Setting up Attributes

Hi @ptiadmin,

Attribute stock allows you to add your stock in whatever way makes the most sense to you. It doesn’t impose any restrictions.

Generally it’s better to keep your attributes separate as in your second option, i.e. size, style, color. This is because your attributes determine how your product options will be displayed on the frontend.

Either way, attribute stock can be set up to work with any amount or combination of attributes.

My recommendation would be to make sure your product attributes and variations are set up to your liking, and then create your attribute stock items afterwards (under Products > Attribute Stock).

When adding attribute stock items it may help to think about them in terms of your physical inventory. Rather than trying to create stock based on your products/variation listings, just add stock items for each type of stock you want to track. You can link your stock items to whichever attributes or combination of attributes you require.

It’s important to keep in mind that attribute stock items actually exist separately from attributes, products or variations. What matters is how you tie them together under each stock item’s Match rules.

If you need to add a lot of stock items, consider creating one or two and exporting them to CSV. You can then edit the exported file in Excel, add your stock items accordingly, and import the file back into your site.

You can play around with all of this using the Lite version, or even on our demo site. The only feature you get with the paid version is having your attribute stock affect product stock on the frontend.

If you need any further assistance, please let us know.

Thank you so much for your prompt reply. I really didn’t expect to hear back from you on the forum until tomorrow. I will attack it tomorrow when my mind is fresh in the method you suggested. Before I even got started I saw a table pop up that had the color, size and style as attributes which prompted my question. I’m really not familiar with using CSV files so I’ll probably have to enter all the data separately. However, I’m really excited to get started with your plugin as the features sound amazing! I just want to make sure there are no compatibility issues with my theme or plug ins. If all goes well, I’ll be sure to upgrade to the pro version.
Thanks again!

No problem at all. If you need anything further, just let us know ??

I’m going to start entering the stock attributes shortly. I have Advanced Fields for Woocommerce enabled and have fields there for product attribute/variables on some of the items and just have the product itself listed as a simple product. Will the attribute stock program still work with this plugin or is it best to have the product attributes through woocommerce as a variable product so they communicate?

I’m currently configuring terms for the color attribute. If I click “manage stock” like in the example listed under your Basic Usage tutorial, more fields come up including stock quantity. I can’t enter a stock quantity because the white shirt comes in 2 styles (Relaxed and Fitted) and 6 sizes (S, M, L, XL, 3XL, and 3XL). So just for white, there really isn’t an item on it’s own white, it has to have the other modifiers. If I’m entering everything separately,(color, style, size) will I have to combine them later in the entry process to actually manage the stock for a small white fitted shirt? I’m wondering if I have to follow the Attribute-level stock instructions instead as in your example for tea but I’m really not sure since I don’t know the endpoint. I’m so confused now.

Advanced stock relations like this can get really complicated really fast. Perhaps it’s best to take a step back and plan out how you want your stock and products to work, without worrying too much about the technical details.

It’s difficult for me to advise on specifics without more details about your products and what you’re trying to achieve with attribute stock.

If this is your first time using WooCommerce, I highly recommend reading their documentation on variable products before continuing.

FYI this doesn’t sound like a typical case for Attribute-level stock, i.e our Tea example.

I’ve used Woocommerce for 2 years so am very comfortable with it. I changed many of my variable products to simple products and used the Advance Fields for Woocommerce plugiin to add the variable options instead because I was able to provide an easier shopping experience for my customers since I could show colors of shirts or optional design options with images rather than just descriptions like “blue design”,”red design” etc. I need to know if the plugin will work with the variables being part of another plugin rather than using the variables in woocommerce. If I have to use the variables in woocommerce for your plugin to work, I may have to at least have the core item that I would be tracking for stock in woocommerce. For example, having the shirt size, color, and style as variables in woocommerce (white relaxed medium) so I could track track the stock of the available blank shirts via your plugin and have the other details using the Advanced Fields for Woocommerce. I guess my issue is when I tried to enter the attributes separately as you suggested initially, I wasn’t seeing how if I just put in “white” or “relaxed” I can’t really attribute stock to it. If I have to have some variables in the core Woocommerce, I have to go and change all of my products (400+) before the stock management will work. I’m not sure if that makes sense. The only tutorial on the plugin was the one I referenced earlier. I want to track my blank items across all designs. I have different color shirts but numerous designs that can be applied to them. So when someone buys a black medium fitted shirt with design A and another purchases a black medium fitted shirt with design B, I need the plugin to decrease black medium fitted shirts by 2 so I know when I have to order more black medium shirts. All the products I offer start off as a blank and I customize them on demand when I receive an order.

