Thanks again for your test. I was just sending you creds to log in and compare settings, and decided to do one more test, and now I'm getting the same results as you on PC 4.6b (BTO version). 

Like Dave, I spent a fair amount of time testing different configurations (Kelly is more our BTO expert, but I wanted to look into this myself) and I had a hard time believing that this wouldn't be possible with BTO. As with many things in PC, it is so feature-rich with so many possible options, that sometimes it's rather a labyrinth to find the right combination of options to get one's desired result.

The config setting I had earlier that I just changed was that the parent BTO / shell product was set to ignore inventory, though none of standard products configured with it were. So, to get this result it looks like one must have and track inventory on the parent BTO / shell product even though might be irrelevant to one's business rules. Then the standard products configured with the BTO product need to have, of course (as that's the big concern here), inventory set and not disregarded.

Someone's mistaken somewhere, and I hope it's me!

The demo site I tested on is PC 4.6b, as the first bit of the URL indicates.

I'd like to invite you to log into that control panel and compare the configuration. Hopefully I'm just being daft (I have my smart days and my not so smart days, right?). If you find that the CP settings are the same, but we're getting different results, that will be interesting.

I'll PM you the credentials.

I'm with you. Frankly, I'm a bit baffled that it doesn't work this way as that would make complete sense with the whole concept of BTO -- to be able to build a product (say a computer or a gift basket) assembled from other component products (say, this or that hard drive or this or that fruit).

You can do this in QuickBooks, for example, and it would tick off the inventory of the component products.

I don't expect this would be difficult for PC to be adjusted for this -- I almost kinda wonder if it was intended to do and this is just an oversight.

Would be real nice if we could get some EI feedback on this.

I see the dilemma. 

I was under the impression that if a BTO product were built from standard products (as opposed to BTO component options), the inventory on the standard products a user selects in their build of the BTO product would tick inventory off of those component products. 

I just ran a test, and this does not appear to be the case. I set up a BTO "Gift Basket" products with the option to select by check box with qty configured standard products: Apples, Oranges & Peaches. I set the BTO parent/shell product to disregard stock, but gave stock to the component products which were not set to disregard stock.

When I placed the order, stock was not reduced from the component products.

This doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. It would seem that configurable BTO products would not have any use for inventory themselves. If they are build of component products (apples, oranges, peaches), that's where the inventory should be tracked by definition of BTO.

If I set the parent/shell BTO product not to disregard stock, then it can't be ordered ... so that option doesn't appear to cause stock not to be ticked off against the component products.

Hamish, Matt ... am I missing something here?

If I'm not, this should not be a difficult issue to customize ... we're just probably two weeks out before we could take it up.