BUG?: Out of stock products not removed online from permutation drop down list

[leehack]

When i create a product and use the product options wizard to create the options, it sets this all up fine and creates the hidden products if i enter a stock level against the options - all good. However when i order one of those options online and effectively take it out of stock, despite having 'hide out of stock options' ticked, the out of stock options remain as an option online.

Strangely though as soon as the stock level syncs on the desktop, the options are removed from the offline preview, so you end up with offline doing as you have asked and online not, which is a bit backwards as i'm predominantly selecting a setting for my online customers, not for myself on the offline preview.

I can repeat this on a number of sites and on a standard site, so looks like a bug perhaps. I'm presuming this is not as designed as the option does get an out of stock message if you subsequently try to buy it online (once the download and sync has occurred), otherwise it would mean back to the old days and us needing to do an upload after every order is downloaded, so that the online look takes the setting we have set in the software.

I cannot get stock levels of product to show against the options either, despite having show quantities selected and this working fine on a product with no options/hidden products.

Anyone else experienced this, sure i'm not going mad on this one.

[leehack]

Something definitely up in this area IMO, it all seems to be display problems though, the underlying stock calculations, stopping overordering and syncing is working perfect, so hopefully a quick fix.

As soon as an order is downloaded taking a product out of stock, offline preview does as you've requested immediately, online is not though, so i'm figuring some sort of stock syncing to design issue exists online.

Only way i can get online to look the same as offline is to upload, which seems to negate a lot of the real time stock control feature as you effectively end up doing what you did in V9 and below and uploading after each order to update the online pages.

Anyone else seeing this, i'm really not completely sure that i haven't gone mad, but i've tried every possible combination and cannot get it to work, although there are so many permutation options for layout, i may have missed one combo that does this.

[Mike Hughes]

I'm not sure I expected this to work the way you're expecting.

Isn't Actinic RTSC essentially static pages with the stock control being done in the background?

I'm sure there are some dynamic elements on the page such as the stock availability messages, etc but I'm not surprised if this doesn't extend to which items are shown in drop down menus.

Mike

[leehack]

If that's the case and it is as designed, it would surely make no sense to have 'remove out of stock options' from the list as an option. All that would do is remove options on the offline preview, which is of no use to man or beast, customers don't see that page.

If it does it on preview, I'd have thought it was logical to do it online.

[Mike Hughes]

If it's a static element then what's shown on preview will be shown online the next time you do a site update. Just like every other static element.

As far as I understand it, the Real Time Stock Control is there to control the ordering of stock in real time. It's not there to create dynamic web pages which seems to be what you're expecting to happen.

Mike

[leehack]

Maybe you're right, i'm not sure of the point of having a 'hide out of stock' option if it only works offline, design options are for online surely. If we need to upload after each download, that's no different to what we did in V9 in order to get round the lack of RTSC, although of course the RTSC is a bit slicker and has a very short window where over ordering can occur (the syncing timescale basically). I can see what you are saying and you might be right, i don't understand having an option that doesn't work without an upload though.

It's similar thing with the stock count, the RTSC works great and stops you overordering etc. but it does not show stock quantities against the options, despite you having asked to show stock quantities. I can only get that to work on a straight product. If that's also as designed, then clothing sites for example and any other site which uses the hidden product feature can never show their stock figures against those options.

[Mike Hughes]

I know what you're saying about the displaying options and option quantities in the option lists. At some point though there has to be a decision on what info should be static (and readable by the search engines) and what should be dynamic and likely ignored the search engines.

I'm quite happy for stock messages to be invisible to the search engines but my own preference is for product options to be static and indexable.

has a very short window where over ordering can occur (the syncing timescale basically).

I believe the available stock is calculated in real time. The syncing period is just to allow for moto / shop orders, new stock, etc. You can turn off the PC overnight and the stock control will still operate without syncing.

Mike

[leehack]

I know what you're saying about the displaying options and option quantities in the option lists. At some point though there has to be a decision on what info should be static (and readable by the search engines) and what should be dynamic and likely ignored the search engines.

Imagine you have a cup and sell it in red, blue and green colours. You have 5 red, 5 blue and 5 green in stock. These are hidden products and selected from the permutation drop down list. There doesn't seem to be any way of showing stock levels against each of those options.

So lets say for example that Mrs Green decides that she wants to order 6 green cups for her new kitchen. When she tries, have a guess what she is told? Yep you guessed it, something like so:

We are sorry, the combination you selected is unavailable at present due to xxxxx being out of stock.

She doesn't get told we have 5 in stock, she gets told we are OUT OF STOCK. Because Mrs Green wants to order more than we have, she will get told we have NONE. If that is as designed, then surely that is plain wrong. There is no way it could of been designed like that, that's more debilitating to sales than the overselling was. That's a bug that can ensure no sales are possible in certain circumstances, because who after being told that is going to try and order less than first tried?

I'm quite happy for stock messages to be invisible to the search engines but my own preference is for product options to be static and indexable.

Totally agree, operative word being "I'm", these things need to be optional and configurable on a per site basis. I personally hate to see in a drop down list, choices that i cannot actually buy cos they are out of stock. Whereas if i was a lady and buying a bra, i'd like to see if the product is done in my size, even if it is out of stock at the moment. I can either wait or ask to be notified when back in stock etc.

