How to Sync Akeneo Products to MongoDB Atlas: Complete Tutorial

Akeneo's hierarchical data model and why MongoDB fits

Akeneo stores products in a tree structure. A configurable product like a t-shirt has:

Root Product Model:  "TSHIRT"          (color, material, description)
  Sub Product Model: "TSHIRT-BLUE"     (color: blue, images)
    Variant Product: "TSHIRT-BLUE-S"   (size: S, stock)  ← has SKU
    Variant Product: "TSHIRT-BLUE-M"   (size: M, stock)  ← has SKU
  Sub Product Model: "TSHIRT-RED"      (color: red, images)
    Variant Product: "TSHIRT-RED-S"    (size: S, stock)
    Variant Product: "TSHIRT-RED-M"    (size: M, stock)

MongoDB handles this naturally. Each variant becomes a document with all parent attributes resolved — no joins, no joins, no complex traversal at query time. Your Next.js storefront does a single findOne({sku: 'TSHIRT-BLUE-M'}) and gets everything it needs to render a product page.

Setting up MongoDB Atlas and whitelisting SyncPIM IPs

1. 1

   Create Atlas cluster

   Go to cloud.mongodb.com → Create a New Cluster. The M0 free tier works for testing. For production, M10+ is recommended.

2. 2

   Create database user

   Security → Database Access → Add New Database User. Username/Password auth. Give it readWrite permission on your target database.

3. 3

   Get connection string

   Overview → Connect → Connect your application → Copy the mongodb+srv:// string. Replace <password> with your user password.

4. 4

   Whitelist SyncPIM IPs

   Security → Network Access → Add IP Address. Get SyncPIM's IP ranges from your dashboard (Settings → IP Ranges). Add each range.

5. 5

   Test connection

   In SyncPIM, create a new destination, paste the connection string, click Test Connection. Green checkmark = ready.

Configuring SyncPIM for MongoDB export

In the SyncPIM dashboard, create a new export configuration:

1. 1. Source: Enter your Akeneo URL, Client ID, Secret, Username, Password. Click "Test Akeneo connection".
2. 2. Destination: Select MongoDB. Paste your Atlas connection string. Enter database name (e.g., catalog) and collection name (e.g., products).
3. 3. Channel & locale: Select your Akeneo channel (e.g., ecommerce) and locale(s) to export.
4. 4. Enrichers (optional): Add a slug enricher to compute url fields from product names. See the enrichment guide.
5. 5. Run: Click Run Export. Watch the live progress counter in the dashboard.

Querying your exported product documents

// MongoDB Shell / Compass queries after export

// Find a product by SKU
db.products.findOne({ sku: "TSHIRT-BLUE-M" })

// Get all products in a category
db.products.find({ categories: "summer-collection" })

// Full-text search on name (requires text index)
db.products.createIndex({ "name.en_US": "text" })
db.products.find({ $text: { $search: "blue t-shirt" } })

// Get products with price above 50 EUR
db.products.find({
  "price": { $elemMatch: { amount: { $gt: "50" }, currency: "EUR" } }
})

// Count products by family
db.products.aggregate([
  { $group: { _id: "$family", count: { $sum: 1 } } },
  { $sort: { count: -1 } }
])

Keeping MongoDB in sync with incremental exports

After your initial export, enable incremental sync in SyncPIM. Set the frequency: hourly (Professional plan) or daily (Essential plan).

SyncPIM uses Akeneo's updated_after filter to fetch only changed products. Changed products are upserted in MongoDB (matched by Akeneo UUID _id). New products are inserted, existing ones are overwritten.