--- title: "Action: WebShop categories" description: "Imports web shop categories, optionally building a parent/child hierarchy and mapping each category to a search tag." url: https://support.sapera.io/en/articles/594-action-webshop-categories collection: "SyncTool" updated: 2026-09-25 language: en alternates: [da] --- # Action: WebShop categories Imports web shop categories, optionally building a parent/child hierarchy and mapping each category to a search tag. Imports web shop categories, optionally building a parent/child hierarchy and mapping each category to a search tag. ## How to use the action 1\. Select the action in the **Action** field. 2. Point to your data source – a **file** (CSV or Excel) or a **SQL query**. 3. Map the source columns to Sapera's fields in the column mapping (see _Source fields_ below). 4. Run **Compare** to see what will be created, changed or stay unchanged – without writing to Sapera. 5. Run **Update Sapera** to perform the import. Use the **Allow create** and **Allow update** parameters to control whether new rows are created and whether existing ones are updated. ## How matching and updating works Each category is identified by **parent + name**. Set Parent to build a category hierarchy. - Depending on the setup, each category can also be mirrored to a matching **search tag**. The given parent must exist. Direction: from file/SQL into Sapera. ## Key parameters

Parameter	Explanation
AllowCreate	When enabled, web shop categories that do not exist are created.
AllowUpdate	When enabled, existing web shop categories are updated.
MapToSearchTag	When enabled, each category is linked to a matching search tag.
SearchTagType	Display name of the search tag type used when mapping categories to search tags.
WebShopName	Name of the web shop the categories belong to.

## Source fields

Field	Explanation
Description	The SEO description text shown for the category.
Name	The name of the web shop category (the identifier of the row).
Parent	The name of the parent category, used to build the category hierarchy.

* * * See also the overview [SyncTool – actions](https://support.sapera.io/en/articles/547-synctool-handlinger.md). * * * **Want to know more?** Read more in these related articles: [ Standard parameters for all actions The general parameters available on most SyncTool actions: step control, error handling, timeout, etc. ](https://support.sapera.io/en/articles/648.md)