Hey Fibo,
Thank you for your reply. I was planning on having some custom programming done to accomplish what I want to do. I just wanted to make sure that was the best way to do this and I wasn't missing an easier way inside Magento.
Due to a Non-disclosure agreement I will have to try to explain it in theory without getting into the actual products. So I will use cell phone batteries as an example.
Front-end:
Will have a list of Brands down the side when you click a brand it will take you to a page with a list of all the models for that brand. Then you select your model and it will give you the cell phone battery that you need for your phone. It is a B2C site.
Back-end:
I was planning to have custom programming that would allow you to enter the battery into inventory then select the brand as an attribute. Then you would be given a list of all the models for that brand with a checkbox next to them. Then the person would check each box that the product they are entering is compatible with.
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by: fiboPosted on 2009-08-07 at 04:12:58ID: 25041524
You have 2 separate issues:
1 - what is happening in the front-end
2 - what is happening in the back-end
1 - Front-end: not sure if your site is B2B or B2C. If B2C, then your visitor will select just ONE product or combination. So your main problem is to make that easy to navigate, most probably by brand / model and then the list of parts. How many parts would suit a typical model?
Note also that if your customer fails in multiple selection, all is not lost: whichever selection is till active can be placed in the cart, and any missing item can then be added later.
2 - Back-end: you should probably rely on additional programs to make easy for you to link parts and models. Either with some Magento-Connect module, or with some Excel spreadsheet to you would use to build the connections.
You will need also to think about your catalog so that it is really easy to navigate on the front-end.