Hidden Categories & Specifying Spec Category Sales

Hi!

I run a digital scrapbooking shop - I have a staff of 12 designers. I know there is a way to create a master category, say "designers" and then list them all in their own sub-category. Then, I would copy all of their product to this sub-category.

My end goal is to be able to set sales for individual designers and further, for a specific product in their stores.

I have created the master category, designers. I have created all the sub categories, one for each designer. I have then attempted to test the sale setup - but because the master category is disabled to prevent it from showing up in the category sidebar, I believe this is disabling the linked product as well.

Can someone provide assistance on how I set this up to work?

Thank you so much.

Kate

Sale Maker needs the master_categories_id as do a number of other features ...