---
title: "Product Families"
description: "A product family is a top-level grouping for products that share the same set of characteristics."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.beelocity.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Product Families

A **product family** is a top-level grouping for products that share the same set of characteristics. Every product in Beelocity belongs to exactly one family — it is a required relationship that determines the product's data structure.

## What Families Do

Families serve two important purposes:

### 1. Organization

Families group related products together. "Apparel", "Electronics", "Building Materials", "Office Supplies" — each is a family that represents a broad product category in your business.

### 2. Attribute Definition

A family defines which [attributes](product-attributes.html) its products have. All products in the "Apparel" family share the same set of attributes (Size, Color, Material, Care Instructions, etc.). This ensures consistency across your catalog — you define the attributes once on the family, and every product in it automatically has fields for all of them.

For **configurable** products, the family's **variant attributes** (like Size and Color) drive automatic variant generation. When you create a configurable product in a family that has variant attributes, Beelocity generates one variant for every combination of those attributes. See [Product Attributes](product-attributes.html) for details.

## Creating a Family

1. Go to **Products > Product Families** (accessible from the Products page).
2. Click **New**.
3. Fill in:
- **Name** — a descriptive name for the family (e.g., "Textile Products", "Electronic Components").
- **Description** — an optional explanation of what this family covers and what kinds of products belong to it.
- **Parent family** — optionally, select an existing family as the parent to create a hierarchy.
4. Save.

After creating the family, you will want to define its [attributes](product-attributes.html) — this is what gives the family its value. Without attributes, a family is just a label.

### Managing Attributes on a Family

From the family list, click **Manage Attributes** on any family to open the attribute management panel. Here you can:

- **Add attributes** — define new characteristics for products in this family.
- **Edit attributes** — change an attribute's name, type, or options.
- **Mark variant attributes** — designate which attributes should drive variant generation for configurable products.
- **Set required attributes** — mark which attributes must be filled in when creating a product.

See [Product Attributes](product-attributes.html) for detailed information about attribute types, variant attributes, and how to configure them.

## Family Hierarchy

Families can be organized into a **parent-child tree**. This is purely for organizational clarity — child families do **not** inherit attributes from their parent. Each family defines its own attributes independently.

On the **Product Families** page, the filter button beside the search box narrows the list to the
children of one **Parent Family**, or to **Active** / inactive families (see
[Working with lists](../getting-started/working-with-lists.html#narrowing-the-list)).

### Example

```
Apparel
├── T-Shirts
├── Pants
├── Jackets
└── Accessories

Electronics
├── Phones
├── Tablets
├── Accessories
└── Components

Building Materials
├── Cement & Concrete
├── Steel & Metal
└── Wood & Timber
```

The hierarchy helps you navigate a large family list. When you have 20 or 30 families, grouping them under parents keeps the list manageable.

## Tips

- **One family per product type** — all products in a family share the same attributes, so group products that genuinely have the same characteristics. T-shirts and pants both need Size and Color, but a phone needs Screen Size and Storage — those should be different families.
- **Define attributes before creating products** — set up the family's attributes first, then create products in that family. Adding attributes to a family that already has products is possible, but it means existing products will have empty values for the new attributes that you will need to fill in.
- **Keep family names broad** — "Clothing" is a better family name than "Red T-Shirts in Cotton". Families are meant to represent broad product categories. Use [product categories](product-categories.html) for finer classification.
- **Use the hierarchy for navigation, not structure** — since child families do not inherit from parents, the hierarchy is purely visual. Use it to keep your family list organized, not to model complex data relationships.

Source: https://docs.beelocity.com/en/products/product-families/index.mdx