WindoorERP Documentation 19.0
4- Setup Your Product Catalogue and Designs
Step 3/11

Shape the catalogue

Define what your products vary by

Why this step

Profile series, colour, glass thickness, surface finish — these are attributes, not separate products. Getting the list right now is the difference between forty catalogue entries and four thousand.

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What this does

Attributes are the characteristics a product comes in — profile colour, glass thickness, hardware finish. Attach them to a product and WindoorERP can create a variant for each combination.

The important setting is not the list of values. It is Variant Creation, which decides whether attaching an attribute creates hundreds of product records or none at all.

Before you start

  • Administrator rights on Inventory ▸ Configuration ▸ Attributes.
  • Count the combinations before you attach anything. Two attributes with ten values each is a hundred variants.
  • Decide whether you need to hold stock per combination. That is the only reason to create variants at all.

Steps

An attribute with its values and the variant creation setting

  1. 01
    Open Inventory ▸ Configuration ▸ Attributes and click New.
  2. 02
    Name the Attribute — Colour, Glass thickness, Finish.
  3. 03
    Set Variant Creation before adding values. It is the decision this screen exists for.
  4. 04
    Add the Values, one line each.
  5. 05
    Choose a Display Type for how the choice is presented.
  6. 06
    Save, then attach the attribute to a product template on its Attributes tab.

Variant Creation — the setting that matters

InstantlyEvery combination becomes a real product variant the moment the attribute is attached. Right when you hold stock per combination — RAL 9016 profile is genuinely different stock from RAL 7016.
DynamicallyA variant is created only when a combination is actually used on an order. Right for a large matrix where most combinations never occur.
NeverThe choice is recorded on the order line but no variant exists. Right for something that changes the price or the specification but not the stock — a finish applied to order.

Multiply before you choose. Three attributes with five values each set to Instantly is 125 product records, each with its own stock, its own cost and its own line in every report.

Every field on an attribute

AttributeThe name of the characteristic.
ValuesThe options. Adding a value to an attribute already used Instantly creates new variants on every product that carries it.
Variant CreationInstantly · Dynamically · Never. Change it before the attribute is in use, not after.
Display TypeRadio · Pills · Select · Color · Multi-checkbox · Image. Presentation only — Color and Image are worth it for finishes people choose by eye.
SequenceThe order attributes appear in.
Related ProductsWhich product templates use this attribute. Check it before editing anything.
ActiveArchive rather than delete once an attribute has been used.

Attributes or separate products?

Use an attribute when the thing is genuinely the same product in different guises, and you want one catalogue entry with variants beneath it.

Use separate products when the items have different suppliers, different lead times or different units — two profile series are two products, not one product with a series attribute.

For a window that is configured rather than picked from a list, neither applies: that is what the designer is for, and the configuration lives on the order line.

Troubleshooting

Hundreds of products appearedInstantly with a large matrix. Removing the attribute does not delete variants that have history.
The variant I want does not existThe attribute is Dynamically; it is created when first used.
Stock cannot be held per optionThe attribute is Never, so there is no variant to hold stock against.
Variant Creation cannot be changedThe attribute is already used on products. Remove it from them first, or create a new attribute.
Adding one value created many productsExpected with Instantly — the new value combines with every existing one.
An attribute cannot be deletedProducts reference it. Archive it.

Common mistakes

  • Leaving Variant Creation on Instantly for a matrix nobody stocks, and flooding the catalogue.
  • Adding values to a live attribute without counting what it multiplies out to.
  • Using attributes to record something that only changes the price — Never exists for that.
  • Modelling two profile series as one product with an attribute.
  • Deleting an attribute instead of archiving it, and breaking the products that used it.

Checkpoint

Your real variations exist as attributes with their values, and none of them is a duplicated product.