Product Types

Overview

You can set product types for your products. Each product type can then be linked to different products in your catalog. Product types makes it easy to do things like add custom fields to a product, specify views to be applied to multiple products all at once, and more. Product types allow you to group products together to allow you to do all kinds of creative things for both administrative and development purposes.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

Have access to your Hotcakes store administration
Be familiar with and/or have product type properties added

Getting Started

The only thing you might need to do prior to following along is to add at least one product type property, but that depends on how you plan to use product types.

You'll find product types in the catalog menu of the control panel.

At first, there won't be any product types added, so you'll need to add one. You can do that using the fields in the left panel. All you need to do is enter a desired name, then click the "Add Product Type" button to get started.

Whether you're adding a new product type or editing an existing one, you'll see the view below.

If the product type is assigned to any products, you'll see the message below. This is a warning to let you know that if you make any changes to the product type, you need to be aware that you might have to also edit the products assigned to it.

General Settings

The general settings are the most often used. It's not unusual to only use one or both of these settings, and none of the others in this view.

Setting	Description
Product Type Name	This is the common name the you'd like for the product type to have. While merchants will primarily see this value, it's possible for customers to also see this label.
Product View Template	This drop down list is populated with all of the views that have been created for products in your store. These are populated by your designer and/or developer. You may choose a default view to apply to all products that are assigned to this product type. However, you can also override this selection at the product level and in the module settings.

Product Type Properties

This section allows you to specify any product type properties that you wish to assign to the product. For example, is this product type is defining bicycle frames, you might choose to add a property that helps to describe the type of frame. You don't need to assign any product type properties, but you can if it helps your store strategy.

Setting	Description
Available Properties	This drop down list is populated by adding one or more product type properties. You can select and add as many as you'd like.

If you've added one or more product type properties, you'll see them listed in a grid format.

Column	Description
[no name]	This column allows you to sort the order that customers see the properties listed in. Simply click the icon with your mouse, then drag the property to reorder it.
Type	This is the type of the property. The types are discuss in more detail in the product type properties documentation.
Property Name	This is the system name version of the labels that you have assigned to the respective product type property.
[no name]	If you would like to remove a product type property, click the icon in this column. You can easily add the product type property back at any time.

Roles

Roles allow you to repurpose security roles from the CMS to assign permissions that determine who can see the products assigned to this product type. By default, everyone can see them. The product type is public. As soon as you add a security role, only people in the security roles you specify can see the products. However, administrators can always see the products at any time.

Setting	Description
Security Role	These roles will be populated using the security roles you define in the CMS administration area. Select one, then click the "Add" button to apply the role to this product type.

If you've added any security roles, you'll see them listed below.

Column	Description
Role Name	This is the name of the security role, as defined in the CMS administration area..
[no name]	This action column allows you to remove the security role at anytime. You can reassign the security role by selecting it again and clicking the "Add" button.

Product Types Grid

As you begin adding product types, they'll begin to load into the grid, like shown below. This grid view allows you to manage your product types with ease, at any time.

Column	Description
Product Type	This column will display the name you specified for the product. Be sure to name your product types in a human-friendly way to make managing them easier.
Template Name	If you've assigned a default view to the products in the product type, you'll see it named here.
[no name]	This is an action column, that allows you to manage the individual product type row. The first icon allows you to edit the product type. The second icon allows you to permanently delete the product type. You'll notice that this icon isn't always shown. It will only be displayed if the product type isn't currently in use.