Quick answer
- In Odoo, tick Google Merchant Center in the website settings, create a feed named Vinius with your wine categories only, and copy its URL.
- In Vinius, open Catalogue, choose Connect on the Odoo product feed card and paste the link.
- Run the integrity check and do the spot check. Fix what they find in Odoo, then run the check again until it passes.
- Choose a schedule and activate. The first sync starts at once.
- Nothing is installed in Odoo, and nothing is sent to Google.
Before you start
You need all four of these:
- Odoo 19 or later. On Odoo Online, saas~18.3 or later. Odoo shows its version under Settings.
- The eCommerce app, so your Odoo has a webshop.
- The rights to change the website's settings (website administrator).
- Your wines published on the webshop. The feed only carries published products.
Older versions of Odoo have no product feed. For them, a file import in the Vinius format is coming; there is no date for it yet.
The first report goes faster when these are in order in Odoo:
- an Internal Reference on every product variant: your own product code
- the EAN in Barcode, where you have one
- the vintage and the bottle size in the product name, or as variant attributes
Odoo documents the feed itself in its guide to Google Merchant Center. Vinius reads the same feed, without Google.
Steps
In Odoo
- Go to Website › Configuration › Settings. Under Tracking & SEO, tick Google Merchant Center and save. This only switches the feed on; nothing goes to Google.
- Click Manage feeds and create a new feed, separate from any feed you use for Google:
- Name: Vinius.
- Pricelist: keep the shop's default, unless your shop sells to trade only. See Prices below.
- Language: the language your wine names are written in.
- Categories: your wine categories only, so glasses, gift boxes and spirits stay out.
- Click Copy URL on the new feed.
Treat this link like a password. Anyone who has it can read the catalogue it describes, so paste it into Vinius and nowhere else. Vinius stores it encrypted and never shows it again.
In Vinius
- Open Catalogue and click Connect on the Odoo product feed card.
- Paste the link into Feed link.
- Answer What is the price in this feed? (see Prices below). For Trade price incl. VAT, also fill in VAT rate to take off (%).
- Check the two rules, A wine without a year is non-vintage and A wine without a bottle size is a 75 cl bottle (see The two rules below), then click Save.
- Click Run integrity check. New wines go through the title parser, so a large catalogue takes a few minutes.
- Read the report. When a check fails or wines are left out, fix them in Odoo and click Run integrity check again.
- Do the Spot check: mark each of the ten wines Right or Wrong, then click Confirm spot check. One wrong wine sends you back to step 9.
- Once the integration shows Ready, schedule the sync: choose Daily or Weekly (and the Day), pick a Time in Brussels time, and click Activate and sync now.
The first sync starts straight away. From then on, Vinius reads the feed on your schedule.
If Vinius refuses the link, copy it again with Copy URL. Vinius accepts the link exactly as Odoo gives it: it starts with https://, points to your public webshop, ends in /gmc.xml and carries a feed_id and an access_token.
What Vinius reads
| In Odoo | In Vinius |
|---|---|
| Internal Reference of the product variant | Your product code (SKU). Without one, the feed carries Odoo's own product number, which changes if you ever recreate the product |
| Product name, with its variant | Producer, wine name, vintage and bottle size |
| Variant attributes | Vintage, bottle size and producer, when you keep them as attributes |
| Webshop categories and product tags | The style, when the name does not give it. Categories also help tell wine from glasses or gift boxes |
| Barcode | The EAN, kept with your offer |
| Stock status on the shop | Availability: in stock or out of stock |
| Price of the feed's pricelist | Your list price, only when you declare it a trade price |
| Product images | Not used yet |
How Vinius reads a product name
The feed has no producer field, so most of what Vinius needs comes from the product name. It reads the name in two steps. Fixed rules first find the year and the bottle size (2019, 75cl, 0,75 l, 1,5 L, magnum). A language model then splits the rest into producer and wine name, and recognises the appellation, the country and the style.
Names that start with the producer and carry one year and one size read best, for example Producer Wine Appellation 2022 75cl. For a non-vintage wine, write NV or non-vintage in the name.
An attribute gives Vinius the answer directly. An attribute for the vintage or the size wins over the name. Vinius recognises attributes named, for example, Vintage, Year, Jaargang or Millésime for the vintage; Size, Volume, Inhoud or Format for the bottle size; and Producer, Producent, Domaine or Winery for the producer.
