Pimberly is easy to understand and simple to use, but here are a few questions we get most often:
What is a schema?
A schema is a set of rules that describe a particular class of products and define rules that will govern how products of that class are processed. Schemas can be viewed as having a 1-1 mapping to product families. Each product in your assortment must belong to a schema, and can belong to only one. The schema allows you to configure the sub classes within it and which attributes are applicable to each of those sub classes (the taxonomy). It also allows you to configure user access rights to products in the schema, define which workflows and lifecycles affect those products and how those products are uniquely identified. Using schemas allows you to manage extremely varied different kinds of products in your Pimberly account.
What is an attribute?
An attribute is any property of a product, such as Price or Description. There are many types of attribute (for example: currency, text, boolean) and each type may have several input options (rich text, multi-select, checkbox etc.) Pimberly makes no distinction between what you might ‘features’, ‘properties’, ‘fields’ and ‘attributes’. Every attribute is configurable and there are no mandatory fields. The only required element of a product is a unique identifier.
What is a taxonomy?
A taxonomy is a hierarchical list of product classes. The taxonomy allows you to define the attributes which are applicable to each class.
What is a feed?
Feeds provide data to Pimberly from external sources. They can be set up to pull data automatically from an FTP(S) server, HTTP(S) or to allow third party systems to push data to Pimberly through our REST API.
Feeds allow you to receive product information from suppliers, data aggregators (eg. CNET) as well as from any existing internal systems. They can update in real time, periodically, or be scheduled to run at specified times. Feeds are easily configured through an intuitive graphical U.I.
What is a channel?
Channels are Pimberly’s output, and allow you to define how product information should be transformed and delivered to a particular sales channel i.e. your website, mobile app or external system through connectors.
They operate in the same way as feeds i.e. flat file, ftp, our cloud CDN, REST API. Like feeds, channels are easily configured through an intuitive graphical U.I.
What software do I need?
The system requires an internet connection and a modern browser… that’s it!
What hardware will it run on?
The system requires an internet connection and a modern browser… that’s it! So any machine capable of doing that, smart phone, tablet, PC, laptop, iOS, Mac, PC, Linux… anything!
Where is my stuff stored?
Data is stored securely on Amazon’s EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) platform and backed up securely. Digital assets are stored securely on Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) platform and backed up securely.
Will it interact with my other systems?
Pimberly includes a full REST API for real time upload and export of data. Data can also be loaded and exported as files via FTP.
What technology is Pimberly built on?
Pimberly is built on our highly scalable and fault tolerant full-stack JavaScript SaaS platform which is running on Amazon Web Services. Designed to scale to millions of users, the system employs a shared-nothing architecture of many small processing instances which balance load between them. The architecture allows instances to be added and removed from the network without affecting its integrity. The infrastructure leverages open-source software throughout, e.g. AWS Linux, Express, Node and MongoDB. Instances in our VPN can be spun-up in any AWS region and data can be shifted to where it is most used, enabling the same lightning fast access to data anywhere in the world. Read more about our technology here.
Are there any limits on how many products I can store?
Pimberly is a cloud based system designed to support thousands of client accounts each with hundreds of thousands of products. The unique architecture we have allows us to scale the system capacity ‘horizontally’ by adding further nodes to the network. The process of adding and removing nodes is automatic and based on system load. Because of this we currently have no known capacity limitation. We have a number of existing user accounts with 100,000 of SKUs each and we have load tested with millions of SKUs and 1000s of users.
How big can an individual product be?
A single product document cannot exceed 32MB (this EXCLUDES binary data such as images or videos). For comparison, the entire King James Bible is 9MB uncompressed. There are no limitations apart from this. You can define as many schemas as required and each schema can have any number of attributes. File sizes for imports via feeds are effectively unlimited. Ad hoc imports via the browser are chunked but limitations may exist in the browser that prevent upload of very large files. We recommend the use of pre-defined feeds for very large files. The DAM module of Pimberly for the storage or images, videos and other product related files is backed by Amazon S3 storage. This has a theoretical maximum file size of 5 Terabytes.
How to setup?
The system is completely configurable by you. We set up your account and then you can change any aspect of the system yourself easily by referencing our online help. Visit our expertise section to read more about the assistance we can offer.
Is support included?
Each plan has an amount of support included in it, once this is exceeded we will contact you to discuss arranging a separate support plan.
How do users access the system?
Pimberly is a cloud based platform and is accessed by all users using a web browser via the URL and account login details
How are users calculated?
Users accounts are set up by your Admin user. Each account will only allow one login at any one time, but a machine could be used for different logins at different times.
Will you help us determine the data structure to meet our requirements?
