From the Admin interface, select Catalog | Manage Products.
The list of Products in your store will be displayed.
Click anywhere on the Product that you want to edit. Or, you can click on the edit link for that Product.
After the Product's page is displayed, select the Related Products tab. A search area is displayed. You will use this to search for and select the Related Products.
Click on Reset Filter. This causes all of the Products in your store to be displayed in the list. Or, enter a search criterion and click on Search.
To select a Related Product, click to place a check mark in the first column.
If this Product has several Related Products, specify the order in which they will appear by entering a number in the Position field, which is in the right-most column.
Click on Save.
The Related Products that you specified will now be displayed whenever a customer views this Product.
Make sure that you have created all of the individual Products that will be a part of the Grouped Product.
From the Admin interface, select Catalog | Manage Products.
Click on Add Product. The Product Settings page is displayed.
Select an Attribute Set. You do not need to select the same Attribute Set as the individual Products that make up the Grouped Product. You can choose any Attribute Set.
For Product Type, select Grouped Product.
Click on Continue. The Product Information page is displayed.
Note
The procedure for creating a Group Product is almost identical to creating a Simple Product. As you need to create several individual Products before creating a Group Product, these instructions assume that you know how to create a Product. Therefore, they will focus on what is unique about creating a Grouped Product. If you don't understand any part of these instructions, consider reviewing the procedure for creating a Simple Product explained in Chapter 5.
The General tab is selected for you. Let's begin there.
When Magento displays a product in your store, that product appears on its own page. Most of the information that your shoppers see on that page is entered here, on the General tab.
Notice that several fields on this page are marked with red asterisks. These fields are required, and you must fill them in.
Tip
You must fill in the required fields under the General tab before leaving the page. Even if you save your work, the product will not be added to your store if you haven't filled in the required fields.
Enter the Name, Description, and Short Description.
The way these fields function is similar to the fields for Simple Product. Your customers will see the product Name at the top of the product's page. The Short Description field appears below that, in the section labeled Quick Overview. The Description field appears below that.
Enter a unique SKU.
Optionally, enter dates for Set Product as New from/to Date.
A new product can be included in the new product display, RSS feed, and/or an email announcement. Setting dates in the fields for Set Product as New from/to Date makes the product new to Magento. If you use any of these features, you will need to fill in these date fields. However, if you don't highlight the new products in your store you can safely leave these fields blank.
If any of the individual Products that make up the Grouped Product are new, they will also appear as new, in addition to the Grouped Product.
Enter a URL key.
Select the Visibility for this Group.
Select the setting for Allow Gift Message.
Save and continue.
Use Meta Keywords and Meta Description as opportunities to optimize the page for search engines.
For Meta Title, enter the title for this Product page. The title should reflect search terms that customers will use when searching for this kind of product.
For Meta Keywords, enter keywords that describe this Product. The keywords should be the search terms that customers are likely to use when searching for this kind of product.
For Meta Description, enter a single sentence or phrase that describes the Product.
On the Product Information page, select the Images tab.
Click on Browse Files.... In the dialog box that appears, select one file to upload.
Select an image to upload, and then click on the Open or OK button in the dialog box.
If you want the same image to be used for base, small, and thumbnail, you can move to the next step. If you want to use separate images for each of the three images, then click on Browse Files... and select more images. After you select all the images that you want for this Product, click on Upload Files. The files will be uploaded to the Images page.
Select the image you want for the base, small, and thumbnail images by clicking the radio buttons.
To exclude an image type, click on the radio button in the top row for No Image. This means that wherever Magento would have used that image size, Magento will not display an image. If you select No Image for the thumbnail image, then no image will be added when this is placed in the Shopping Cart.
Enter a label for each image. This will be used as the "alt text" for that image.
Click on Save And Continue Edit.
Under this tab, you select the Products that are part of this Group.
Click on Reset Filter to view all products, or enter a search criterion and click on Search.
To select a Product, click to place a check mark in the first column.
Enter a default quantity for the Product. This will pre-fill the quantity field, Qty, when the customer selects this Group.
Use the Position field to determine the order in which the Products is displayed.
Click on Save.
Tip
This section assumes that you know how to create and use Attributes. This was covered in Chapter 3.
From the Admin interface, select Catalog | Attributes | Manage Attributes. A list of all Attributes in the system is displayed.
Click on the Attribute that you want to make configurable. The Attribute Properties page is displayed.
To make this Attribute configurable, set the Scope to Global. The Attribute needs to be available everywhere in your site.
Set the Input Type to Dropdown. This creates a drop-down list for the customer.
Set Use To Create Configurable Product to Yes.
Click on the Save button.
Make sure that the Attribute Set that you will use for this Configurable Product contains the configurable Attribute(s) that you just set up.
