Search BTO items (oh help)

I'm having a problem where my BTO items are not showing up when you search on the site.

The site is activant-direct.com and all the products are BTO products. When you search for "mobile hardware" you get one result which is correct. But if you "continue" to see the BTO items listed within "mobile hardware" you'll see the first item is the Motorola MC9090. If you go back and search on that (MC9090) it returns no results. Even if I search for the SKU of that item I get no results!

How can I get the search to search ALL the products I have in the store including the BTO items??

It seems a simple thing what could I be missing? OY

Please save me, thanks!!

To clarify, BTO ITEMS are only visible within the products they have been assigned to.

Hi Jen,
    Ben is correct, the BTO Items are explicitly excluded from the search via the SQL query string. However, removing that would not solve the problem, as the BTO Item would then show up, but at best, would be available to view, but not buy (via the link), and at worst the link wouldn't work, I suspect the latter.  As per my earlier post you need to restucture things a bit & you will get the results your after. If you need additional guidance let us know.
 

Just FYI - I'm still working on getting this cart working the way the client wants it: All products searchable and not selling anything - just allowing a quote request on all products.

I'm going back to thinking the easier route to follow would be to make everything a BTO product so it's searchable and then somehow get to request quotes on these products even though they're not configurable. There are some things on the site which will stay as BTO items but many things are only set up that way so that they will have the "request a quote" feature.

Hamish - you seem to have the knowing - do you think this is a do-able option: Somehow getting the products without cusomizable items to have the request a quote feature instead of add to cart?

I know this is an old post now - I may start a new thread if I don't get a reply - thanks in advance for any guidance!

Edited by jenbeast - 22-October-2008 at 8:06pm

OK, After a quick experiment I have a fairly acceptable solution which I'll document on the WIKI as well. Here goes.

- Create a category "Quotes Only" (or similar)
- Add a "BTO Item" and assign it to that category.
   - Give the item an SKU etc. I used an SKU of "QuoteMe" a product name of "Product Available for Quote Only" and the same text as the description.
   - Make it's price zero.
   - Set inventory to"disregard stock" & if you wish to give it really high stock level.

Create/amend the product you wish to sell.
   - Set it to "Hide default configuration" and "Skip Product Details Page" - the latter one avoids the customer being presented with a "Customize" button.
  - Configure the product and assign the "QuoteMe" BTO Item, setting it as a required category using radio buttons & making the item the default item.
  - Set  "Disallow Purchasing (quoting only)" as desired.

The end result is something like this - Rats, Can't get the image to upload, but give it a try. I'll try & get an image available later, but have to dash out now. Anyway, it looks fairly acceptable to me.  You can re-use the same BTO Item for all the BTO Products you wish.

Please let me know if this is meets your needs.
 


Edited by Hamish - 24-October-2008 at 1:16pm