Throughout the Administrator, a similar screen is used when presenting information on products, categories, attributes, orders, customers, and other types of items. This screen, which we call the "Control Screen," consists of various forms to manipulate what is being displayed and help you maintain the information. A good share of learning how to manage your store through the Administrator is simply learning how to use the features of the Control Screen.
The Administrator Control Screen for Products
Here is a summary of each of the forms on the Control Screen:
"Displayed Columns..." link and form: This feature consists of the "Displayed Columns..." link at the top of the screen, and the checkboxes that appear after the link is clicked. It allows you to control which columns are displayed on the screen. For example, on the
Product Catalog -> Productsscreen, by default each product's code, name, active status, price, and order are displayed. You can change it so every column of information is presented, or only just a few.
The Displayed Columns form
Filter form: This consists of the box on the left hand side of the screen next to the "Filter" and "Clear" buttons. The form allows you to filter the items that are displayed to just those that match a given search string. For example, to filter products on the
Product Catalog -> Productsscreen to just those with the word "Jupiter" in the short description, name, or code, type "Jupiter" into the filter form and click the "Filter" button. This can be extremely useful when grappling with a large number of records.
The Filter form
Power Edit buttons: Turning on the Power Edit button allows you to edit every piece of information that's currently being displayed at once. For example, if you needed to update the prices of all your products at once, you could increase the page size to equal the number of products in the system. (Perhaps you would also want to limit the number of columns being displayed using the Displayed Columns form, to just the Price and Name of the products.) Then click the Power Edit button. Each of the prices (and any other fields being displayed) are now editable.
The Power Edit buttons
Add New Record link: On each of the screens, you can add a new record to the system--be it a product, order, state, etc.--by clicking the Add New Record link. That will take you to a form where you can add the item, whatever it is.
- Sorting arrows: Next to the label of each column, you'll find two small arrows. Clicking the down arrow sorts the items being displayed in descending order. The up arrow sorts them in ascending order.
Per Page input / Jump drop down / Next and Previous buttons: The per page form is self-explanatory. It controls the number of items currently being displayed on the screen. Similarly, the Next and Previous buttons help you navigate through the pages. The Jump drop down allows you to jump to any page number.
Page Controls
One of the ways the control screen features can save a dramatic amount of time is in the case of updating product prices, particularly if your store has a large number of products. The following example shows how to review and update a large group of products all at once. It uses the products from the demo store to demonstrate what to do.
Example 4.1. Updating Prices for a Group of Products at Once
- Navigate to the
Product Catalog -> Productscontrol screen. - For convenience, use the Displayed Columns link and form to limit the columns being displayed to just display the Products' code, name, and price. Click the "Update" button next to the box of field names to update.
- Let's say you want to review all the products containing the word "Nebula" in the name, code, or short description. Type "Nebula" into the Filter form, and click the "Filter" button. You should get about 22 results matching the filter.
- To make things easier, let's update the number of items displayed per page to fit everything on the first page. If you had 22 matches for the filter, change the Per Page form to "22", and click the "Update" button next to it. All the matching products should now appear on one page.
- Now, click the Power Edit: "On" button to make everything on the screen editable.
At this point, the control screen should look like this:
Updating Prices for Multiple Products
As you can see, it's very easy to scan through the list of products and review their prices, changing them when necessary. If you need to, use the sorting arrows next to the column names to organize the products further.
- When you've finished updating the prices, simply hit the big "Update" button to have all your changes take effect.
You can use this same technique in the Administrator to make many other sorts of updates or to generate ad hoc reports. For example, it can help you:
- Update the inventory levels of a large group of SKUs at once.
- Reorganize categories into different parent categories, or assign products new primary categories all at once.
- Reorder products or categories by editing their "Order" field.
- Much more.
In several areas of the Administrator, you need to make "assignments"; for example, assigning products to categories, and assigning attributes to products. In either of these cases, the process is essentially the same. The following steps describe how to create an attribute and assign it to a product. (The process of assigning products to categories is specifically covered in the Adding Your First Product section.)
Example 4.2. Creating an Attribute and Options, and Assigning it to a Product
- Navigate to the
Product Catalog -> Attributesscreen. - To add a new attribute, click the "Add New Record" link.
- An Attribute is used to provide customers with the ability to select options for their products, or enter personalized information. In this example, let's define an attribute named "Color".
- Use "Color" for the name, and "COLOR" for the code, or whatever else you'd like to use.
- For the type field, to have the Color options displayed next to each other on the product page using radio buttons, select "Expanded (radio buttons)"; otherwise, you can use "Compact (drop down)" to display the options in the form of a drop-down menu.
- You can optionally enter in a price, cost, weight, description, etc. for the new attribute.
- Hit "Add New Record" to add the new attribute to the system.
- Now navigate back to the
Product Catalog -> Attributesscreen. You should see your new attribute in the table in the center of the screen. - Click the "Options" button next to the new attribute, and on the subsequent screen click the "Add New Record" link to add a new Option under the Color attribute.
- Add a new option named "Blue". Use "Blue" for the name, and "BLUE" for the code. Optionally, set the option's price, and add a description and image path. The price will be added to the customer's subtotal if he selects this option.
- Hit "Add New Record" to add the new option to the system.
- Repeat the above two steps for "Red", "Orange", "Yellow", or whatever other colors you like.
- Now that you've added the Color attribute, and created the color options under it, you need to assign the attribute to a product. Click on the "Products" tab for the attribute.
- You should now see a list of products assigned to the new attribute. Since the attribute is brand new there should be no products assigned to it, but if you click the "Unassigned" tab, you will be able to select the products you wish to assign to it. Check the checkbox under the "Assigned" column next to the Product.
- Click "Update" to save the change.