Unique SKU for each attribute?

Hello, I am in the process of modifying zen cart and have come across this issue. I have lots of products with attributes such as flavor and size. When the user selects a flavor and size and adds it to the cart is there a way I can have that combinations SKU appear? Or even give it one?

For example say the product is Ice Cream
The three attributes for the option name flavor are:
Vanilla
Strawberry
Chocolate

Now in the warehouse:
the Vanilla Ice Cream has a SKU of 02883
the Strawberry Ice Cream has a SKU of 02884
the Chocolate Ice Cream has a SKU of 02885

Can this appear on the invoices and in the shopping cart?

Thanks for the help.

Sorry, but SKUs are not a feature of Zen Cart at this time, however they are being worked on for the next major release. Release date not yet determined.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Any idea of the complexity to add it myself or where I should beginning looking at the code? I was thinking of adding another field when adding a set of attributes then making a table with the sku, product_id, and attribute_ids such as

12345, 1, 12_13_94

I'll have to think about it more I guess.

I can tell you that it would be more work than its worth expecailly since you and the dev team will most likely do things totally different then your cart will be stuck and stale in regards to upgrading,

Well, I kind of need that functionality sooner than later and since I have no clue on when the dev team will come out with it, my two options are build it myself or use another cart. If you don't think I should build it, do you know any carts that have that functionality?

Hello, I have been working on this problem but I am running into troubles finding out where everything is and what pages do what functions.

This is how I plan on accomplishing having a SKU for each combination of attributes.

I have a table:
products_attributes_skus
products_id
products_attributes_ids
sku

In the page attribute_controller.php I have added a for with a select box with a list of all attributes and options associated with the product and a text field for the sku. The admin will select the attributes and fill in a sku number and hit insert, this then puts the info into the database.

For example on product 180 I select Size: Large - Color: Blue and enter the sku 12345. Then 180, 113_140, 12345 gets inserted into the new table where 113 and 140 are the attribute ids the the selections.

This is all I have done. Now I need to change where ever the product is displayed such as the invoices and billing, to show that sku number. Anyone have a list of the files I would need to change to do this?

Where ever the product is displayed, I would look up the attributes in the cart table and then create the products_attributes_id and look up the SKU for that combination for that product. It doesn't seem too hard, I just don't know where to look in the code.

Thanks,
Ryan

If anyone is interested, I have finished this mod for my site. It wasn't too bad, took about a day and a half and that included trying to find everything and figuring out all the variable names.

If anyone is interested in how I get it, I can try and post the steps to get it working. My shop setup may be different than yours but it might help other people to get it going. Setting up the products is kind of a pain as there is an extra step after adding the attributes but its not that bad I guess.

It cuts down on the would be required number of products by a lot depending on how many attributes values/names you have. For example I have one product
that has two sizes and two flavors for each size. Normally that would be 4 different products if you needed a SKU number for each combination but with the changes I can do it in 1 and have the unique sku number for the choosen atrributes to show up on the invoices/packing slips/emails/admin sections.

I have one product that has three sizes, 4 flavors on one size, 10 on the other two so that would be 24 products, but I will be able to do it with one.

I'd be interested in this mod, if you could send me details that would be awesome, from what I can tell this still isn't part of the "latest" release.
TIA
-Aaron

I think there is a lot of people looking for such a solution, please post it here or best of all - make it a contribution for the Download section. ;)

Hey I will have to look at the code and see if I can remember how I did it. It was a while ago so let me dig around and see if I can come up with some steps.

ryanf:

Hey I will have to look at the code and see if I can remember how I did it. It was a while ago so let me dig around and see if I can come up with some steps.

Excellent, I'm rather stuck without this ability.
Thanks
-Aaron

Ok, I've been going through the site trying to figure this out. If this was 8 months ago, I could tell you guys what I did, but I'm having trouble finding everything. I'll give you guys the most I can figure out, the rest I'll have to give you an idea of what to do.

To see what this does go to:http://www.optimumnutrition.com/products/100-whey-gold-standard-p-201.html

You can see that the product has many flavors and sizes yet when you add a certain selection to the shopping cart, each has it's own SKU.

