Oracle iStore's Product Autoplacement feature allows products within Oracle Inventory categories to be automatically added and replaced within Leaf sections, according to parameters that you set. The autoplacement is achieved through category-section mappings and the use of the concurrent program, iStore Product Autoplacement Concurrent Program.

Available for Leaf Sections Only
The autoplacement feature is available only for leaf sections. A leaf section is the last section(s) in a site section hierarchy node. A leaf section may be a Featured or a Navigational section --- what characterizes it as a leaf section is its location in the hierarchy and the fact that it cannot have subsections. Typically, a leaf section will contain only products.
Note: If you attempt to use autoplacement with sections that are not leaf sections, the autoplacement will not be effective.
The following diagram illustrates the leaf section concept.

Categories Map to Leaf Sections
The autoplacement process matches Oracle iStore leaf sections to Oracle Inventory categories within the default category set specified in the profile option, IBE: Category Set. You must map the leaf sections to categories, as described below.

Note that category assignment is not mandatory. You can always manually select products for any section. When you run the concurrent program, you insert parameters that tell the program which sections and products are candidates for the autoplacement program. The category-section associations that you define determine which categories'
products get populated into (or removed from) the sections.

Categories and sections have a many-to-many relationship -- e.g., you can assign a single category to any number of sections; likewise, a single section can have any number of assigned categories. A warning message will display if you attempt to assign a non-leaf section to a category.

To map leaf sections to categories, log in to the Site Administration UI and select Catalog > Sections > (select section) > Update > Categories hyperlink > Assign Categories.

Running Product Autoplacement Concurrent Program
After you have created the desired mappings between your leaf sections and Oracle Inventory categories, you must run the iStore Product Autoplacement Concurrent Program to populate the sections with products. You also can instruct the concurrent program to run in Replace mode, and it will update existing products as well as remove products which no longer match the category-section mappings.