Variable Product Attribute Taxonomy with Multiselect

Hi @freshymichael!

We have a stepped variable subscription product that we need the last attribute to be multiselect in place of select. When we push multiselect however, it causes the browser to crash. Is there an action or filter hook that will allow us to programmatically swap the product term to allow multiselect?

Can you explain the use case for needing a multi-select for an attribute? The way WooCommerce is set up, the user needs to select values for the different selectable attributes on a product in order to select the right variation. Multi-selecting attribute would lead to scenarios like ordering shoes that are both medium and large, or a t-shirt that is both solid red and solid green.

Do you mean that you want a scenario where, for example, a customer selecting both red and green as colors for a t-shirt means they get a red and green striped shirt instead of a solid color?

If so, you would likely want to look at something like Composite Products, which allows you to create product “kits” where there are multiple components the user needs to select. Composite products allows for more flexibility than variable products in terms of options the user can select.

A simpler approach might be to use something like Product Add-Ons, which would allow you to set required add-ons before a product could be added to the cart. Instead of a dropdown where the user had to select one value, you could have a series of checkboxes, so the user could choose one or many options for one of the options.

Would either of those plugins work?

Hey @apmwebdev!

Thanks so much for the reply. The use case is: users need to select quantity > frequency > ItemVariation where multiple items can be selected with the required # selected equal to qty variation selection.

Currently have a step plugin in use, to convert the variations to steps, and on the 3rd step, these options need to be able to have multiple items selected, and have the variation meta added to the order, both in cart and emails.
https://gyazo.com/6114a17bb29697d9d7ace35a7ed00039

The plugin is pushing radio buttons, but converting these to checkboxes still doesn’t allow for multiple item selection.

We had looked into both composite products and product add-ons, though neither seemed to do quite what we need it to do. We’re hoping to find a programatic way of achieving this result, that doesn’t crash the browser, which is the conflict we’re currently running into when pushing checkboxes, or forcing multiple to the select.

Hi @freshymichael. Thanks for explaining your setup, that helps clarify things. The idea of selecting multiple different products with the same quantity and frequency attributes in one go is intriguing, but I don’t know of a good way to achieve this. At a fundamental level, WooCommerce is built around selecting options for one product at a time. There are some plugins that push the boundaries of this, like Composite Products, but not in the way you describe here.

I think this would require a customization. Per our support policy, customizations are outside the scope of the support we can offer, but we have a customizations page with resources for contacting a developer for help. I will leave this thread open for a bit longer in case others can suggest something as well.

You can also ask about this on the WooCommerce Slack Community or WooCommerce FB group which are great places for customization questions like this.

We haven’t heard back from you in a while, so I’m going to mark this as resolved. Feel free to start a new thread if you have any further questions!