1: I created a new database table:

CREATE TABLE `products_attributes_skus` (
  `products_id` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `products_attributes_ids` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  `sku` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  PRIMARY KEY  (`products_id`,`products_attributes_ids`,`sku`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

2: I modified admin/attribute_controller.php in two places

I added a new case under the $action switch statement:

//<!-- CUSTOM SKU ENTRY MOD!!! BY RYANF !!! -->	
	  case 'update_sku':
	   	$action = '';
	  	sort($_POST['sku_attributes']);
		$products_attributes_ids = '';
		for ($i=0; $i<count($_POST['sku_attributes']); ++$i) {
			$products_attributes_ids .= $_POST['sku_attributes'][$i].'_';
		}
		$products_attributes_ids = trim($products_attributes_ids, "_");
		$check_duplicate = $db->Execute("select products_id from products_attributes_skus where products_id = '".$_GET['products_filter']."' and products_attributes_ids = '".$products_attributes_ids."'");
		if ($check_duplicate->RecordCount() > 0) {
			$db->Execute("update products_attributes_skus set sku = '".$_POST['sku_number']."' where products_id = '".$_GET['products_filter']."' and products_attributes_ids = '".$products_attributes_ids."'");
		} else { 
			$db->Execute("insert into products_attributes_skus (products_id, sku, products_attributes_ids) values ('".$_GET['products_filter']."', '".$_POST['sku_number']."', '".$products_attributes_ids."')");
		}
	  	break;		
 //<!-- CUSTOM SKU ENTRY MOD!!! BY RYANF !!! -->

This will add the sku number for the given combination of attributes in the new table.

I added a new form area above the new attributes part and below the legend box:

<!-- CUSTOM SKU ENTRY MOD!!! BY RYANF !!! -->
		<tr>
			<td colspan="3" class="main" height="20" align="center">
			
			<?php
			$sku = "select sku, products_attributes_ids from products_attributes_skus where products_id = '".$products_filter."'";
			$sku_query = $db->Execute($sku);
			echo '<table>';
			echo '<tr>';
				echo '<td>SKU</td>';
				echo '<td>OPTIONS</td>';
			echo '</tr>';
			while (!$sku_query->EOF) {
				echo '<tr>';
					echo '<td>'.$sku_query->fields['sku'].'</td>';
					$ids = explode("_", $sku_query->fields['products_attributes_ids']);
					$info = '';
					for ($i=0; $i<count($ids); ++$i) {
						$query = "select po.products_options_name, pov.products_options_values_name from products_attributes pa, products_options po, products_options_values pov where pa.products_attributes_id = '".$ids[$i]."' and pa.options_id = po.products_options_id and pa.options_values_id = pov.products_options_values_id order by  po.products_options_sort_order, pov.products_options_values_sort_order";
						$id_name = $db->Execute($query);
						$info .= '<em>'.$id_name->fields['products_options_name'].'</em> '.$id_name->fields['products_options_values_name'].' ';
					}
					echo '<td>'.$info.'</td>';
				echo '</tr>';
				$sku_query->MoveNext();
			}
			echo '</table>';
			?>
			
			
			
			<form name="sku_update" action="<?php echo zen_href_link(FILENAME_ATTRIBUTES_CONTROLLER, 'action=update_sku'. (isset($_GET['option_page']) ? '&option_page=' . $_GET['option_page'] . '&' : '') . (isset($_GET['value_page']) ? '&value_page=' . $_GET['value_page'] . '&' : '') . (isset($_GET['attribute_page']) ? '&attribute_page=' . $_GET['attribute_page'] : '') . '&products_filter=' . $products_filter ); ?>" method="post">
				<select name="sku_attributes[]" multiple size="5">
				<?php
				$attributes = "select po.products_options_name, pov.products_options_values_name, pa.products_attributes_id from products_attributes pa, products_options po, products_options_values pov where pa.products_id = '".$products_filter."' and pa.options_id = po.products_options_id and pa.options_values_id = pov.products_options_values_id order by  po.products_options_sort_order, pov.products_options_values_sort_order";
				$attribute_query = $db->Execute($attributes);
				
