[activeholdingco]

This is a follow up to the blog post http://lemonstandapp...ature_preview/. I have many questions as I did a great deal of research on this and was preparing a post on a Lemonstand possible implementation of this. This post is coming from the customer stand point with a store that currently has (50k products that are all grouped and would love to use this feature).

I think this is a pretty good implementation of this much needed feature in comparison to some other shopping carts. However from the screenshots its hard to tell some things so I was wondering if we can get some clarification.

1. I assume Gender, Color, and Size are defined in the admin settings. Is there a limit to the number of options we can define Gender, Color, Size, Fabric (4+)?

2. How well will this new grid scale. Can it handle thousands or tens of thousands of combinations on the front-end display aswell as admin? I realize this is not common but I have some products that could have thousands of variations.

3. Other implementations of this option matrix had quick and easy ways to add new variations. For example in your post you mentioned adding another color would result in 10 new products. Is there anything to alleviate the data entry other than manually typing 10 new rows in this new grid to add a new product. Other solutions have addressed this by auto-adding the new rows through some custom UI.

4. Other implementations had ways of searching and easily navigating your grid. They would allow you to search by keyword or even search by the options Gender = Male, Size = L to really find the configuration you want to edit without scrolling through thousands. This is a must have feature as I will explain below.

5. In the screenshot I see we have sku, stock, images, price, cost. It is equally important that we have shipping dimensions, attributes, visibility. Each one of my configurations has their own set of attributes that grouped products current cover. Also the ability to hide/disable these configurations "without deleting them" is a must. These variations should be able to edited as a normal product to completely customize it as it is a unique product completely that just happens to be a variation of the main.

I believe CSCart and Magento had the best implementation of this feature so far. The Grid is really where the success of this feature comes into play. As administrators we really need the tools necessary to manage our store. While I think this feature so far looks great I do not see it as a replacement for the grouped products method yet. It appears to lack some of the necessary functionality that grouped products still currently provide. With just a 100 or maybe even 200 variations I think this grid will be to hard navigate especially if these options are not grouped together. If a user adds a new one at the end of the list, it would take ages to look at each one looking for a specific configuration to edit.

This is much needed, but in order for us to stop using the grouped products I think all of these things will come into play at some point. Thanks for hearing me out. I was hoping to get my post suggesting this stuff out the door sooner.

Great work LS team!

[Aleksey]

Hi,

1. The number of options is unlimited. The grid will be scrollable in the horizontal direction.

2. We will try to implement the most efficient solution. Perhaps, we will need to update the current implementation and add pagination and search.

3. Good point. Perhaps we will add a tool for automatic generating rows basing on the product options.

4. See #2.

5. We do not plan to replace grouped products with Option Matrix completely. However adding the fields you mentioned makes sense.

Thanks for the feedback, we will take it into account for sure.

[Garbee]

My only question is can the matrix be utilized during import/export of products? So will I be able to make a CSV with all the information for the Matrix, or will we need to manually create it for each product after import?

[Aleksey]

Hi,

Yes, CSV operations will be supported for Option Matrix. It will be a part of the current Products CSV Import feature.

[kurt]

#5 above makes sense. I think every product option should have the ability to have all of the attributes that an actual product has. For example below are some of the attributes my products would need. Someone else might need other fields though.

dimensions (if product options are different sizes)
weight (I might be selling 1 or 10 pack. 10 weigh more and have different dimensions)
gtin (needed for Google export and it's just good to have)
MPN (needed for Google export and it's just good to have)
Price
Different photos (so when they click the option they can see what it looks like)

[activeholdingco]

Im sure this is part of it but an easy way of course with events to extend this field so that we can add new columns like Kurt mentioned above. MPN is not a standard field so having the proper events would allow us to extend this grid with the custom fields we need here.

[Aleksey]

Hi guys,

Yes, Option Matrix extendibility is planned.

Thanks

[rtd]

Aleksey,

The new OM looks great, but in addition to being able to define sku-level attributes as noted, will the OM extensibility allow us to capture these types of fields:

unfolded dimensions (length x width x height)
folded dimensions (length x width x height)
whether or not the item is rotatable - needed for determining how an item can fit into a carton
weight (planned)
upc/gtin (recommended by other member)

Also, outside of just the ability to define the sku-level attributes and inventory levels, will the new functionality allow us to define:
A. What order transitions trigger removal of stock from inventory
B. What order transitions trigger adding stock back to inventory
C. What order statuses trigger adding/removal of stock when an order's line items are changed (if in Paid, and we add a line item before shipped, we want that to remove from inventory at the same time)
D. Help us with returns handling

The matrix is great to allow us to define items on a more granular level, but the business rules are equally as critical.

Our AIM Module from Phil S. allows us to do much of this above, so it would be wonderful to be able to leverage the new OM in the same way we are currently using AIM.

Thanks!

[Aleksey]

Hi,

The ideas which you posted are not related to Option Matrix itself, because Option Matrix is a product management feature, while your ideas refer to the inventory tracking and shipping calculations. We have already planned the inventory tracking improvements (items A-C).

