'package files to affect inventory' not working

[smidge]

Hello,



I have several products with inventory control (no variants) and I am trying to set up another product which is a bundle of some of those. When I check the "Package files from other products, affect their inventory" box, and select the products from the dropdown, then click 'Next', the system always seems to un-check that button when I go back. I tried checking the "variations" box also and setting up variations which have identical SKUs as the products I had chosen in the dropdown, but it still keeps un-checking the "Package files" box. Am I doing something wrong here?



Thanks.

[smidge]

I should note: what I'm trying to do is let my customers choose from several existing products, so when they add the bundled item it only affects the inventory of the item(s) whose variation they selected.

[smidge]

However it doesn't seem to be working when I do a normal bundle too, in which every other product selected in the dropdown is included in the new product, and has its inventory decreased by 1. That box always unchecks itself when I hit Next then Back.

[E-junkie_Guru]

First, bear in mind that a "bundle" product (one which uses the "Package files from other products, affect their inventory" setting) is a completely separate, independent product; it does not work like actually ordering each the individual products selected for the bundle. The bundle product can simply issue download links for files already uploaded to other products, or affect the inventory count for other products that use Inventory Control, and that's all that setting does.



Bundle products cannot affect the inventory of other products that use "Variants having individual price/weight/stock/SKU", as there's no way for the bundle product to identify which particular Variant of the component product should have its inventory affected. Bundle products can only affect the inventory count for other products that track a single, general inventory count for the entire product.



Bundle products also cannot use Variants or Variations of their own to determine what other products to affect or how; whatever products you select in the list when you enable "Package files..." will all be affected by purchases of the bundle product.



The typical way of allowing buyers to choose from several existing products for their order would be to paste your Add to Cart buttons for those products into your page. The buyer would click Add to Cart for the items they want, then they would be able to take just those items to checkout together. This is designed to work similarly to a shopping cart in a real-world store:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/faq.what.shopping-cart.htm

[smidge]

Okay, I get that it doesn't work for bundled products to use Variants or Variations, or to bundle products which use these, but it is still not working for me on a single bundle of products with basic inventory. The checkbox keeps getting automatically disabled. What gives?

[E-junkie_Guru]

Aha, we figured out that was due to your tangible-goods-only subscription plan incorrectly blocking that setting, so we've fixed that now. That setting was originally used only for downloads, and the "affect inventory" aspect of that setting is a recently-added feature, but apparently we never removed that setting from the list of "digital delivery" features that are disabled with tangible-only plans, so we've done that now.

[smidge]

Ah, I see, that makes sense. Unfortunately, the problem is still happening for me. I just logged out and logged back in, but still no luck. That page seems to not want to let me save the "package files..." setting for some reason. Always appear unchecked as soon as I move to the next step. I've tried just about every combination of having the other boxes checked or unchecked. Is there something that needs to be set on the products being included in the bundle? (I AM able to select these in the dropdown, and the system 'remembers' my selections, but keeps losing the setting...) Any other ideas?

[E-junkie_Guru]

Hm, I've brought this to Development's attention; the fix they applied yesterday may have overlooked something else that was necessary to make it effective.