				while (!$attribute_query->EOF) {
					echo '<option value="'.$attribute_query->fields['products_attributes_id'].'">';
					echo $attribute_query->fields['products_options_name'].' '.$attribute_query->fields['products_options_values_name'];
					echo '</option>';
					$attribute_query->MoveNext();
				}
				?>
				</select><br />
				<label for="sku_number">SKU:</label><input type="text" id="sku_number" name="sku_number" /><br />
				<input type="submit" value="Add" />
			</form>
			</td>
		</tr>
		<!-- END CUSTOM SKU ENTRY MOD!!! BY RYANF !!! -->

This allows you to select the different attribute combinations and enter in a sku for the combo. If you mess up just reselect the combination and reenter the sku to overwrite it. If the combination is no longer valid, just delete the attribute, the sku will still be displayed on this page, but not the products info page.

Next I modified includes/classes/order.php

I added the line:

$pas = array();

in the function create_add_products()
and the line:

// build products_attributes_id list to get sku number later
$pas[] = $attributes_values->fields['products_attributes_id'];

At the end of the for loop in the same function that starts with:

for ($j=0, $n2=sizeof($this->products[$i]['attributes']); $j<$n2; $j++) {

After the if statement closes that the for loop from above is in, I added:

// add sku number to attributes
sort($pas);
		
$products_attributes_ids = '';
for ($x=0; $x<count($pas); ++$x) {
	$products_attributes_ids .= $pas[$x].'_';
}
$products_attributes_ids = trim($products_attributes_ids, "_");
$get_sku = $db->Execute("select sku from products_attributes_skus where products_id = '".$this->products[$i]['id']."' and products_attributes_ids = '".$products_attributes_ids."'");
$this->products_ordered_attributes = "\n\tSKU: ".$get_sku->fields['sku']. $this->products_ordered_attributes;

This adds the sku information to the product information in the shopping cart and to be used in places such as invoices.

In includes/templates/default/tpl_shopping_cart_default.php

I modified the cart display to include the sku information:

<div class="shopping_cart_product_attributes">
	<?php						
	echo $product['buttonUpdate'];
	echo $product['attributeHiddenField'];
	if (isset($product['attributes']) && is_array($product['attributes'])) {
		echo '<div class="cartAttribsList">';
		echo '<ul>';
		reset($product['attributes']);
		$pas = array();
		$list = '';
		foreach ($product['attributes'] as $option => $value) {
			$pas[] = $value['products_attributes_id'];
			$list .= '<li>'.$value['products_options_name'] . TEXT_OPTION_DIVIDER . nl2br($value['products_options_values_name']).'</li>';
		}
		sort($pas);
		$products_attributes_ids = '';
		$id_parts = explode(':', $product['id']);
		for ($i=0; $i<count($pas); ++$i) {
			$products_attributes_ids .= $pas[$i].'_';
		}
		$products_attributes_ids = trim($products_attributes_ids, "_");
		$get_sku = $db->Execute("select sku from products_attributes_skus where products_id = '".$id_parts[0]."' and products_attributes_ids = '".$products_attributes_ids."'");
		$list = '<li>SKU: '.$get_sku->fields['sku'].'</li>'.$list;
		echo $list;
		echo '</ul>';
		echo '</div>';
	}
	?>
</div>

Im sure your's will be different but thats the idea on how to get it to display.

