User Manual/Administration Interface/Product details

Basic product details


There are many select and input fields in the left section of the detail view that are all directly related to the product you've added or you are going to delete. Their purpose are:


 * ID (read-only) : Unique product ID that is used for internal references. This value is generated automatically.


 * Status (required) : Controls the global visibility of the product. There are several status values available but the product will only be shown in the frontend if the status is "enabled".


 * Type (required) : Product type, which can be a "Default" article (a single, self-contained article), "Selection" (a product where the customer can buy one of the sub-products) and "Bundle" (a collection of products with a special price when bought in this combination).


 * Code (required) : Unique code/SKU of a product, either something official like an EAN code or code of your own.


 * Label (required) : An internal label which helps you to identify the product and which can be used for searching in the adminstration interface. Usually, this is not used outside of the administration interface but if you don't add a translated name to that product, the label will be shown in the frontend.


 * Supplier (optional) : If your products are manufactured by different suppliers and you want to enable your customers to limit their search to only one of the suppliers, then you need to tell the system which product belongs to which supplier.


 * Available from (optional) : The point in time when the product will be shown in the shop can be configured via this field. The date/time has to be in ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss) and the hours must be in the range of 0-23. Even if it's possible to enter or choose not only a date but also hours, minutes or even seconds, it may not be the exact time when the product will first show up in the frontend due to caching.


 * Available until (optional) : The point in time when the product won't be shown in the shop any more. For this field the same things apply as for "Available from".


 * Created (read-only) : Date and time when the entry was added. This value is set automatically.


 * Last modified (read-only) : Last date and time when the entry was edited. This value is set automatically.


 * Editor (read-only) : Last user who added or modified the entry. This value is set automatically.



Stock level of products


The right section of the basic tab in the product detail view contains the warehouses and their stock level.


 * Warehouse (required) : Usually, you will only have one entry with the "default" warehouse, buts it's possible to have an unlimited number of them if you have for example shops in several cities or countries.

If you leave the stock level field empty or don't add a stocklevel/warehouse combination for that product, it's considerd to be available for an unlimited number of times. This is especially useful for virtual goods like downloads.
 * Stock level (optional ) : The stock level itself can be any integer number and products are considered in stock, when the number is above zero. The stock level will be decreased by every bought product. If the value reaches zero, the product can't be bought by customers any more. It may be possible that the number can get less than zero if more than one customer buys the product simultaniously, because the stock level is decreased only when the payment was successful.


 * Back in stock (optional) : The last field called "back in stock" is an input/select field for the date/time when the product will be available again (provided, it's currently out of stock).



Additional information
After entering the basic data for a product, it's important to add additional information so the customers are able to read and see more details. Also the product still can't be bought because there's no price yet!

All additional information must be associated to the product. Associating items is one of the basic concepts in the administration interface.

Texts


Each text can have a maximum of 64 thousand bytes which equals 16-64 thousand characters depending on the size of the UTF-8 characters you use. To be most compatible with all platforms/operating systems/browsers, use only UTF-8 encoding. Besides plain text, you can also use HTML code for special markup.

To name and describe the product, three types of texts should be added for each language you want to provide on the website:


 * Name : A rather short text, that uniquely identifies the product.


 * Short description : A view line that shortly describes the product and is shown in the product list views of each category.


 * Long description : This can contain all details about your product that a customer may want to know. It's possible to add more than one long description if your text doesn't fit into one text item. In this case, the position of the item in the left section of the "Text" tab ("Associated Texts") matters.

The list type for all text items should be "default" as there's no distinction between between different types yet.



Media


Media items can be files of any type, from pictures over documents to audio files. Anything that can be stored in a file can be used in an (multi) media item. By default, the frontend will only display pictures with a list type of "default". Items with other list types will be shown as download links.

There should be at least one picture showing the product. The best size of that picture is 240px in length and 320px in height if the default size is used in the frontend. If you upload larger images, they will be scaled down, smaller images keep their size (depending on the configuration in controller/extjs/config/controller/media/default.php). It should be in JPEG, PNG or GIF to make sure it can be displayed on all platforms.

If you are able to provide more pictures of the product, they will be displayed as a slide show.



Prices


Each product that a customer shall be able to add to the basket must have at least one price associated - even if the product is for free. In this case, it needs a price of 0.00.

You can add multiple prices to a single product. Either enter different quantities for which the price is valid (the rules are described in the documentation about the price panel) or choose between the available list types. The "default" list type should be used for the regular price including tax.



Attributes


Each product can have an unlimited number of attributes that store the properties of the product. Clothing for example usually has properties like color, height and width. The attributes describing the properties consists of an attribute type (like color) and its value (e.g. black).

The list type should be "default" as long as there are no special requirements implemented.



Products


There's the possibility to add products to another product. Currently, there are three ways these sub-products are handled:


 * Selections: A list of products where the customer must choose one. More about this can be found in the selections section.


 * Suggestions: Products can be shown on the detail page of other ones as products that the customer also might be interested in. To achieve this, use the list type "Suggestion" when associating other products.



Tags


Tags may be used for additional information about the product, but these kind of information may be not visible in the frontend. Currently, tags are only for internal usage.



Product categories overview


To get an overview of the product categories quickly, the "Category" tab lists all categories the product is listed in. The entries are read-only and no categories can be added or deleted here. This is because the position of the product in a category is important and it can't be managed in this view.

The tab contains the category details like ID, status, code and label as well as the list details (type, start/end date). The list and the category ID columns are sortable, the rest of the category columns are not. But you can open the category directly by double-clicking on the line you wish to get more details on.



Products referencing this one


Like the category overview, the "Used by" tab contains the read-only list of products that references the current product. This may be because the current product is part of a selection or bundle or is a suggestion of another product.

The columns contain the list type, start and end date as well as the basic details of the product referencing this one. Only the "list" and the product ID columns are sortable, the rest is displayed for reference. By double-clicking on one of the lines, you can open the referencing product detail view where you are able to change, add or delete those references.



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