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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ProductCart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-December-2008 at 6:59pm
We agree that if the "Skip Products Details Page" option is checked, then the BTO configuration page - which by definition becomes the main product page shown to the customer for that particular product - should display more information.

On the other hand, if the configuration page is shown after the customer clicks on the "Configure" button on the product details page (viewprd.asp), then we should probably leave things "as is" in order to minimize the display of redundant information on consecutive pages.

This certainly makes sense, it's not difficult to implement, and will be added in a future release. As soon as we have a BETA of the edited file we will post it here.

Thanks to all for your feedback, as always!


Edited by earlyimp - 20-December-2008 at 7:02pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-December-2008 at 9:10am
Thank you very much for that helpful response. Will "Request A Quote" also be available for standard products?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ProductCart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-December-2008 at 6:49am
The way the feature is designed today, "Request a Quote" and a product being a BTO product are closely tied together. What you are describing sounds like a slightly different "Wish List" where the customer can "Send" the Wish List to the store to receive pricing on the items added to it (assuming pricing is turned off for those products). Is this correct?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-December-2008 at 8:19am
Not exactly. I don't think the end user should be offered different functions dependent on if a product is a standard product or a BTO product. A product is a product. Site clients shouldn't notice any difference. They should be able to "Save", "Send A Link" etc for BTO products and they should be able to "Request A Quote" for standard products. Simple example where a "Request A Quote" w/b handy for standard products w/b a quantity request. Yes, quantity discounts can be set up for every product but not every quantity scenario can be covered with simple quantity discount rules. "No Price" is also another good example.

The site client shouldn't have to care, ie receive different functionality, depending on what type of product it is.

I customized this on V2.76 so I know it's possible but the task of customizing V3.5 with a minimum of 5 different files involved (viewProd, viewProdCode, viewPrdX or configurePrd, configurePrdCode, ) is a bit daunting.

Which brings me to wondering "Why are there now so many different files now? I don't see where the use of the XXPrdCode has any benefits, it's stuck back together when the page is run so there's no page size savings server side and it makes tracing functions/variables a real bear.

As far as different include files just to switch image placement (appears it only works on viewPrd not configurePrd)...let those that really want a left image switch the column contents, those that want a single column learn html enough to use "td colspan="2"" and remove the second td.

I'd rather see the complexity spent on having configurePrd be an include of viewPrd. That way there doesn't need to be functions repeated in both pages and functionality w/b the same for all product types. There's already some BTO code in viewPrd to show standard features (exp http://www.earlyimpact.com/productcart/build_to_order/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=515&idcategory=118), seems to me it wouldn't be a big deal to expand that to show required or other customize options.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ProductCart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-December-2008 at 8:59am
Christie, I can assure you that there are pretty good technical reasons behind every change you have seen between the 2.x code structure and the v3.x one. "viewprdcode.asp" is used in the Control Panel too, among other reasons why the code was separated out into that file (and related files).

BTO products are indeed very different from standard products and should be treated differently in the code. Just one example: product bundles don't make absolutely any sense with BTO products, since the bundled items would be an integral part of the product configuration (selectable items on the product configuration page). Having one page do it all would increase, not reduce, complexity.

Anyway, back to the beginning: it's still unclear what you are ultimately trying to do. If there are feature changes that we can apply that could help your scenario, we will consider them, as long as they don't assume a complete re-write of the whole storefront structure Smile

So, forget ProductCart and provide an explanation of what it is that your client is expecting customers to be able to do. Are customers saving products (Standard and BTO products) to a "Request an Estimate" document for which they would like to receive an estimate, so that it can then be turned into an actual purchase order?


Edited by earlyimp - 22-December-2008 at 9:01am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-December-2008 at 9:44am
Thanks for the explanation of why the code was separated, that wasn't making sense to me.

Ultimately what the site client needs to be able to do is "Send A Link", "Save" and "Request A Quote" no matter what type of product, what type of product configuration, is used. If it is a totally customized product then it should display the additional images, next/previous, save, send a link, etc just like it is a standard product or BTO with optional configuration.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-December-2008 at 9:49am
Just noticed that settings for configurePrd.asp do not reflect the product display choices made in the CP for image left/right. Cross sell doesn't display, at least I don't think it does I've posted a separate issue for BTO not displaying cross sells.

Plus, it would make life simpler if all columns with prices were aligned right.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote DTyler Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-December-2008 at 2:06pm
Originally posted by cmason cmason wrote:

Just noticed that settings for configurePrd.asp do not reflect the product display choices made in the CP for image left/right. Cross sell doesn't display, at least I don't think it does I've posted a separate issue for BTO not displaying cross sells.

Plus, it would make life simpler if all columns with prices were aligned right.
 
By design, cross sells that have customization options attached do not display. 
 
The reason for that would be - if you had two bundled products with required options, there wouldn't be an easy way to set the options on the first item and then redirect you to the second item to the set the options.
 
Worse would be if you had a bundle of three or four products with required options and had to code PC to set the options for all four of the products.
 
On the bright side, you can add a simile of standard product options on a BTO page using custom CSS classes on the code for drop down menus in the configureprdcode.asp file and use absolute positioning in your CSS file to place the drop down menus wherever you like (including at the top of the page in your product summary). 
 
The one downside would be that you'd lose the ability to add drop down menus to the rest of the build sheet.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-December-2008 at 3:27pm
Cross sells - accessory and bundle with standard products also do not display.

If a product is a configure only/totally customized then currently you are dumped directly to configureprd.asp which is a very thin display with no "Save Product", Send A link, addt'l images, cross sells etc. For standard products you can't "Request A Quote". Totally customized products need richer displays, not lesser displays of information. Standard products should be allowed to have quote requests, especially if the cart is turned off.

Currently I'm recommending that all BTO products have at least one Standard Feature so that all products will benefit from landing on viewPrd.asp before being redirected to configurePrd.asp.

I also changed the routine for pcs_Wishlist to allow saving a BTO product
   Public Sub pcs_WishList
     if scWL=-1 then
      'CW show even if BTO
        'if pserviceSpec=0 then
        If 1=1 Then
It works to "Save" a BTO product to the customer's wishlist. I've done it with my test customer account and all works well.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cmason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-December-2008 at 3:28pm
Scratch that comment about aligning price columns right, it's that darned input field. Just add "text-align:right;" to the class "transparentField" in pcStoreFront.css. While you're doing that you may also want to add "font-size:115%;" to make the price in the total large and "font-weight:bold;" just to make sure.

Also tr after                     
"
pcs_BTOPurchasing
                    '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
' END: Disallow purchasing. Quote Submission only
"
is either missing a td or a column span (I also changed the alignment)

Result:                                        
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td align="right">
    <%
     pcv_strFuntionCall = "cdDynamic"
puts the "Quote" icon under "Add to Cart" which I've also aligned right to be under the totals.
          
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