Make a choice change the price
Link an option box to the recipe so picking Black, White or Anodised changes what is charged.
What this is for
An option box is a question the estimator answers on the quote — Finish, Substrate, Paint. On its own it changes nothing. It changes the price only through the ingredients that point at it. This is how to point them, from either end.
Before you start
- Build the product's recipe first, so there are ingredients to switch on.
- If the choice is a material, machine or bought-in item, add it to the catalogue first so the choice has something to buy.
Step by step
- 1
Add the choice. On the Recipe tab press + Offer a choice, name it (Finish, Substrate, Paint colour), pick one or pick any, then add the choices from the catalogue. Add a "None" for a choice that costs nothing. Or make the box on the Options tab — either way it is the same box.
Note: A choice that is a material, machine or item BUYS that thing when it is picked. A choice marked adds nothing is only a label — it lets the estimator say 'none' or 'anodised' without a cost.
- 2
On the Recipe tab, every ingredient now has a When this runs box. Leave it on always for anything every version of the sign needs.
- 3
Set an ingredient to only when [choice] is chosen when it belongs to one choice — a second coat that only happens when paint is picked, a polish step that only happens for stainless steel.
- 4
Set a material, machine or item to one for each [box] choice when the choice IS the thing — three paints, four substrates, two tapes. One sentence then covers every choice: the one the estimator picks fills the slot and is the one charged. A 'None' choice charges nothing.
Note: This is the setting for 'three paints with three prices, one product'. Each paint keeps its own cost in Stock, so each choice prices itself with no other setting.
- 5
Or work from the other end. On the Options tab each choice says what it switches on — 'switches on 3 lines', or 'Changes nothing yet'. Press See or change which (or Choose what it switches on) and tick the ingredients that should run for that choice. It is the same connection as the Recipe tab, seen from the choice.
- 6
Save recipe. If anything could not be done as asked — a choice that no longer exists, a machine offered where a material was needed — it is listed under the save in plain words, and that ingredient runs for every choice until you fix it.
- 7
Check it on a quote. Add the product, switch the choice, and watch the price move. If a choice does not change the price, nothing points at it yet.
Tips & gotchas
- A box with no ingredient pointing at it changes nothing — Sign OS flags these as 'Changes nothing yet' on the Options tab and under Things worth checking.
- A step that needs two of three choices: add the sentence twice and gate each copy on one choice. There is no 'all except' setting.
- Options and Recipe describe the same link from both ends: set When this runs on a recipe line, or tick the line on the choice under Options. Either way you are writing one connection.
- A choice's own words and picture live on the chip: open it on the Options tab, then Advanced, for its photograph, its website code and its wording.
- Every catalogue box opens on your own stock, under a My shop heading. The toggle at the top of the menu — All, Shared, My shop — widens it to the shared catalogue when you want something you have not bought before.