Stocks by attributes

[lankeeyankee]

Hi Kuroi!

First, let me thank you for this excellent addition to zen cart functionality!!

I have started to get deeper into using this mod and I have realised some of the limitations when you have so many attributes in one product and are trying to update the stock levels.

Perhaps my situtation is somewhat unique, I don't stock individual items with various attributes such as " this t-shirt with this screen print in small, medium, large sizes in green, red and blue". Instead, many items have various options such as "which length mounting screw would you like", "do you want gaskets with that drum lug", etc. Really, it's combining several individual products into one instead of having a lot of similar products that are individual, if you see what I mean.

My problem lies in when one of the attributes, one of these various combined products, is out of stock. I then have to go into SBA and change large amounts of variants.

My question is: Is there a way to make global changes? For instance, say I have a product with the attributes of plating (chrome, brass, gold, satin chrome, black chrome, etc.), screws (6 different types for different drum shells), and gaskets(yes or no), and the gasket is out of stock. I have to go in and make all of the variant changes for the different platings and screws with gasket "yes" and "no". That is a lot of variants. And we have over 2300 products and by the time I am done there will be over 7000(not all with attributes, but many will have them). I would like to be able to specify that attribute "gasket" is out of stock, and therefore any variant that cascades from that is out of stock, instead of having to manually enter every single variant.

Is this possible? I am in the equivalent of my second semester of PHP/MySQL/Javascript/DOM/etc. programming education so I am not yet at the skill level to make the changes or even to figure out if it's possible.

Basically, what I am asking is: Is there a way to select a heirarchy in zencart, and more specifically in SBA, that cascades down with stock levels? So if "chrome" plating is out of stock then all variants that include chrome plating would be out of stock instead of having to go through all of the variants? I know that there are many zen cart users that would benefit from this.

I am willing to pay for this ability, it is really crucial to me since we stock so many items from various vendors and it is becoming a nightmare to try to work through all of the variants since inventory levels can change so much.

It would be most helpful to be able to select which attribute is the "top level" attribute that cascades down to the other variants.

Is what I am saying making any sense? I am having some difficulty expressing what I am trying to say. If you need any further elaboration please let me know.

Thanks again, Kuroi. It's the folks like you that make zen cart even better than it already is, and my hat is off and I am bowing low to your skill level with making these awesome and powerful mods!

Matt

[kuroi]

Perhaps my situtation is somewhat unique, I don't stock individual items with various attributes such as " this t-shirt with this screen print in small, medium, large sizes in green, red and blue". Instead, many items have various options such as "which length mounting screw would you like", "do you want gaskets with that drum lug", etc. Really, it's combining several individual products into one instead of having a lot of similar products that are individual, if you see what I mean.

Hi Matt

Glad you like the mod, but I'm afraid that it's not really the right one for your situation. Stock by Attributes is designed for products where the attributes are intrinsic to and indivisible from the products whose stock is being tracked. Yours aren't. A better mod for your store would be this one, which is designed for the situation that you describe.

[lankeeyankee]

Hi Kuroi,

Thanks so much!! I go through the downloads section on a regular basis and yet I somehow totally overlooked that mod!

Matt

[richardeevans]

My question about attributes is a bit different - I use attributes typically when I have a product 'X' in Large Medium or Small variants.

What I want is to enter the stock of each variant (attribute) and then to have them treated as separate products for stock levels so that if, for example, I have 10 large, 2 medium and 0 small 'X's left:

the low stock report shows 2 large 'X' and 0 small 'X' left
'Small X' is disabled on the website as out of stock so customers can't order them

The only reason I use attributes is because if someone likes the look of 'X's I want to be able to market Xs as a range or product family, and for customers to see the whole range of Xs together with my description of them and to be able to choose a matching set of different sizes (or colours or whatever) without having to go back to the full catalogue each time, and to keep the search results a manageable length.

Any ideas welcome!

[blackjm75]

Guys,

have the mod installed and been working for quite a while with 1 problem that i have been working around manually.

We have some attributescombinations that arent stocked but customers are still allowed to buy them as we can order them in.

The problem with this is that it seems to cause any product purchased that has some attributes attached, to not reduce the stock as it should. This happens whether the attribute specified by the customer is in stock or not.

If a product without any attributes is purchased then it reduces stock correctly.

e.g.:
-a T-shirt with size attribute to be defined is bought, Small is selected which is in stock but the stock isnt reduced
-a T-shirt with size attribute to be defined is bought, Medium is selected which isnt in stock (stock is already 0). the stock is left untouched.
-a hat is purchased, not attributes are attached and the stock is reduced as required.

Any way to fix this so that the stock is reduced correctly for items that have attributes with stock? Obviously any items that have attributes attached which arent in stock should stay at 0.

Joe

[kuroi]

My question about attributes is a bit different - I use attributes typically when I have a product 'X' in Large Medium or Small variants.

What I want is to enter the stock of each variant (attribute) and then to have them treated as separate products for stock levels

What you're describing is what stock by attributes does. However, it's currently an add-on bolted onto the side of your Zen Cart and so your low stock report knows nothing about it and can only report on "true" products.

[MikeyG]

I have just updated my stock by attributes to the multi add version.

I am not a programmer and had been looking for something like this to save time so this is great.

I have one small requirement which I hope would improve it for every one and I am sure it would be simple to do but I am not a programmer

I use the word: "please select" as an 'attribute' as the default and I use the feature that this is for display purposes only. However when using this mod to add all varients it pulls in this attribute so I end up with a field/product in the stockby attriibutes list which is irrelevant - eg a product combo of "please select, please select" and then a product combo of: "please select, 0-6 months".

Can this be avoided. I am sure that if the flag for display purposes only is used in the sql statement it would be able to avoid this (on a t-shirt set with colour and size choices it gave me 25 irelevant combinations for example.)

I hope this is possible and would benefit others I am sorry I don't have the skills to do it my self and provide it for the community.

Thanks

MG

[miles]

Need Help!

Just installed Stock by Attributes v4.7 on my ZCv1.3.8. Follow all the installation instructions in the readme file.

The problem is, in my Admin > Product with Attributes Stock nothing's appears accept this text,

Product ID Product Name Product Model Quantity for all variants Add Quantity For Product Variant Sync Quantities

What's the problem?

[miles]

Never mind, just added first attribute and there's the item with it's attributes.
But I think there's a something wrong with it's display. Stylesheet maybe? Will find out more about using this mod.

[jjgtrading]

Hello,

It appears i've installed Stock by Attributes 4.7a just fine because it's showing up in my configuration and I can change quantities etc. The problem is, is that it's allowing me to add larger amounts to the cart than what I have listed in inventory.

After hitting checkout at the cart page it also takes a long time to get to shipping and when it does it just shows up blank.

edit: I've fixed the problem where it takes a long time to get to the shipping page but it still shows up blank.

I'm using Cherry Zen also.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm even willing to pay a small amount if somebody could go in and fix it.

Oh this is on www.hawaiianhardwear.com

Thanks,
Jason