Changes to option attributes

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   As a long-time user of productcart with apparel add-on, I am still troubled by the poor way the software works when it comes to modifying the attributes of existing products in the store.  I am hoping someone has some suggestions for this issue:

Once a product is setup, it is very difficult to add new attributes or change attributes to a option group on a global basis.  For instance, if I have a shirt with a color option.  In that option group, I have two colors: red and blue.  I have have sub-products created for those two colors.  All is well.  But, what if I want to change things, here are the two problems:

1) Let say I want to change the label of one of the attributes, say from blue to blue suede.  Easy to edit the name in the options, and it shows up on the storefront.  But the subproducts descriptions are not changed, and so if someone orders the blue suede, it still says blue on the checkout page.  To fix this, you need to go into all affected products and recreate the sub-products,either individually or by categories.  Ha, what a joke, when you have thousands of products and hundreds of categories!  

2) How about when I want to add another attribute, say green, to this option group.  Easy enough, just add it to the option group.  Except this only adds it to the option group and doesn't apply to products, which yet requires another long admin session to first, find all the products you want to add the new attribute to, add that attribute, then do a batch process to add all the new sub-products, which again, must be done by the individual product or by the individual category.  Geesh!  

Has anyone else experienced this pain?  I am using 4.1sp2, so I have the latest…it seems there could be two solutions: A) To be able to do a add-subproducts to the whole store at once instead of individually or by category; or better yet, B) To be able to import the all the new sub-products that have the new attributes, even when the attributes have not been assigned to the products.

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avalight Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 21-September-2007 Status: Offline Points: 3	Post Options Post Reply Quote avalight Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Changes to option attributes Posted: 29-June-2011 at 12:22pm
	As a long-time user of productcart with apparel add-on, I am still troubled by the poor way the software works when it comes to modifying the attributes of existing products in the store. I am hoping someone has some suggestions for this issue: Once a product is setup, it is very difficult to add new attributes or change attributes to a option group on a global basis. For instance, if I have a shirt with a color option. In that option group, I have two colors: red and blue. I have have sub-products created for those two colors. All is well. But, what if I want to change things, here are the two problems: 1) Let say I want to change the label of one of the attributes, say from blue to blue suede. Easy to edit the name in the options, and it shows up on the storefront. But the subproducts descriptions are not changed, and so if someone orders the blue suede, it still says blue on the checkout page. To fix this, you need to go into all affected products and recreate the sub-products,either individually or by categories. Ha, what a joke, when you have thousands of products and hundreds of categories! 2) How about when I want to add another attribute, say green, to this option group. Easy enough, just add it to the option group. Except this only adds it to the option group and doesn't apply to products, which yet requires another long admin session to first, find all the products you want to add the new attribute to, add that attribute, then do a batch process to add all the new sub-products, which again, must be done by the individual product or by the individual category. Geesh! Has anyone else experienced this pain? I am using 4.1sp2, so I have the latest…it seems there could be two solutions: A) To be able to do a add-subproducts to the whole store at once instead of individually or by category; or better yet, B) To be able to import the all the new sub-products that have the new attributes, even when the attributes have not been assigned to the products.
	Curt

DebbieID Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 11-April-2010 Status: Offline Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote DebbieID Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 07-July-2011 at 9:44pm
	I feel your pain in the addition of subproducts. I was about to put in a support ticket to ask (beg, really) if there was a better way to be able to batch process the subproducts. I thought I'd check the forum first on the off-chance there was a solution I wasn't seeing. I agree 100% that there needs to be a better way to select multiple groups of products to batch process. A logical thing seems to be to allow the option of selecting products the way you can select them in most other screens - by brand, SKU, keyword, etc. Another option would be to select by PARENT category and include subcategories - even when the parent category has no products. This has been a long source of frustration for me as well in many areas of the control panel. I want to update all the products in a certain category tree, but I have to do each subcategory separately. We have a fairly complex category tree, so it's a lot of work to do each one. And if you have multiple brands and varying SKU numbers in each category, it's a nightmare! I'd sure like to find out if there's an alternate way to batch update the subproducts as well.

avalight Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 21-September-2007 Status: Offline Points: 3	Post Options Post Reply Quote avalight Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 07-July-2011 at 9:57pm
	Hi Debbie Nice to see that I am not alone in this nightmare! About the only way I have worked around this was to create super-categories, where I add large groups of products to new categories, like all my chandeliers, add the products to that super category, which is what I select in the batch process routine. When finished, I just hide the supercategory from the storefront. Adding products to the supercategory is easy, you can select using the search product screen Hope this helps.
	Curt