Rules and strategy templates

A repricing rule says which products to reprice, how to work out the price, which limits apply, where the price goes and when the rule runs. You build it in the rule editor, step by step, either from a blank rule or from a strategy template. How the engine uses a rule is explained in How repricing works. To see the rules you need the Repricer Rules permission, under Pricing Intelligence > Repricer. Create rules, Edit rules and Delete rules let you create, change, pause and delete them, and Run rule now lets you start one by hand.

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Create a rule

Move between steps with Next and Back at the bottom, or pick a step in the list on the left. A step with a mistake is marked, and Next stays on it until you fix it. The Expert mode button at the top of the editor does nothing yet. While you edit the scope, strategy and constraints, the Live impact panel on the right shows how many products the scope covers (SKUs covered, out of the products tracked in Pricing Intelligence) and a few Sample SKUs. A bar at the bottom reads the rule back as one sentence, with Dry-run preview and Save rule buttons.

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Step 1: Identity

• Rule layer: what kind of rule this is.
  • Standing: everyday repricing. The default.
  • Campaign: a time-boxed promotion. When its schedule ends, Omnilinker reverts the prices it applied; see When a campaign ends.
  • Floor: a safety net. It is used when a campaign’s prices are restored. In regular runs it competes for products like any other rule; see When two rules cover the same product.
• Rule name: up to 128 characters. If you leave it empty, the rule is saved as New rule.
• Operating mode:
  • Suggest: “Recommendations land in the queue — you approve manually”. The default.
  • Auto-apply: “The rule writes prices directly — queue only for exceptions”. Requires an Output price level.

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Step 2: Scope

The scope decides which products the rule prices. Only products marked to be tracked in Pricing Intelligence are ever included. Leave everything empty to cover all of them. Each field you fill in narrows the scope further: a product must match all of them. Open Exceptions to take products out of the scope: Excluded categories, Excluded brands and Excluded products. The same category, brand or product cannot be both included and excluded. Excluded merchants, also under Exceptions, does not remove products. It removes those merchants’ offers when this rule calculates prices. Merchants that are excluded from every rule are listed under the field; you manage them on the Merchants page with Exclude from repricer.

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Step 3: Strategy

Pick one strategy card and set its parameters; see Strategies. Then choose the Output price level: “Where the rule’s recommendations and applied prices land. Required for the rule to run.” The list shows your price levels in two groups, Set in Omnilinker and Set elsewhere, with (Recommended retail) after the recommended retail price level. A rule writes only a level Omnilinker owns, so the levels under Set elsewhere, for example “Retail (managed by another system)”, cannot be picked; see Rules and other systems’ price levels. Once a level is chosen, a line tells you how many products in the scope already have a price there; the others get a first price when the rule runs. Messages under the field warn you about what else depends on that level, for example:

• “This price level feeds … live marketplace offer(s) …” — prices you apply here reach those listings.
• “Rule … also writes to this price level — the prices will overwrite each other.” When both rules cover a product, the one with the higher priority sets its price; see Priorities.
• “Your own marketplace offers are published from this level, so the next crawl reads them back as competitor offers — a rule that follows the lowest price can end up chasing its own.” Exclude your own offers opens the Merchants page, where you can mark your own shop Exclude from repricer.

These messages are advice and do not stop you saving. For a Campaign rule, choose When the campaign ends, revert to:

• Previous price (before the campaign): the default.
• Keep the campaign price (no revert): prices stay until another rule or someone changes them.
• a price level: products return to their current price at that level. The output price level is not offered.

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Step 4: Constraints

Set the limits the rule’s prices must respect. They are described in Constraints and guardrails.

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Step 5: Schedule

The schedule decides when the rule may run, in your organization’s time zone. Each part is either open or limited, and a rule runs only when all the limited parts match. The line below says whether the rule is Currently active, when its next run is due, or when it becomes active next. “never becomes active again” means the date range has ended. Run at most every (minutes) is the cooldown: the shortest time between two runs of the rule. Choose 15 min, 1 h, 4 h or 24 h, or type 0 to 1440 minutes. The default is 60. Run now ignores it. Competitor data freshness decides what happens when competitor data is old:

• Run with available data: the default. The rule runs on what it has.
• Require fresh data: the rule refreshes stale products first. Set Data is fresh when newer than (hours), 1 to 168, 24 by default; Maximum wait for refresh (minutes), 5 to 720, 60 by default; and When the wait expires: Run on available data or Skip this run. See The fresh-data gate.

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Review and deploy

The last step lists what you chose in each step, including Where these prices go. To try an existing rule on a few products, pick them in the product box and click Run dry-run. The result shows which products would change price and which are blocked. It uses the rule as last saved, so your unsaved changes are not part of it, and the button stays unavailable until the rule has been saved once. To try a new rule, click Save draft & dry-run in the Live impact panel first: it saves the rule and brings you back to this step. For a simulation over past data, see Dry runs. Then save the rule: After Deploy rule →, Save rule or Save draft, you return to the rules list.

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Kept products

A saved rule’s review step ends with Kept products: “Products kept out of “‹rule›”: the rule skips them and their prices stay.” Each row shows the product, until when it is kept (a date, or indefinitely), the note, and who kept it and when. Release puts the product back in the rule. Keep a product’s price opens Keep my price, where you search for products by SKU or name; see Keep my price. Keeping products needs Keep product prices out of repricer rules or Edit rules. A product kept out of a rule is skipped by its runs, its approvals and its dry runs, and its pending recommendations from that rule are cancelled. Another rule on the same price level may then price it; see When two rules cover the same product. After its date, the product is back in the rule.