This step is where most reading mistakes happen, and it is exactly what the spot check is for.
The two rules
- A wine without a year is non-vintage is off by default. Turn it on only when every wine in your feed without a year really is non-vintage. With the rule off, those wines are left out as Vintage unclear, which is better than a wrong vintage.
- A wine without a bottle size is a 75 cl bottle is on by default. Turn it off if you would rather have wines without a size left out (No bottle size) than listed as 75 cl.
Prices
A feed carries the prices of one pricelist. Vinius uses them only when you say they are trade prices:
- Not a trade price (ignored) is the default. Choose it when your webshop sells to consumers. Prices then come per order.
- Trade price excl. VAT or Trade price incl. VAT: choose one only when the feed's price is what you charge trade customers, for example on a shop that sells to trade only. Check in Odoo whether your shop's prices include VAT before you choose. With Trade price incl. VAT, Vinius takes the rate you enter in VAT rate to take off (%) off every price.
Odoo only lets a feed use a pricelist that is selectable on your website. On a shop that also sells to consumers, do not set up a trade pricelist just for the feed: a selectable pricelist can be within reach of your shop's visitors.
When the feed carries a reduced price, Vinius takes the reduced one. A declared price below €1 or above €5,000 a bottle excl. VAT is treated as a mistake: the wine is published without a price.
Vinius records every price change with its date. If you later switch to Not a trade price (ignored), your wines keep the last trade price Vinius recorded. To remove published prices, contact Vinius.
The quality check
The integrity check report lists what it found. These are the findings an Odoo feed gets most often:
| Finding | Fix in Odoo |
|---|---|
| Vintage unclear | Add the year to the product name, or as a variant attribute named Vintage. For a non-vintage wine, write NV in the name |
| Two years in one item | Keep one year in the name, or set the vintage as an attribute, which wins over the name |
| No bottle size or 75 cl assumed | Add the size to the name (75cl, 1,5 L, magnum) or as an attribute named Size |
| SKU appears twice | Give every variant its own Internal Reference |
| No producer | Put the producer in the product name, or add an attribute named Producer |
| Not wine, on a real wine | Take words such as glass or gift box out of its name, and check its categories |
| At least half of the products are wine fails | The feed has the wrong categories: edit the Vinius feed under Manage feeds |
Every check and every finding, with its fix: The integrity check, check by check.
Keeping it up to date
Vinius reads the feed on your schedule, and every sync passes the same checks as the first. Odoo itself refreshes the feed about once a day, so a change you make in Odoo can take up to two days to reach buyers. Sync now reads the feed at once, but Odoo may still serve the file it built earlier that day.
- Wines that leave the feed (unpublished, or moved out of the feed's categories) are no longer listed. Nothing is deleted, and a wine that comes back is listed again.
- A sync that changes much more than usual is held. That means more than a fifth of your wines gone, more than a quarter of the prices changed, or one price moving by more than half. You see This sync is on hold; check the report, then click Apply anyway or Discard. Buyers keep seeing the previous state until you do.
- A feed that cannot be read turns the integration to Failing. Your wines stay listed as they were, and the next successful sync makes it Active again.
- Once a product code is live, it stays linked to the same wine. Later syncs change its availability and price, not which wine it is. That is why the spot check comes first. If a code is linked to the wrong wine, contact Vinius.
- To change the schedule, click Change next to it.
- To change the link or the settings, click Pause, then Edit. Paste a new link into Feed link, or leave it empty to keep the current one, and click Save. The integration goes back to Draft: run the integrity check and the spot check again, then activate. Your wines stay listed as they were in the meantime.
The link itself cannot be changed in Odoo. To get a new one, for example after it was shared by mistake, delete the Vinius feed under Manage feeds, create a new one and paste its link as above.
Disconnecting
- Pause stops every sync. Your wines stay listed as they were at the last sync, and Resume picks the schedule up again.
- Deleting the Vinius feed in Odoo, or switching the feed off, stops Vinius from reading it. The integration then shows Failing, and your wines stay listed as they were.
- Before you activate an integration, Remove deletes it together with its integrity checks.
- To take your wines off Vinius altogether, contact Vinius. There is no button for that yet.