Regarding the unfolded dimensions, folded dimensions and pc/gtin - the API will allow to add any custom columns to Option Matrix. But how you use those parameters? Do they affect shipping calculations? Perhaps you use some custom module for handling them. In this case you can use the same code (with minor modifications) for Option Matrix as you use for regular products.

Quote

D. Help us with returns handling

Can you clarify this please?

Thank you

[rtd]

Hi Aleksey, Thanks for the quick response!

 Aleksey, on 15 May 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

The ideas which you posted are not related to Option Matrix itself, because Option Matrix is a product management feature, while your ideas refer to the inventory tracking and shipping calculations.

Semantically I understand and agree about OM being a Product Management feature. Makes total sense. But to some extent, the minute you add sku-level inventory tracking to the OM, there's an inherent tie to inventory tracking. They become interdependent. I mean, why would you put an inventory count in a field if you didn't want to track it? Maybe there's a reason, but I guess it's not important

 Aleksey, on 15 May 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

We have already planned the inventory tracking improvements (items A-C).

Awesome!

 Aleksey, on 15 May 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

Regarding the unfolded dimensions, folded dimensions and pc/gtin - the API will allow to add any custom columns to Option Matrix. But how you use those parameters? Do they affect shipping calculations? Perhaps you use some custom module for handling them. In this case you can use the same code (with minor modifications) for Option Matrix as you use for regular products.

Correct, we use these values to pass to another API to determine which cartons an order will fit into, based on the available shipping options and services.

 Aleksey, on 15 May 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

D. Help us with returns handling
Can you clarify this please?

Sure, would be happy to. When items are returned (for exchange or refund), we record that information in LS (via a Mod currently) on a per order basis. The trigger is moving the order into one of our "Returned" statuses. Once that happens, the Mod pops open a window and let's us show how many of each item was returned and which of those items can go back into inventory immediately. That step puts those certain items back into inventory so we don't have to do it manually. The items that cannot go back into inventory are products like those that are damaged or have to be repacked. If they ever can come back into inventory, we do that manually at a later time.

The main feature is to record everything the customer returned, and only those items that cannot be immediately replenished.

This enhancement let's us easily keep track of the the items that were returned by the customer, for future reference, and not have to do any manual inventory adjustments. This used to take a good amount of time per order until we implemented this Mod.

Does that make sense?

[Aleksey]

 rtd, on 15 May 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I updated the task description in our task tracking tool with your description.

Thank you

[Aleksey]

Hi,

We published Option Matrix Beta a few minutes ago: http://lemonstandapp...been_published/

As promised, it supports API for adding new columns, CSV operations, simple API for adding and updating Option Matrix records, dimensions for shipping calculations and many other features. Please read the blog post and documentation and ask your questions if any.

Thank you

[Aleksey]

Hi,

I attached the updated Default theme with Option Matrix support. It will replace the old standard theme later. We also implemented some other improvements in this theme.

Note that the theme file is ZIPped - you should extract it from the archive first.

Thank you

Attached File(s)

•  default-with-om.lca.zip (297.36K)
  Number of downloads: 23

[Garbee]

Could the default SKU for the item perhaps be pulled into the first row upon generating the table? Or have somewhere in the Matrix UI to display the product name/SKU of what is being edited in case you can't remember the SKU? I think it would make workflow easier than having to remember to check the SKU before editing the matrix for the first time.

[Aleksey]

Garbee, on 20 June 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

Could the default SKU for the item perhaps be pulled into the first row upon generating the table? Or have somewhere in the Matrix UI to display the product name/SKU of what is being edited in case you can't remember the SKU? I think it would make workflow easier than having to remember to check the SKU before editing the matrix for the first time.

It makes sense, we will implement some solution.

Thanks for the feedback

[speeke]

***EDIT*** Never mind, I realised that I needed to extract the file rather than merely unzip it.

Hi Aleksey,

I'm new to LemonStand, and was wondering if you could please explain how to import the Default theme with Option Matrix support, using your zip download above.

I have themes enabled, have combined theme resources and templates directories, and am using file-based templates.

Many thanks!

[Garbee]

 Aleksey, on 21 June 2012 - 02:33 PM, said:

It makes sense, we will implement some solution.

Thanks for the feedback

I love the setup that you put in. Thanks for adding it!

[seventhfury]

Hey all!

I'm considering the move to using the Option Matrix, but don't want to have to go back through my existing grouped products and edit them all. If I leave them as they are and start using the Option Matrix for new products will there be any issues?

Mainly, is it all one way or the other?

Thanks,

Matt

[Garbee]

seventhfury, You should be able to just use it in addition to the old way. That being said, I don't know how the entire system works. You are better off setting up a test install and actually testing it to see if it works properly for the setup in question.

It can also depend on how you handled things before. If it was grouped products than they will work beside one another. If it was options then things should work just as they did before. You also don't *need* to use the matrix from what I understand; if you want to just have options listed and not track anything special with them, then the Matrix shouldn't be necessary.

[Aleksey]

Hi Matt,

Garbee is right. You can use Option Matrix with grouped products. If there are no Option Matrix records associated with product options, Option Matrix will be just ignored.

Thank you