You must create each Product that will be associated with this Configurable Product. You will create the first Product in the same way as you would any other Simple Product.
After creating the first Simple Product, you will duplicate it and use the duplicate as the starting point for the next Simple Product. This section covers creating the first Simple Product. The next section covers duplicating it and creating the rest of the Simple Products.
Immediately after clicking the Create Product button, the system displays a dialog box where you select the Attribute Set and the Product Type.
You must select an Attribute Set that has one or more configurable Attributes, such as the one that was set up in the previous section.
In our demo store, we selected coffee-by-pound because it contains the configurable Attribute, grind.
For Product Type, select Simple Product. Remember, you are creating one of the Products that will be associated with the Configurable Product, and not creating the Configurable Product itself.
After you click on the Continue button, the Product Information page is displayed. Fill out this page as you would for any Product.
Pay special attention to the setting for the configurable attribute(s) that you set.
Set a unique SKU for each product.
Set the Status of this Product to Enabled, or else it won't be available to your customers.
Unlike a normal Simple Product, set the Visibility to Nowhere. This prevents it from having its own listing in your store.
Fill in the rest of the information for this Product, just as you would any other Simple Product. If you need complete instructions, refer to the instructions for creating a Simple Product given in Chapter 5.
Save the Product. Now, you are ready to create duplicates of this Product, and use each Duplicate as the starting point for a new Product.
To begin this part of the procedure, you should keep open the Product that you want to duplicate.
Click on Duplicate. When the Product is duplicated, you will see a confirmation message at the top of the page.
For the Configurable Attribute, choose a new value.
Enter a unique SKU for this Product.
Set the Status to Enabled.
If needed, edit the Name and Description.
Under Inventory, the Qty for the new Product is automatically set to zero and the Stock Availability is set to Out of Stock. You must change these.
Look through the tabs for any other information that needs to be changed for this new Product. For example, if you changed the Name and Description, would you also need to change the Meta Information? Does this Product look different enough from the others that you will need to upload new Images for the Product?
Save this Product.
Repeat as needed, until you have created all of the Products that you need for this Configurable Product.
Make sure that you have created all of the individual Products that will be part of the Configurable Product.
From the Admin interface, select Catalog | Manage Products.
Click on Add Product. The Create Product Settings page gets displayed.
Select an Attribute Set. You must select an Attribute Set that has one or more configurable Attributes, such as the one that was set up in the previous section.
For Product Type, select Configurable Product.
Click on Continue. You will see a dialog box asking you to select the Configurable Attributes for this Product.
Tip
If there are no Configurable Attributes listed, it means the Attribute Set that you selected for this Product contains no Configurable Attributes. Either go back to Catalog | Attributes | Manage Attributes and make at least one Attribute configurable, or start over and select an Attribute Set that has a Configurable Attribute.
Select the Attribute(s) that you want to be configurable. This will create a drop-down list for that Attribute, enabling the customer to choose a value for the Product.
Click on Continue. The Product Information page gets displayed.
Note
The procedure for creating a Configurable Product is almost identical to creating a Simple Product. As you need to create several individual Products before creating a Configurable Product, these instructions assume that you know how to create a Product. Therefore, they will focus on what is unique about creating a Configurable Product. If you don't any part of these instructions, consider reviewing the procedure for creating a Simple Product given in Chapter 5..
The General tab is selected for you. Let's begin there.
Fill in the fields under the General tab as you would for any other Product.
Remember to enter a unique SKU.
Remember to set the Status to Enabled.
Unlike the individual Products that make up this Configurable Product, you should set the Visibility to Catalog, or Search, or Catalog, Search.
Under Inventory, the only settings you will see are Manage Stock and Stock Availability. Set the Stock Availability to In Stock.
Select the Prices tab.
In the Price field, enter the base price for this Product. Later on, you will enter a price modifier for each Associate Product.
Look through the tabs for any other information that needs to be changed. For example, will you need a different Name and Description for the Configurable Product? Will you also need to change the Meta Information? Do you want to upload an Image that shows several versions of the Product?
Click on Save And Continue Edit.
Click on Reset Filter to display all products or, enter search criteria and click on Search.
This causes the Products that use the same Attribute Set to be displayed in the list. The Products that cannot be associated will be shaded, while the ones that can will not be shaded.
To select a Product, click to place a check mark in the first column.
Click on Save And Continue Edit. After saving, Magento takes you to the General tab. Return to the Associated Products tab.
In the Super product attributes configuration section, you will see each Configurable Attribute listed.
In the Attribute Name field, enter the text that you want the customer to see when they choose the setting for this Attribute.
In the Price field for each setting, enter a price modifier.
Finally, save the Product.