Thanks for the info, this makes it a lot clearer now.

So firstly, attribute stock can only work with global product attributes. It won’t work with plugins that add “custom” fields to products, since these aren’t really attributes at all.

You’ll need to set up your products as variable products using attributes such as Size, Style and Color. These products and variations should NOT have Manage stock enabled. Their stock status should just be set to In stock (the default).

Now all you need to do is go to Products > Attribute Stock and add your stock items. For example, to add a stock item for a black medium fitted shirt, click Add New, set its title and stock quantity, then under Match rules you’ll need to add all 3 attributes in the same group (Size: Medium, Style: Fitted, Color: Black).

We have examples of stock items like this on our demo site that you can use for reference. The only difference is adding the Style attribute.

Once you’ve added all of your stock items like this, and your products are set up as mentioned above, your stock items will be shared between all of your products. You can see this working on our demo site too.

If you want to add more functionality and design to your product options, I suggest looking into a “variation swatches” plugin. There are several different ones available, both free and paid, and they may help to add back some of the lost functionality that you have with Advance Fields for WooCommerce.

Thank you for the response. That’s the guidance I needed. Before seeing your response, I had just figured out how to set up an attribute stock Small Fitted White Shirt and enabled the groups to meet the criteria. When I was searching for an advanced field plugin, the Advanced Fields for Woocommerce had the best ratings, features, and least issues with affecting website speed. It was better than variation swatches in these respects from what I remember. I’ve already set up about 80 different advanced fields and added them to my products using this plugin and paid for the license so redoing them and using variation swatches instead isn’t an option. I will either, change the shirt stock back to variable and use your plugin or continue my search for a plugin that can handle blank stock. For my mug inventory, I think it’s extremely helpful for the customer to see the different pictures of mug (white, pink colored rim and handle, pink inside and handle, etc.) I have to decide if I want to take the time redoing 80 product fields by using variation swatches in addition to the Advanced Fields just to use your management tool. I was really excited about the possibility given its functionality just don’t know if it will be work all the work in the end vs manually tracking my inventory. Thanks again

If I do use a variation swatches plugin, are all of them compatible with your plugin? If I decide in the next few days to completely overhaul my products again, I don’t want to choose a plugin that won’t work and waste all that time. As I’ll have to change the product attributes on close to 400 products and 120 associated advanced fields.

Yes attribute stock is fully compatible with most (if not all) variation swatch plugins.

I understand it would be a lot of work to overhaul all of your product listings. But as you mentioned you can still use Advanced Fields for product options that don’t affect stock. You’re also able to set images on individual variations that will show when a specific variation is selected, without needing any plugin.

It may be helpful to set up your product variations with one or more of the 3 attributes set to “Any”. This way you can create fewer variations for each of your products rather than duplicating variations. Attribute stock will handle the stock for these variations accordingly.

If you need further assistance getting attribute stock set up on your site, don’t hesitate to let us know.

I have installed Variations for Woocommerce by GetWoo just to test functionality with your plugin. I have added attributes for mugs and clicked the enabled stock at the attribute level. ON the overview table the number does not show as in the example in your tutorial, but if I click the attribute individually I can see the stock. I know stock doesn’t show on the front end/customer view unless I have the pro version but why would the number not sow in the backend for me?

Is there a specific reason you’re trying to use attribute-level stock? Unless you need variable stock like our Tea example, i.e weight, lengths, packs, etc, this is usually not what you want to do for normal stock like mugs.

When enabling stock on an attribute at the attribute level it creates a new attribute stock item. You can see this item under Products > Attribute Stock. That’s the only point at which you’ll see stock directly in the attribute list under Products > Attributes.

For stock tracked individually like mugs, it usually works best to use attribute term stock. Managing your stock levels is also much easier to do under Products > Attribute Stock than on the default WooCommerce attribute screens. The latter is really only for very simple usage.

OK. I thought I was following the directions. I should be able to look at it again in the next hour and will try and see what I did wrong. I was trying to add global attributes and then was going to make one of my mug designs variable as a test before trying to do all my products over.

Thank you for your help thus far. I was able to set up the mug attributes and the stock numbers under attribute stock. The inventory count decreased appropriately with a test transaction.
What about an item that doesn’t have attributes? It’s a simple mug. The designs may vary throughout the site using this one mug. I don’t see instructions for linking attribute stock to a simple product.