I basically did the same things to includes/templates/default/tpl_checkout_confirmation.php

<td class="cartProductDisplay"><?php echo $order->products[$i]['name']; ?>
	<?php // if there are attributes, loop thru them and display one per line
	if (isset($order->products[$i]['attributes']) && sizeof($order->products[$i]['attributes']) > 0 ) {
		echo '<ul class="cartAttribsList">';
		$pas = array();
		$list = '';
		for ($j=0, $n2=sizeof($order->products[$i]['attributes']); $j<$n2; $j++) {
			$list .= '<li>'.$order->products[$i]['attributes'][$j]['option'].': '.nl2br($order->products[$i]['attributes'][$j]['value']).'</li>';
			$pas[] = $order->products[$i]['attributes'][$j]['products_attributes_id'];
		}
		sort($pas);
		$products_attributes_ids = '';
		for ($x=0; $x<count($pas); ++$x) {
			$products_attributes_ids .= $pas[$x].'_';
		}
		$products_attributes_ids = trim($products_attributes_ids, "_");
		$get_sku = $db->Execute("select sku from products_attributes_skus where products_id = '".$order->products[$i]['id']."' and products_attributes_ids = '".$products_attributes_ids."'");
		$list = '<li>SKU: '.$get_sku->fields['sku'].'</li>'.$list;
		echo $list;
		echo '</ul>';
	} // endif attribute-info
	?>
</td>

In /includes/modules/pages/shopping_cart/header_php.php I added products_attributes_id to the $attributes query on line 80 (in my file)
with

,  pa.products_attributes_id

then make sure to add it to the attrArray with ```php
$attrArray[$option]['products_attributes_id'] = $attributes_values->fields['products_attributes_id'];

I made some changes to a few other files but I could not remember or see what they were, so I included the entire files for you to compare.

included in the zip:
admin/orders.php
admin/packingslip.php
admin/invoice.php
admin/includes/classes/order.php


There may be some other changes to be made, but thats what I have written down in my notes from 8 months ago (can't believe I still had them).

Also a disclaimer:
****WARNING****
Use/make these changes at your own risk.  I do not accept responsibility for breaking your shopping cart.  As always do all work on a backup/development copy of your site and never the real deal.

I also only use select boxes for my sites attributes so some other stuff may need to be modified but I'm not sure.

Good luck and I'll try to help out as I can but I won't do anyone's work.  This is what I would consider an advanced mod and should not be done by anyone without some php skills or knowledge how to troubleshoot.

Thanks I'll give it a go! I'll post back with any additional stuff I had to use to get it working for us.
-Aaron

I got it displaying the "option sku" but that appears to be it, the stock level to the "option sku" isn't getting updated. Do you have that functionality on your site? I tried a couple different things like changing the product id variable if the sku is in products_attributes_skus but that didn't work out for me.

Basically I'd like it if one of the options was choses like "Large" the item that is added to the cart would be model: ITEM_LARGE instead of having an item listed for every model, and the stock level for ITEM_LARGE would be updated instead of the stock for ITEM_SMALL.

Does that make sense?

I'm open to suggestions, in the mean time I'll keep hacking at it.
TIA
-Aaron

Does that mean it gets into the cart and you can see it on the invoice correctly? We don't keep track of inventory. I would assume that you would need to do more. I would add another field to the new table called inventory and keep track of it on a individual basis. Then I would update the admin/attribute_controller.php page to also include a inventory level. Then modify the update cart functions to take away from the specific attribute combo.

Hi ryanf,
this is excellent - thanks.

But could you also zip up all the changed files mentioned here, and post them?
It would be a time saver for us/me I think, those already posted was excellent to figure out with a quick diff. :)

If you could be so kind to do that I can post an up to date and ready to go pack after that, where I also will add compatibility for use of database table prefix.

I don't think I can do that, I have some other modifications in those files. Hopefully someone can get it working from a fresh install and would be able to do that. If I have time, I might try.

OK, sorry to hear that because some parts of the instructions was a little bit unclear and requires some work to figure out where those lines are.

But hey, we has to keep on trying to figure it out then. :)

which part were you stuck on? maybe I can clarify it for you.

Basically most of it is unclear, also in the original files is not easy to see where t.ex. a loop or if statement is ended - because the '{' is often on the end of the starting line.

More specific instructions about what's on the line above and/or below the new insert would be very helpful., but I'm working on it and hopefully will figure it out soon.

Those who seems to be hardest to figure out is in:

• admin/attribute_controller.php
• includes/classes/order.php