OFBiz Tutorial – Turning Products On or Off

There are a number of reasons that a product or product variant (size, color, etc) may need to be removed from the front end of the site, but we don’t want to remove the product from the system entirely.  This could range from availability, inventory, or seasonal nature of products, or even more specific reasons to your business.  Luckily, OfBiz makes this process very simple, and allows us to set very specific introduction and discontinuation dated on products, right down to the individual variants of the products.  In this OFBiz tutorial we will walk you through this process to show you how it is done.

To be able to set these introduction and discontinuation dates, the user must be at least a Catalog Manager in the system, and we should already have products set up in the system.

Execution Steps

1. 1. Go to “Catalog” component and click on “Products” tab.
   2. Fill in details in search fields on “Find” page and click on “Find” button.

1. 1. System would display the list of existing products based on search inputs.
   2. Click on any of the “Product Id” from the list of various products displayed on Find page.
   3. Product Detail will be displayed on “Edit Product” page.

1. Click on “Dates” tab.
2. Enter the “Introduction Date” to enable the product display or to turn on the product.
3. Enter the “Sales Discontinuation Thru Date” to discontinue and turn of the product display on the ecommerce storefront.
4. Click on “Update Product” button.

Expected Outcome

• If the “Introduction Date” is a future date then product display will be turned off till the date specified.
• If “Introduction Date” is not specified or it is a past date then product display will be turned on for the store front.
• The changes will get reflected on Edit Product page.
• Product will be displayed or removed from storefront.

–Chris Gaughan—

Chris Gaughan is an OfBiz Designer specializing in Client Training and Support for HotWax Media.