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Confirm automatic price application

When a save would make an Auto-apply rule start writing to a price level that marketplace listings publish from, Omnilinker asks first, in Confirm automatic price application: “Saving will make this rule apply prices automatically to the ’…’ price level. … Confirm to continue.” The middle sentence says how many listings will be re-priced on their next synchronization, or that the impact could not be verified. This happens when the rule becomes active, switches to Auto-apply, or gets a different output price level. Turning a rule back on from the rules list asks the same question. Confirm to save, or cancel to change nothing.

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Strategies

A strategy proposes a price for each product. The rule’s constraints then check, clamp and round it. “Current price” is the product’s gross price at the rule’s output price level. When you switch to another strategy card, its parameters start from the defaults above.

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Start from a template

Open Pricing Intelligence > Repricer > Strategy template gallery. Filter the templates with All, Retailer, Manufacturer, Temporal or General. The editor fills in the strategy’s standard starting values and the standard constraints, not the numbers in the template’s name or description. For example, Margin Floor 18% opens with Minimum margin at 15%. Set the values you want. Skip — blank rule opens an empty editor. The 3-step guide button, the State a goal — AI builds the rule card and Suggest a new template are not available yet, and the figures in the banner at the top are not calculated from your data.

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Manage rules

Pricing Intelligence > Repricer > Rules lists your rules, grouped by layer. The Import and Backtest buttons, the search box and the filter buttons above the table do nothing yet. The line under the page title counts your rules, but its “3 priority layers · last triggered 03:17” part is fixed text, not read from your rules. The How the price decomposes for a SKU panel above the table lets you pick a product and see which rule of each layer covers it and what price it would give. In each layer it picks the rule with the highest priority number, as scheduled runs do. It does not look at price levels: a scheduled run picks one rule per output price level (see When two rules cover the same product), so for a product covered on two levels the panel shows one rule per layer, not one per level.

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Turn a rule on or off

• Pause: switch ON/OFF off. The rule stays in the list as Paused and does not run. Saving it in the editor keeps it paused.
• Resume: switch ON/OFF on. This also activates a draft. For an Auto-apply rule whose output price level feeds marketplace listings, you confirm first; see Confirm automatic price application.

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Run a rule now

Click the run button on the row. Omnilinker says “Rule ’…’ was started — the results will appear once the run finishes.” If the rule must wait for fresh data first, it says “Refreshing competitor data first”. The button is greyed out for a paused rule or a draft. See Run a rule now.

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Priorities

When two rules write the same price level, cover the same product and run at the same time, the one with the higher priority number prices it. Rules that write different price levels do not compete. A rule created in the editor gets priority 100.

• Edit a priority: click the number, type a value from 1 to 999 and press Enter. Escape cancels.
• Reorder: drag a rule by its ≡ handle above or below another rule of the same layer. Omnilinker renumbers the rules of that layer in steps of 10, top first: the top rule gets the highest number.

You need the Edit rules permission for both. Rules cannot be dragged into another layer; change the layer in the editor.

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A rule that can’t run

Running or resuming a rule whose output price level another system manages is refused in This rule can’t run, for example “Rule “Allegro min” can’t run: another system manages Retail. Open the rule to choose another level or make Omnilinker the owner.” Open the rule opens it in the editor.

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Delete a rule

Open More actions on the row and click Delete. Confirm in Delete rule?. Omnilinker says “Rule deleted”.

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Rules and other systems’ price levels

A repricer rule writes only prices Omnilinker owns. When another system manages a price level (see Who sets a level’s prices):

• The editor does not offer the level, and saving a rule on it is refused: “‹level› is managed by another system, so a repricer rule can’t set it.”
• A rule that already writes it keeps it selected with a warning: “Another system manages ‹level›, so this rule can’t set its prices. Pick another level or make Omnilinker the owner.” If you may change who sets price levels, saving asks Make Omnilinker the owner?: “Make Omnilinker the owner of ‹level›? The repricer and Catalog set it here; listings that use ‹level› start receiving these prices.” Otherwise the editor says “Someone with “Change who sets price levels” must make Omnilinker the owner of ‹level›, or pick another level.”
• The rule stops running. The rules list marks it Not running: another system manages ‹level›.
• Its pending recommendations at that level are cancelled, with the reason “The level is now set by another system”.
• The rule’s creator, the person who last changed it and the person who changed the owner get one notice in the inbox: “Repricer rule “‹rule›” can’t set ‹level› any more”. Its panel explains why and offers the fixes; see Repricer rules that can’t set a level.

When the level is Omnilinker’s again, the rule runs again at its next scheduled time and the notice clears. A level an ERP sets works differently, because the ERP sets only the products linked to it. The rule keeps running for the other products and skips the linked ones. The editor warns “‹level› is set by ‹ERP›, so this rule skips the products linked to ‹ERP›. Moving a rule onto ‹level›, or resuming it there, needs another level or Omnilinker as the owner.”, the rules list says Skips products linked to ‹ERP›, and the inbox notice says “‹level› is now set by ‹ERP›; rule “‹rule›” skips the products linked there.” See Prices from your ERP.

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Troubleshooting