Stock Levels

[Shacks]

I have now uploaded my live site but have noticed a problem with my stock levels. I have 4 sizes of one product these are hidden products linked into permutations and choices. I have used the Advanced User Guide and have worked through the tutorial to not show a choice that is out of stock. This works fine but when I upload a product that has a stock level of 1, the choice doesn't show.
My Stock Attributes were set to: Est Stock 1
Warn If Below 2
Suspend Orders If Below 1

But now I have had to set Suspend Orders If Below 0, which works but lets customers buy 2 items taking the level -1. I am about to do a new stock take and would like some help before I go ahead and input a shed load of stock levels. I have thought of adding 1 imaginary item of stock to all items and sizes but could do with some advice before I go ahead with this.

Thanks in advance.

[buspassjohn]

Sounds like the same old bug thats been known about in V7 for well over a year,
just to repeat, Actinic stock control does not work on choices, it allows customers to order the maximum of the total number of products in stock in the main item (a total of all choices) rather than the sub total of each individual choice.
Actinic have known about it for a long, long time, done nothing, seem to care nothing, they say they will look at it when V8 fixed.
Don't hold your breath, by the time they finish V8 fixes, there will be another version to rake in the cash and then fix before they get around to making Actinic actually work on stock control.

[Jan]

You need to change the AssociatedProductInStock condition to be >= rather than >

This

((<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::IsStockMonitored" /> == false) OR
(<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockLevel" /> > <actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockSuspendLevel" /

Becomes :

((<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::IsStockMonitored" /> == false) OR
(<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockLevel" /> >= <actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockSuspendLevel" />))

Regards,

[cdicken]

Hi Sue

There are two issues here. The first is that if you have one product in stock, Actinic will allow an online customer to buy two of them. This is because there is no validation of stock levels done at the point of the product being added to cart. (nb the bug that John is referring to is a separate issue to do with Actinic not honoring the 'maximum quantity orderable' fields of hidden products that are associated with permutations - it is unrelated to the stock level fields).

The other issue you have is with the permutations disappearing to early. I think this is down to the condition that hides the permutations that have low stock. The expression used is

((<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::IsStockMonitored" /> == false) OR
(<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockLevel" /> > <actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockSuspendLevel" />))

but you might want to try changing it to

((<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::IsStockMonitored" /> == false) OR
(<actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockLevel" /> >= <actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::StockSuspendLevel" />))

[buspassjohn]

Chris,
does this mean that V8 fixes the overselling of choices problem?

[cdicken]

Jan Strassen wrote a great little fix that automatically hides any permutation from appearing in the drop down list, when the product stock level is below the 'Suspend If Below' level.

It's not really a massive functionality change, as customers get an 'Out of Stock' message anyway if the stock level of the associated product is below the 'suspend if below' level - but it saves the customer from finding this out only after they have tried to order it.

[completerookie]

the fix that is being advocated? - can you confirm which release its fixed in please.

Can this fix be applied to the conditions within the library or must this be done with the design tab?

[Jan]

The thingy that I wrote hides choices if they are out of stock or puts a message next to them in the dropdown to say they are out of stock, it doesn't allow the max quantity for associated products to be taken into account.

It's in the advanced user guide but you need to make the correction shown higher up in this thread.

Cheers,