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Guide
Install the ECL Menu and Menu Item Connectors
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Introduction
Introduction
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Step 1
Create an App in your Yext Account
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Step 2
Install the ECL Menu Connector
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Step 3
Install the ECL Menu Item Connector
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Step 4
Use the ECL Menu Connector and ECL Menu Item Connector Together
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Step 3: Install the ECL Menu Item Connector

Overview

The ECL Menu Item Connector pulls menu item data directly from the ECLs in your account and converts them into Menu Item entities within the same account. This connector utilizes a custom entity type called “Menu Item” that was created specifically for converting and storing ECL data as entities.

Fields included on this entity type are:

  • Name
  • Entity ID
  • Item Description
  • Photo
  • Item Option (custom field type, comprised of the following subfields)
    • Option Name
    • Option Price (Value)
  • Associated Menus (ID)
  • Associated Menus
  • Item Calories

This connector will not delete your ECLs upon creation of the entities, and your ECLs will continue to power your listings across platforms. By converting your ECLs into entities, you will have increased flexibility for adding menu item data to your Search, Pages, and Chat products.

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Tip
Since many menu ECLs have similar menu item offerings, there will be a lot of duplicate menu items brought in as entities if duplicates aren’t filtered out. As a built-in part of this app, there is a function called isDupe that is automatically applied and filters out duplicate menu items from the connector. The output is a single menu item entity for each unique menu item name. The first occurrence of each menu item is the one that will be uploaded to your Yext account.

Steps to Install

This app will create an ECL Menu connector in your Yext account. This connector will create Menu Item entities out of your Menu ECLs.

  1. Navigate to Apps > Directory and search for ECL Menu Item Connector.
  2. Review the app details and click Install.
  3. Allow the connector to access your Yext Account by clicking Next.
  4. Input the API Key that you generated in Step 1.
  5. Click Authorize, which will install and run the connector. You will be redirected to the ECL Menu Item Connector overview page.

Before running the connector, choose one of the below sections depending on whether you have less than 100 menu ECLs in your account, or 100 or more menu ECLs in your account, and follow the steps listed.

Less Than 100 Menu ECLs

  1. Click Run Connector to pull in all of your Menu Item entities.
  2. Check out the newly created Menu Item entities in the Knowledge Graph!

100 or More Menu ECLs

If you have 100 or more menus, pulling in and deduplicating all menu items may cause the connector to hit a rate limit. In order to still be able to pull in all menu items and link them to their associated menus, you can choose one “Corporate Menu” that has all menu items available. You can then follow the steps below to update the connector and pull menu item data in from one Menu ECL.

Using this approach, the connector will still be able to map all associated menus as linked entities on your menu item entities, as long as you have installed the ECL Menu Connector.

  1. If you don’t have an existing Corporate Menu that includes all menu items across all locations, you will need to create one.
    • Export all of your menu ECLs and remove duplicate menu item names in Excel (only keep one of each item name)
    • Re-upload this menu as a new Menu ECL and call it “Corporate Menu.”
    • You will then use this menu ID in the next steps. steps 9-16. Follow this Help Article for more information on how to create a new ECL.
  2. Copy the ECL menu ID for the one menu you will use to pull in all menu item data.
  3. Click into the connector and then click Edit Configuration.
  4. Scroll up to Step 2: Settings and click Edit.
  5. Click the dropdown menu next to “Operation” and change the selection to Fetch Items from One Menu.
  6. Enter the menu ID you copied above and click Continue.
  7. Save the connector, and then click Run Connector to pull in all of your Menu Item entities.
  8. Check out the newly created Menu Item entities in the Knowledge Graph!

After installing the app you will have the ability to customize further. You can click Edit Configuration if you would like to add any additional data transforms or field mappings.

There are two options for creating relationships between your Menu Item entities and the menus that they are available on. You may choose to use one or both of the following field mappings based on your use case.

  • Associated Menus Custom Field: This is the built-in configuration. If you don’t change any settings, the “Associated Menus” column will be mapped to a custom “Associated Menus” text list field that will populate with the names of all of the menus that offer the item. You will be able to reference these menu names in the front-end, but they won’t be linked to any Menu entities.

  • Associated Menus (ID) Custom Field: Follow Step 4 of this guide to use the ECL Menu connector with the ECL Menu Items connector.

Additional Data Configuration

If you would like your Menu Item entities to include more data than what is configured in the default settings, such as section data or additional item option data, there are a few options:

Use a Corporate Menu

Use the Menu entity or Menu Item connector to pull in data from just one “corporate menu.” This would allow you to pull in more menu item subfields, as you could map data such as parent section or item options subfields to just one menu item.

These mappings aren’t built in by default because when using the Menu Item connector, you are running through many duplicate items across all menus using the “isDupe” function and you keep one menu item. Because of this, there could be variation across your menus on the options for each item, so we are unable to by default map just one value to a given field on a menu item entity.

Pull In All Duplicates

You could remove the “isDupe” function within the menu item connector, pulling in duplicate entities for each menu item that appears across all of your menus. You can then add whichever additional mappings such as section name or option price to each individual menu item entity, and filter your entities using saved filters or folders so that your menu items are organized by parent menu, section, or any other filterable field.

If you have many menus and duplicate menu items and you are concerned about exceeding entity capacity, we wouldn’t recommend using this approach. Instead, you can use the corporate menu option or add additional data via spreadsheet upload.

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