Absolutely we can help you with this. The data structure in Pimberly is very flexible so can deal with most situations.
Can digital assets can be associated with products. E.g. images, catalogues, data sheets?
Pimberly includes a DAM (Digital Asset Management) module. The DAM can store images, videos and documents that can then be linked to the products.
Does your DAM support multiple types of digital assets (images, video, audio, animation, documents)?
Pimberly’s DAM supports all image and video types as well as PDFs and Microsoft Office documents. Other file types are supported, but we may not be able to generate a thumbnail image for them.
What storage capacity is availble for images?
The base tier includes 1TB of storage, but it can be unlimited in size.
Does the DAM allow for re-naming according to a set of rules?
Yes. You can use the Channel configuration to build SEO friendly URLs for a specific channel by referencing other attributes of the product. For example, you can use the product code + the item description as the image name.
What makes you / your product different (USP) from other suppliers?
We have a proven track record stretching back 17 years of providing PIM solutions to some of the biggest and best known companies in the UK (read more about our story here). We have taken this knowledge and used it to create a ground-breaking, scalable, flexible PIM solution that no other system can match. This is proven by the fact our biggest Pimberly customer spent 3 years evaluating PIM solutions and couldn’t find one that matched the requirements of a large tech distributor, and would have to take an existing system and add a significant amount of “middleware” to make it work. Pimberly however answered all their requirements and was successfully installed in a few weeks.
Can I notify relevant users when important data is changed?
In-built messages functionality alerts users to notifications, change requests and task requests. Alerts can also be sent to external people with an email address.
Can I store multiple curriencies and languages aginst my products?
Localisation is standard functionality and allows Pimberly to store multiple versions of specific attributes.
Can I manage product lifecycles in Pimberly?
Pimberly is extremely flexible and the new product introduction process can be configured by your account administrator in many different ways to suit your requirements. Often new products are originated in an ERP system which is integrated with Pimberly via a feed. But products can be originated in Pimberly also, in which case business users can click the New Product button to start the process. The creation of products can be controlled through lifecycles, automation workflows and approval workflows. For example you could attach a multi-level approval workflow to product creation. Pimberly can also generate product codes for new products according to your specifications. Different product families can have different product creation processes.
Are there any additional costs?
Each plan is fully inclusive and has no extra charges. The hosting, storage, bandwidth is all included in each plan. However if you want a selection of features that isn’t listed, such as a million SKUs but only one channel, one feed and one user, please contact us for a price. Invoicing for Pimberly is annually in advance.
What is the cost?
Pimberlys pricing structure is based on the size and usage you require. There are a number of different pricing bands based on number of SKUs you will have in the system, number if users, input feeds and output channels and workflows. For more information see https://pimberly.com/pricing/
What are the payment terms?
Payment is annually in advance.
Is data encrypted when it is transmitted between end user devices and the Cloud Services?
All connections to Pimberly are end-to-end encrypted with SSL/TLS. We use encrypted access tokens for authorisation of all connections. The access token is linked to your account and application and database level controls prevent any entities being returned to the client that do not match the account ID.
How do you ensure separation of data on a multi-tenanted system?
We employ a number of industry standard processes at both the application and database levels to ensure the separation of client data within what is a multi-tenant system. In particular client access to data relies on short lived access tokens which encode the account ID the client has access to; this account ID must match the account ID of any returned records at every stage of processing and where it does not the data cannot be returned to the client.
Do you follow any standards for code development?
Pimberly is a full-stack JavaScript platform. As there are currently no CERT coding standards specifically for JavaScript, although there is some crossover from the Java standard which we note, we follow the OWASP secure coding practices for web applications. See www.owasp.org for details.
How does the platform differentiate and control different user access levels?
There are two user types: Account Admin and User. In addition, one user is designated the Account Owner. The Account Owner can appoint Account Admins and Schema Admins. Account Admins can appoint Schema Admins.
Access to product data is controlled by Access Control Lists in the Schema configuration. Access can be controlled down to the attribute level and is based on User Groups.
What is your Data Retention Policy?
Storage duration and deletion is under the customer’s control not ours. On termination of contract we will allow a defined amount of time for the customer to download their data off the system before the account is closed.
What are your back-up and recovery practices?
Data you upload to the Pimberly service is backed up to encrypted storage in an alternative Amazon S3 availability region data centres in Ireland regions.
Do you have a formal training programme for all employees which covers information security topics?
Pimberly’s employees are advised and trained on general and specific aspects of Information Security, according to the requirements of their function within the organisation. The Contract of Employment includes a condition covering confidentiality regarding the organisation’s business.
