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Update an existing Family (Product with variants)

Adrian Ursu Dynamicweb Employee
Adrian Ursu
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Hi guys,.

When using  the new combine option, you can turn a flat structure of products into a Product with variants structure. That is almost nice with 2 exceptions:

1. When combining them into a "family" you have to choose one of the existing products top serve as a master but you cannot edit the properties of it. That's sometimes bad becuase that means the parent product will get some proerties from the variant. Most concerning ones are Name and ProductNumber. Of course, you can edit them later on, but it would be a lot easier to do it in the same process

2. Adding a new variant to an existing family. Sometimes, a new import might add a new product that should become a variant of an existing family. RIght now, you cannot add a new product to an existing family. You have to manually add that new option in the family, like adding a new variant, and delete the imported product. That's a bit too complicated and prone to errors. 

I would be happy to see at least problem #2 solved in future versions. The sooner, the better. I was hoping that 9.6 would solve it but it seems it is very unlikely.

Thank you,

Adrian


Replies

 
Scott Forsyth Dynamicweb Employee
Scott Forsyth
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Hi Adrian,

For #1, can you use the Variant option instead of the Family option? It's the radio choice when you first start with wizard. That creates a new parent rather than using an existing product as the parent. 

For #2, you can add a product to an existing family by selecting the family and clicking on Combine Products. Then it allows you to pick other products to add to the family.

Now, I would add another feature request which is to evict a product from a family. 

Scott

 
Søren Jensen Dynamicweb Employee
Søren Jensen
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This post has been marked as an answer
Hi Adrian,
Answer to your questions.

#1
There are two ways of using ”Combine function”. You can call it from ListView and from ProductEdit view. Let me explain the difference ..
  • Combine called from Listview - Function can only be used when creating a NEW product container (Variants or Family), and you will always be asked for, which product content should be used for the Master product. (Because it will always create a new Master product).

This Combine function are being made, to be able to quickly put Products together. It is used when there are similar products there should be combined, or if you want to use product variants.

  • Combine from ProductEdit
Function can only be used for updating a Product Container (Variants or Family) with new Products/Variants. Because you already have the Master product, you will never be asked for it.
With this Combine function, you can Append & Remove products to the Product container (Variants or Family)
 
#2
For adding new products to a Product container (Variants or Family), you should use the above #1-b) metode.
 
 
I hope it answer your questions
 
Best regards
 
Søren Jensen
 
Votes for this answer: 1
 
Adrian Ursu Dynamicweb Employee
Adrian Ursu
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Hi Soren,

Thank you very much for the explanation.

I never tried it from the Product Edit. Is this context only available inside PIM or it is also available for regular ProductCatalog?

Thank you,
Adrian

 
Søren Jensen Dynamicweb Employee
Søren Jensen
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Hi Adrian,

Combine functionality are available from both PIM "ProductEdit" and Ecommerce "ProductCatalog"

 

Best regards

Søren Jensen

 
Adrian Ursu Dynamicweb Employee
Adrian Ursu
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Thank you Soren.

I have found it and tried it.

It seems to be working nicely.

No need for a feature request in this case.

Thank you very much.

Adrian

 
Scott Forsyth Dynamicweb Employee
Scott Forsyth
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Hi Søren,

In my testing, removing a product from the family fully deletes the product. It doesn't just kick them out of the variant family. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I just tried again using the wizard in the Combine Products wizard and it seems to fully delete the product there too.

Scott

 
Steffen Kruse Hansen Dynamicweb Employee
Steffen Kruse Hansen
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Hi Scott,

In 9.6 (I think from 9.6.3 or above) it's possible to extract a single product from the family without deleting the product. It will just be located in the same Groups as the Master.

Best regards,
Steffen 

 
Scott Forsyth Dynamicweb Employee
Scott Forsyth
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Hi Steffen,

Excellent, thanks for the update on that. I tried it out and it works well. It's a touch funny user experience because when you click extract once, it doesn't fully remove from the current display (only the product number empties), but if you click it a 2nd time it removes it from the display. But, whether you do the one or two clicks, it still does it correctly in the database. So it's ok, just a minor quirk to be aware of.

This works completely fine and is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks!

Scott