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Can ubercart handle custom product ordering?

Submitted by venkat-rk@drupal.org on Thu, 03/20/2008 - 12:28
venkat-rk@drupal.org
Posts: 14
 Joined: 03/19/2008

I would like to use Ubercart for my internet services startup. I will be selling web hosting, email hosting and spam filtering. For each service, the customer will make a custom order picking and choosing various components and/or number of users/user licences. And, each component will have its own pricing, with the total being calculated from the components chosen multiplied by the number of users or disk space etc.

The order page I have in mind is similar to this:
http://luxsci.com/extranet/order_wizard/step1.php

Are these things possible out of the box with Ubercart?

And, I am also looking for the common payment options such as monthly invoicing, quarterly invoicing with invoice reminders being sent out etc etc.

Am I asking for the moon?Smiling

I think not, but I am unsure, so any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Venkat
permalink #1 Thu, 03/20/2008 - 13:33
Ryan

Posts: 4256
 Joined: 08/07/2007
AdministratorHead Code Monkey - I eat bugs.

Hey Venkat, not necessarily asking for the moon, but certainly looking for something a little different than Ubercart provides. At its core, Ubercart is good for selling actual products or individual services that can be presented as products. For something like a custom product builder like this, you'd create the form yourself and then use Ubercart as a sort of behind-the-scenes framework. For example, you can make a custom module that will gather the customer's information and then add a product to the cart and go to the checkout page without the customer ever really knowing there are product nodes on your site.

permalink #2 Fri, 03/21/2008 - 00:57
venkat-rk@drupal.org
Posts: 14
 Joined: 03/19/2008

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for clarifying this for me.

I understand that this would have to be a custom form, but I was thinking that the individual components of each service could be handled by CCK fields. The disk space stuff and number of users etc could be handled by CCK computed fields, for instance.

I believe ubercart 'products' can be built using CCK. If so, it would seem that only the custom form may be necessary to present the ordering system/workflow to a customer, correct?

Venkat

permalink #3 Fri, 03/21/2008 - 09:53
Ryan

Posts: 4256
 Joined: 08/07/2007
AdministratorHead Code Monkey - I eat bugs.

Well, the main issue is that your customers won't have access to dealing w/ CCK fields. These things would be better suited as attributes, especially since you'll be able to use the attribute system to alter the price of their subscription. So the products would be built and their options specified through the attribute/option system, but customer wouldn't necessarily use the add to cart form. You can make your own multi-step form that simply uses the Ubercart API to add the right product w/ attributes to the cart.

permalink #4 Tue, 03/25/2008 - 23:12
venkat-rk@drupal.org
Posts: 14
 Joined: 03/19/2008

>> These things would be better suited as attributes, especially since you'll be able to use the attribute system to alter the price of their subscription.

Hi Ryan,

Thank you again. This is exactly what I had in mind except that, not having given UC a real test drive, I thought attributes (the components that go to make up the product) would be handled by CCK fields.

>> You can make your own multi-step form that simply uses the Ubercart API to add the right product w/ attributes to the cart.

This sounds exactly like what I want. I think it's time for me to install Ubercart.Smiling

permalink #5 Wed, 07/30/2008 - 09:13
nareshvajawat
Posts: 1
 Joined: 07/30/2008

Hi Venkat / Ryan,

I have a similar issue , Can I have a product which is a mixture of already existing products. For eg In order to build a PC i will need to add a motherboard , processor ,etc... now I already have Processor and motherboard as separate products , how do I create a view for the user where the user can select processor and motherboard according to his choice.

Thanks
Naresh