Specifying the Base Configurable Product and Config Items

Using Demo Data Examples

This section of the User Guide is about detailed set-up for Configurable Products. We will use an example-product from the opentaps Demo Data, which is available for viewing or installation.

You can view the Demo Data on the public server located at:

demo1.opentaps.org.
Login with Username: admin
           Password: ofbiz
Click: [Login]
The Main Navigation page opens displaying all of the large navigation Icons.
Move your Mouse Pointer over any large Icon to see a Text Title for the Icon at the
    top of the screen.
Click: a large Icon to open opentaps to the corresponding page.

The example-product is found in the Catalog with:

• Product name = Configurable PC, and
• product ID = PC001.

To Navigate to the example-product, for this section,

Click: Catalog Icon, to open the Catalog Manager Application
In "Search Products" menu box, upper left-hand corner, 
Type into the blank box above the [Product Jump] Menu Button: PC001
Click: [Product Jump] menu button, a drop down opens.
Select: Product, the page opens for the demo product with ID of PC001 
     to "Edit Product" Screen.

Defining the Base Configurable Product

A base Configurable Product is set up like any, as described in Setting_Up_Your_Products_and_Sales_Materials. Our example, PC001, is what we refer to as the base Configurable Product, it is the part for which additional Component Products are selected by "configuration choices" to make the product complete and ready to purchase.

To define a Configurable Product, as in this example;
  * Set the Product Type = Configurable Good 
  * Click: [Update Product] to save changes.

Once this is saved, the "Edit Product" page will include the special Sub-Tab called "Configurations" which we will discuss later.

Specifying Config Items

Access the following screen,
[Catalog] > [Catalog Manager Application] > [Configurations], 
     the "Find Config Items" page opens with a search box menu at the top.
Click: [Find], to open a list of any existing Config Items that are already defined.

On the Demo1.opentaps.org system, this page displays several Config Items:

• IT0001 -- Hard Drive
• TEXMEX0001 -- Jalapenos
• PZ0001 -- (pizza) Toppings

To create an additional Config Item, Click: [New Config Item] box, or 
To review settings for an item, Click: Config Item (ID) entry. For Hard Drives, 
Click: IT0001, the "Edit Config Item" page opens, to display:
Edit or Enter: the following entries as needed,
 * Config Item Type -- Single Choice (select only one), Multi Choice (chose one or more)
 * Config Item Name -- Your assigned Config Item name for Display to Customers
 * Description -- Your description for display to Customers
Click: [Update] to save changes.

Config Items define sets of similar products from which to make configuration choices. In the following section, we will add a set of such configuration choices.

Specifying Config Options (the choices)

Next, open the Config Options screen as follows:

At the top of the last screen (Edit Config Item for IT0001), 
Click: [Config Options] button, the "Edit Config Options" screen opens.

The Config Item box displays any Options that are already defined. In the example, the existing Options are:

• Option ID OP002 (with Option Name OPT001) -- a 250GB Hard Drive, and
• Option ID OP003 (with Option Name OPT002) -- a 500GB Hard Drive.

To add one more Option for this example, go to the "Create new Config Options" menu box below, and enter the following data:

• Config Option Name -- for example, Enter: OPT003
• Description -- for example, Enter: 1 TB
• Sequence Num -- for example, Enter: 30 (to control the sequence of this item in the display list for Customers to see.)

Click: [Create] to save this additional Option and add it to the list above.

This adds a new Config Option to the list.

Warning: If you try this example on the public demo1 web-site, your changes will not
    be fully recorded.

This completes the initial set-up steps in configuring the Product. Later we will link our new Option to the exact physical product that we ship with the Configurable PC in our example.

Step-By-Step_Configurable_Product_Set-up << Manual Pages >> Defining_The_Component_Products_and_Linking_to_Config_Choices

Introduction_to_Catalog_Manager_Concepts_and_Terminology << Section Pages >> More_About_Working_with_Categories_and_Catalogs