parent product ref is used for both sales files and product catalogues as the product's parent search identifier, its value consisting of unicode characters that is often an SKU that represents multiple product search codes / variants.
Usage is as follows:
| File type | TXT/CSV file field name | XML field name (case sensitive) | Required/Optional | Default value |
| Sales file | parent product ref | parent_product_ref | Optional | None |
| Product catalogue | parent product ref | N/A | Optional | None |
It serves to identify a group of products that are similar to each other, for example, if you have separate SKUs for different colours of the same shirt (product), you may want to display the rating for the shirt (any colour) (i.e. the parent product) instead.
Where products have been uploaded to Feefo with a parent product ref, this value can be used as part of an https://api.feefo.com/api/logo URL to add a parent's rating rather than an individual product's rating to your website or to generate reports that are based around the group of products rather than the products themselves.
Note: parent product ref does not support values that include the hash (#) character or the URL ASCII code %23.
Sales File Field: mobileSales File Field: feedback date