display Groups for cleaner quotes, invoices, and build sheets. This is an easy-to-miss power feature — see Document Display for the full guide.
Add-ons
Add-ons are optional extras a customer can add to a product — a warranty, rush production, white-glove delivery, matching hardware. Unlike attributes, which configure the product, add-ons are supplementary line items.
Managing add-ons
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The add-on's display name. |
| Description | What's included. |
| Price | The additional cost. |
| Image | Optional visual. |
| Active | Enable or disable availability. |
The Add-ons tab includes bulk-edit and CSV import tools for managing many add-ons at once. For the full workflow, see Add-ons.
Availability: Add-ons are available on paid plans (Commerce and up).
AI Settings
The AI Settings tab holds a single company-wide Global AI Instructions box — your terminology, part-code mappings, and defaults that are included with every AI request, so TimberCloud's AI features speak your language.
Availability: Editing and saving Global AI Instructions is a Build plan feature. On lower plans the tab is still visible but shows a blurred upgrade teaser and can't be saved. Note that the AI features these instructions steer (like the AI Order Assistant) start at Commerce — the instruction-tuning surface itself is Build.
For the full guide to what to write and how it's used, see AI Settings.
Next Steps
- Create a Product — build and price individual products
- Attributes — deep dive on attribute types and options
- Add-ons — optional extras customers can add
- Document Display — per-attribute formatting and Display Groups
- AI Settings — company-wide Global AI Instructions
- Order Settings — Collection Lock and document options