stock control

[Deborah]

Hi,
My client already has a site up and running and at present does not use the stock control features in Actinic because he could not get it to work with half sizes. He offers sports shoes with all the range of sizes from say 3.5 to 12. The site has been set up with all the products having attributes and choices. For example, Asics Kayano as the product, then an attribute of 'size' and then choices of '7, 7.5, 8, 8.5' etc etc.

He would now like to use the stock control so he can see when he is running short on the Asics Kayano shoe, size 7.5.

Can he now input the half sizes and how should he go about setting up the stock control. Does he need to put in components for all these attributes? I've had a quick look and I can't see how you do stock control for choices or attributes.

Many thanks Deborah

[rmladden]

You need to create a distinct product for each size and mark them hidden. Then create a main product for the shoe, and create a component with permutations associating each permutation with one of the hidden products. Each hidden product will have its own stock level.

The problem with this is that a customer will not know that size is out of stock until he tries to put it in the basket. There will be no out of stock indicator on the page.

Also check the no order line for main product box in the main product after you set up the permutations.

[nigellee]

Help - I believe I have followed all of the instructions correctly in various threads and from the user guide/manual wiith regard to creating hidden products for different choices to enable me to keep track of stock. However, I have two problems - the stock levels do not appear to update after both upload and download.
Stock monitoring is enabled on both the hidden products and the master product. The pricing field is set as "associated product" on the permutations.
Additionally, when downloading an order the choice name/description does not now show as a line item so I cannot tell what it is has been ordered.
Can anyone pease tell me where I may be going wrong?
Many thanks.
Regards

Nigel Lee

[cdicken]

Additionally, when downloading an order the choice name/description does not now show as a line item so I cannot tell what it is has been ordered. This sounds like the component is not being added to the shopping cart - and only the main product is.

Can I suggest you use 'File | Import' to import the file called 'SampleHierarchicalBusinessImportFile.txt' - make sure you do an UPDATE rather than a REPLACE and also take a snapshot before the import in case anything goes wrong.

Then take a look at the 'Desktop PC' and the 'Monitor' component in particular. Compare your shoe product to the 'Desktop PC'. There is a number of potential reasons why this is happening so hopefully that will help you identify what is going on.

[nigellee]

I don't know whether this is a a conundrum or a schoolboy error as this is still not working.
When set-up without components with only attributes and choices input, the choices (in this case sizes) come through on the order. However, when I add components to the equation, the choices do not come through and is causing a major headache.
Has anyone got any ideas what could be wrong?
Thanks

Nigel Lee

[Mike Hughes]

I think you may be almost there.

Open the master product and click on the 'components' tab. For this to work you have to set the pricing model to be 'sum of compoenent prices' and then tick the 'no order line for main product' box.

The other thing to check is that you have the 'component as separate order line' box ticked on the component tab of the component itself.

That last bit could well be the missing thing though it's hard to say as there are many things that have to be set for this to work.

Mike

[nigellee]

MIke
This unfortunately has not worked.
By checking the "no order line for main product" it makes it worse as it leaves the amount out of the checkout pages and the order.
No combination I have found brings the choices through.
Any furtehr ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks

NIgel

[Mike Hughes]

Sorry, Looking again at what you're trying to do then you should leave the 'no order line for main product' unchecked.

For this to work you should have a main product, then a component below it, then an attribute below the component with a selection of choices below the attribute. Is that what your directory tree looks like ?

Mike