Products with Features

Introduction to Product Features

Features are characteristics of products which must be specified when ordering an item. Features distinguish the product you have in inventory (the variant products) from the template base (the virtual product). For example, features might include size and color selections for a product such as clothing.

There are several types of Product Features, as follows:

• Selectable -- One of several choices must be selected when ordering to define the specific variant
• Standard -- A Standard characteristic of a product, mentioned for a complete description
• Required -- A Feature which is a prerequisite within a variant that is being ordered
• Optional -- An Optional Feature that can be selected, or not selected
• Distinguishing -- A Feature that defines the unique characteristic of a product

When defining Features it may be necessary to define interactions among them, which restrict which Features can be combined with other Features. This may be due to one of the following "Interaction Types" which will be defined along with the Features:

• Dependencies -- Used when selection of one Feature requires selection of another Feature also
• Incompatibilities -- Used when selection of one Feature prohibits selection of another Feature

The Catalog Manager allows you to define any feature set you need to fully describe the products you are selling. First, features and feature sets must be defined in the Catalog Manager so that they can then be applied to the appropriate Products. That is, features are associated with or applied to virtual products (the basic templates) to create the specific products that are in inventory (the variants).

• Features are defined in: [Catalog Manager] > [Features] page
• Features are applied to Products in: [Catalog Manager] > "Edit Product" page > [Features] Sub-Tab

Example - A Product with Selectable Color Feature

Currently, the system uses primarily the following product-feature relationships:

• Selectable Features -- These are features where the customer selects one from many available choices. For example, a shirt may be available in White, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink. The colors are selectable features of the variant product shirt, and the customer is prompted to choose a color during the ordering process.

An example of this follows:

• Each color is a standard feature of the variant product which is in inventory. In this example the template or virtual product is "Shirt-A" and the feature is "White".
• The virtual (template) product is "Shirt-A" of some generic type such as T-Shirt and description which does not include selectable features like color.
• Thus, "White" is one of the selectable features of the virtual product “Shirt-A”.
• The order for this product including the selectable feature is "Shirt-A White".

Generic characteristics of the virtual (template) product are recorded in it's own descriptive materials. In the example this might include characteristics like t-shirt, cotton fabric, and maybe a location of manufacture.

Defining the Available Product Feature Sets

To define available Product Features, open the Catalog Manager
In the top horizontal navigation bar, Mouse Over: [Catalog Manager Application]
In the drop down box, Click: [Features]
The "Edit Product Feature Categories" page opens to Sub-Tab [Feature Category]

Screens in this Tab are for creating and maintaining product feature definitions, that you must apply to appropriate Products in Catalog Manager to make the variant products available for Customers to buy. There are four Sub-Tabs within this screen:

• [Feature Types] -- allows you to create and view different types of features like size, color, fabric, style, model year, and many others
• [Feature Category] -- for organizing Features into sets from which a Selection is to be made, such as a set of color choices for a clothing item. Each Feature can belong to only one Category.
• [Feature Group] -- for defining combinations of Categories and Features that work together in selecting a single Variant Product, for example color features, and size features work together to define a dress.
• [Feature Interaction] -- used to specify feature dependencies or feature incompatibilities

An example about Feature Groups is helpful. You can have two categories that are used together like this:

• A Colors Category that has colors White, Blue, Grey, Green, Yellow, Pink, Red, and Orange, and
• A Sizes Category that has sizes XXS, XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL.

These two Categories can be applied to define two Feature Groups like this:

• First of the Feature Groups is for shirts that has only colors White, Blue, Grey and sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL, and
• Second of the Feature Grups is for dresses that have colors Yellow, Pink, Red, Orange and sizes XXS, XS, S, M, and L.

Each of the Feature Groups can be applied to the appropriate Products in the Product Features Tab, located at: [Catalog Manager] > "Edit Product" Section > [Features] Tab, as explained in the User Guide page at Using_Product_Information_Sub-Tabs_Step-By-Step#Features

Creating or Editing Product Features

Product features are created in the [Feature Category] Sub-Tab, and then they are added to Feature Groups in the [Feature Group Sub-Tab.

* Click on [Feature Category] (the default screen when you clicked:
                [Catalog Manager Application] > [Features])
* In the [Feature Category] Tab the page opens listing Category ID numbers and corresponding 
  Feature Category Descriptions. 
* Click: [Create New] at the top of the box to define a new Feature Category.
  Here, you enter the new Feature Category name and specify a parent category if any.
  The category id is automatically created for you. 
* Enter Product Feature descriptions as discussed below.

Note: Parent Feature Category is not currently implemented for any purpose in this release.

* To Edit an existing Feature Category and it's contents, 
* Click on [Feature Category] (the default screen when you clicked:
                [Catalog Manager Application] > [Features])
* In the [Feature Category] Tab the page opens listing Category ID numbers and corresponding 
  Feature Category Descriptions. 
* Click: An [ID] link, (Feature Category ID link), to open it for editing

"Editing in the Product Feature Box"

* To create or add new feature entries, Click: [Create New Feature]
* Enter the number of new feature entries to add
* Click: [Create] to open the specified number of new lines for editing. 

• Description – text for describing this particular feature
• Feature type – select the Feature Type from the drop down box, color, size ,etc.
• Feature Category – select the Feature Category from the drop down box if it isn't filled in.
• Unit of Measure ID - enter a unit of measure ID (The list of available ID's can be found at ??????.)
• Quantity – can be used to create features such as length or width that have a different quantity for each specific variant Product, such as lumber 4 feet long, versus 6 feet long.
• Amount - A pricing increment for the Feature.
• ID Seq num – the sequence number for a feature determines where it appears in the list of selections.
• ID code – an Item Code specified here is appended to the Product ID code of the variant item to distinguish it from other variants that can be created by the Customer's Feature elections.
• Abbrev -
• Check Box - at the end of each line is a Check Box that you MUST check if you want your changes to be saved.

* Click: [Update] to save your changes.

Click on “Feature Groups,” and you will see a screen showing a list of available feature groups, and an option to create a new feature group at the bottom. Click on the id of the feature group, and you will be taken to a screen which shows all the features in this group (if there are any) and a menu to add more features to this group. Like feature categories, the ids of feature groups are automatically created.