Create a product family

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A product family groups related products (typically variants of the same style) so features like diversity expressions can reason about them as one item. Use this guide to create a manual family from the dashboard, or to configure automatic families from a product attribute.

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Prerequisites

• You have access to the Product Families section of the Layers dashboard.
• The products you want to group are already synced into your catalog.
• If you plan to create automatic families, the attribute you’ll use is already configured. See Attributes or Metafields.

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Create a manual family

Use a manual family when your grouping logic doesn’t match a single attribute, or when you want to hand-curate a set of products that belong together. Every manual family has a publication status that controls whether it is applied by downstream features like Diversity expressions. New families start as a Draft so you can assemble them safely before they go live.

1. Go to Product Families and click + Create Family.
2. Give the family a clear name, such as Heritage Tee — All Colors, in the Untitled Product Family heading.
3. In the Products card, click Add Product and search for each product that belongs to the family. Drafts can be saved with a single product; publishing requires at least two unique products.
4. Choose how to save:
   • Click Save Draft to persist the family without making it active. This is useful while you’re still assembling the member list or need sign-off before turning it on.
   • Click Publish to save and activate the family in one step. This option is only enabled once the Products list contains at least two unique products.

The new family appears in the Product Families list with a Manual source label and a Status column showing whether it is Draft or Active.

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Publish or unpublish a family

Use publication status to control whether a manual family influences merchandising features like Diversity expressions without having to delete and recreate it.

1. Open the family you want to toggle from the Product Families list.
2. In the page header, click:
   • Publish to move a draft family to Active status. The button is disabled until the family has at least two unique member products.
   • Unpublish to move an active family back to Draft status. Member assignments are preserved; only the family’s effect on downstream features is paused.
3. Confirm the Status badge in the page header updates to reflect the new state.

Active families take effect the next time a merchandising feature evaluates families. Draft families are ignored by those features until they are published.

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Configure automatic families from an attribute

Use automatic families when an attribute already identifies the grouping, such as a style code metafield that is shared across color variants of the same style.

1. Go to Settings > Product Families.
2. Click + Add Attribute.
3. Pick an attribute from the dropdown. Supported attributes include product fields (like vendor), nested keys (like custom.style_code), metafields, and computed attributes.
4. Click Save.

Layers builds a family for every distinct value of that attribute during your next catalog sync. Each automatic family is named Auto: <attribute>:<value> and appears in the Product Families list with an Attribute source label.

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What counts as a valid source attribute

• Single-valued string, number, or boolean attributes.
• Computed attributes whose logic returns a single value.
• Metafields that resolve to a single value.

Array-valued attributes (like tags) and metric attributes are not supported. A product cannot cleanly belong to multiple families through one attribute.

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Edit or delete a family

• Manual families can be renamed, have members added or removed, and can be deleted individually or in bulk from the Product Families list.
• Automatic families are read-only in the dashboard. To change their membership, update the source attribute on the underlying products. Automatic families with no remaining members are cleaned up automatically.

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Bulk delete

1. In the Product Families list, select the rows you want to remove.
2. Choose Delete from the bulk actions menu and confirm.

Only manual families in the selection are removed. Automatic families are skipped.

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Troubleshooting

A product didn’t end up in the family I expected. Check which source attribute your automatic family is using, and verify the product’s value for that attribute. Empty or array-valued attribute values are skipped on purpose. My manual family assignment disappeared. Manual assignments are not overwritten by sync. If a product is missing, confirm that it wasn’t removed from the manual family’s member list, and that the product is still synced into your catalog. Diversity isn’t doing anything. Diversity only reshuffles products that are assigned to an active family. Confirm that the products in the top of your collection are members of families, either manually or through an automatic source, and that any manual families you rely on are published rather than left in Draft. I can’t click Publish on my draft family. Publishing requires at least two unique products in the Products list. Add a second product, then try again. Drafts with a single product can still be saved with Save Draft.

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Next steps

• Product families overview
• Diversity expressions
• Create a sort order
• Create a merchandising rule