Using as a Consumer

Channels provide a tailored view of item information designed for specific consumers.
While the overall data structure can remain consistent across different administrations, the expressions and configurations can vary per administration.

This flexibility ensures that the unique requirements of each administration are properly accommodated.

Example: Different Stock Messages per Administration

Imagine you have two administrations:

• Administration A wants to display more detailed stock messages:
  No stock, Few items left, and Plenty in stock.
• Administration B prefers a simpler approach:
  No stock or In stock.

Using channels, you can keep the same data structure for both administrations but configure the expressions so each administration gets its preferred stock messaging.

Keeping the channel in-sync

As the consumer application evolves, the channel structure will likely need to change as well.
We recommend managing the channel from within the consumer application to keep both aligned.

Channel Structure ≠ Channel Data

This refers to the channel structure — for example, which attributes are included — not the actual channel data exposed through those attributes.
Managing the data itself is typically handled by support or integration specialists.

There are two ways to manage the channel:

Manually

The channel is fully editable within the App, allowing you to manually update it to fit your specific needs.

This approach works especially well if you have only a few administrations using the consumer application — it's often the easiest way to start.

Programmatically through the API

You can also manage the channel and its attributes via the API. This approach allows you to:

• Keep the channel configuration in sync with your consumer application by integrating updates into your release process.
• Automatically create and configure channels when onboarding new customers.

This is ideal when you need consistent, automated, and scalable channel management.

Handling channel expression errors

Channel data can fail to evaluate when a source item or customer does not match the configured channel expressions, for example when an expression reads a missing property or expects a list but receives a scalar value.

For single item and customer detail endpoints, these failures return 422 Unprocessable Entity with a ProblemDetails body. The response includes parseable extension fields:

• entityType: item or customer
• entityCode: the item or customer code
• itemCode or customerCode: the failing entity code
• propertyOutputName: the channel property output name that failed
• detail: the human-readable evaluation error

For list and preview endpoints, one failing entity does not fail the entire response. Successful entities are returned with their data; failing entities are still included with their code, an empty data object, and an error object containing entityType, entityCode, propertyOutputName, and message.