Configuring the Category/Subcategory filter

We have three common modes for building the Category filter

The first mode produces a flat, non-hierarchical collection facet; the rest produce a hierarchical category facet.

Collections

A flat list of Shopify collections, with no hierarchy. There is no category structure in Shopify itself: collections cannot be nested within each other without workarounds like metafields. We can exclude certain collections as needed. Stored as CategoryHierarchy: Collections.

Navigation menu

A hierarchy built from a Shopify Navigation menu. Only menu items that have collections assigned to them are taken from the menu, and facet values are named after the menu items, not the collections. Shopify allows up to 3 levels of nesting. Here is a guide on how to create a menu for that: How to create a Category Tree. You can use the same navigation menu for the top menu navigation panel & for the Category filter.

The menu is picked via CategoryHierarchy_menu: menu_name. If only a section of the menu is needed — e.g. when that same menu is also your header navigation and mixes in items like Home, Blog, or Contact Us — a further setting narrows it down to one item: CategoryHierarchy_menuItem: menu_item_title. Everything nested under that item becomes the category tree; the item itself is not included as a facet level.

Both settings are configurable from the app, no schema.yaml editing required: Settings → Filters → category → check “Navigation menu” as a source, pick the menu, then (if needed) check “Trim the first level of the navigation menu tree” and pick the menu item to use.

Turn14

For stores with Turn14 parts, a category/subcategory hierarchy pulled from the _turn14 index by Vendor + SKU — the same categories/subcategories you see in the Turn14 admin dashboard. Turn14 only has two levels of categories, so this is at most a two-level tree.

We also match store collection names against Turn14 category names, so a tree can still be built from collections when Turn14 data isn’t available, but its category structure is known. Stored as CategoryHierarchy: Turn14.

All of this is configurable from the Convermax app, no schema.yaml editing required: open the app → Settings → Filters → pencil icon next to the Category filter.

Note

Changes take effect only after a full re-index, which you can trigger with the “Force re-index” button on the Convermax app home page.

Note, the “Collections list” page widget is based on the same Category filter we have on the filter panel. So changing the filter will affect the options listed on this page as well.

These sources can be combined — comma-separated in CategoryHierarchy, or by checking multiple boxes under “Values from:” in Settings → Filters → Category. CategoryHierarchy: Turn14,Collections is the default when Turn14 is available: the Turn14-driven tree, complemented with Shopify collections whose names don’t match a Turn14 category.