I believe the available stock is calculated in real time. The syncing period is just to allow for moto / shop orders, new stock, etc. You can turn off the PC overnight and the stock control will still operate without syncing.

This is in fact true, i was talking crap, sure it didn't happen that way last night, but indeed after a few tests today, no matter what the syncing is doing, it does stop an immediate order of the product after an order is complete that has taken the item OOS.

[Mike Hughes]

So lets say for example that Mrs Green decides that she wants to order 6 green cups for her new kitchen. When she tries, have a guess what she is told? Yep you guessed it, something like so:

"We are sorry, the combination you selected is unavailable at present due to xxxxx being out of stock."

She doesn't get told we have 5 in stock, she gets told we are OUT OF STOCK. Because Mrs Green wants to order more than we have, she will get told we have NONE. If that is as designed, then surely that is plain wrong.

Definitely sounds wrong to me too. It ought to say something along the lines of there only being 5 available.

Mike

[malbro]

This is in fact true, i was talking crap, sure it didn't happen that way last night, but indeed after a few tests today, no matter what the syncing is doing, it does stop an immediate order of the product after an order is complete that has taken the item OOS.

RTSC keeps a local count of current stock on site and uses javascript to monitor that value and remove the add to cart button if the stock reaches suspend level, so all this takes place in your browser.

Given that the web site knows the stock level it ought to be able to say we have 5 left when you try to place an order for more than 5. However that side of it is dealt with by the perl scripts rather than the browser, the cart script returns a new page with the error message embedded into the page.

In theory it could be handled by the browser by intercepting the add to cart and doing a stock check with javascript.

[Darren B]

the syncing also allows for items ordered and not paid for to be put back into stock and resold again, if you select not to allocate stock to payment pending orders.

The error message is the same one for lots of previous versions and maybe it needs to be brought up to date. It would be better if it now said sorry we only have 5 instock - not we are out of stock

[leehack]

Definitely sounds wrong to me too. It ought to say something along the lines of there only being 5 available.

Mike

Agreed, but if it going to do it at that stage, why not do it in the first place and avoid this, can you get a better solution than showing stock count right next to the choice? We want to try not to catch a cold, not deal with the symptoms once we have. A site has to be informative, slick and usable, this doesn't fit many of those labels and from what Malcolm is saying does seem to be as designed. I sincerely hope not because that disliked 'half-baked' label will surely be in the running again.

Problems i see at the moment are as follows, all of which have had no acknowledgement off the towers as yet, which only points at one thing, that it's as designed i guess. What a shame.

1. Stock levels not possible to show on SPP section link layout
2. Stock level not visible against permutation options
3. Out of stock message when more than is in stock is ordered
4. Drop down list not synced with the offline preview

[malbro]

1. Stock levels not possible to show on SPP section link layout
2. Stock level not visible against permutation options
3. Out of stock message when more than is in stock is ordered
4. Drop down list not synced with the offline preview

First item in list is handled by the plugin I developed, if the interest is there I can extend this to handle item 2 and possibly 3 and 4.

[leehack]

I think having a failsafe that a plugin can be made is great and one we might need to explore. My initial reaction though is whether a new feature added to the software and a big selling point of this version should need that, after all this version is only a few months old. It's true that with that newness can come some holes in how it works and I guess what we really want to know is whether this is as designed, is the way it will stay or whether in fact it's a couple of easy to fix bugs.

If this post was a question about actinic payments or actinic hosting, it would have been pounced on like a lone gazelle in the Serengeti and we'd therefore at least know.

However it hasn't strangely enough, so given your experience in this area with a plugin already created (athough i've not seen this working on a live site as yet) and no response from Actinic as yet (and also to other RTSC threads), it does appear that this is as designed.

When that's the case, we have no other choice but to go for plugins. Will a plugin be wanted? If Actinic have seen this as a big feature and a big selling point of V10, then i can only assume their findings show this to be a very important feature to have, therefore having these loopholes or at least some of them fixed, surely has to be what a fair amount if not all people will want.

The error message failing to relay stock level is a biggie, there's no way we should need a plugin to circumvent that, not IMO anyway, that's a large failing, plain and simple.

[leehack]

Possible Problems:

1. Stock levels not possible to show on SPP section link layout
2. Stock level not visible against permutation options
3. Out of stock message when more than is in stock is ordered
4. Drop down list not synced with the offline preview

Possible solutions:

1. This is clearly possible as Malcolm has shown, buy the code off him and include it as standard, we've been forced for year after year to use subsections to do correct SPP, all these people forced down this route should not be forgotten about, proper SPP does not exist until v11
2. This is a nice to have, BUT, one that could arguably be accepted as not possible, if point 3 is addressed
3. This simply has to be addresssed by them IMO
4. I'm kind of seeing why this might be happening now, in an ideal world when the auto sync kicks in, i'd like to see it also update the pages in question. Similar to how we have the single page upload facility, the sync feature should be settable to do this, so that preview is the same as online. It can't be too difficult to know which products have been sold as it provides a pop up message telling you about it, how clever would this be if it auto synced the page too - that would be what i call awesome or thinking out of the box