Parts
Parts need the Pro plan.
A part is something the configured product is made of - a panel, a hinge, a mounting kit, a length of edge banding. The Parts tab of the GUI section is where you list them, and where you say when each one is included.
This is the difference between parts and priced options. An option is a question you ask the shopper, and it charges when they choose it. A part is a fact about the product, and it appears whenever its condition holds, whether or not the shopper knows it exists.
Charged, or only recorded
Every part is one of two things, and the difference is simply whether money is involved.
Charged. Either you link it to a real product in your store, or you type a price on it. A linked part is charged at that product's price, ships as its own line on the order, and decrements your stock. A part with a typed price but no product is charged too, but nothing ships for it - use it for a cost that is real but has no item behind it.
Recorded. No link and no price. It never costs anything and it never reaches the cart. It exists so that the order, the parts list and the export say what the thing is made of. A part that is only written down is how you get a works order that a person can build from.
The tab shows which is which: each part is labelled charged or recorded beside its name.
Adding a part
Add Part, then fill in what you know. Only the label really matters to begin with.
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Label | What the part is called. This is what the shopper sees in a parts list and on the PDF. |
| SKU | Your internal part number. See What is published below. |
| Part of | Puts this part inside another one, making an assembly. |
| Find number | A stable number for drawings and works orders. It is yours to set, and deleting a part never renumbers the others. |
| Unit | What one of them is - a piece, a kit, an hour. |
| Unit shown to people | Your own wording for that unit, if the standard one is not how you say it. |
| Price each | A price when there is no product to link. Offered only while the part is unlinked. |
| Quantity | How many, when it is always the same number. |
| Quantity expression | How many, when it depends on what the shopper chose. |
| Already part of the base price | The part still ships and still decrements stock, but adds nothing on top of your base price. |
| Included when | The condition that decides whether the part is in this configuration at all. |
| When it runs out | Which shopper choices to cross out while this part cannot be sold. |
Linking a product
Link product points the part at something real in your catalogue. It is then charged at that product's price and it ships.
If you have typed a price and then link a product, the typed price is removed - a linked part is charged at its own product's price, and a part may not have two prices.
Creating a product from a part
If a recorded part turns out to be something you actually sell, Create product adds it to your store and links it in one step. The product is yours: editable, sellable on its own, and reusable in other configurators. Its stock is left untracked so this configurator is never blocked by inventory you did not mean to manage - turn tracking on in Shopify when you are ready.
Assemblies
Part of nests one part inside another, which is how you describe a real build.
Two things follow from nesting, and both are what you would want:
- Conditions add up. A child is included only when its own condition holds and every condition above it does. A hinge inside an assembly that only appears on the large size is itself only on the large size.
- Quantities multiply. Two of an assembly, each containing four screws, is eight screws.
- A condition follows the answer, not the question. If a part is included when Finish is Oak, and Finish itself is only shown when Material is Wood, the part is still included when Finish is hidden - because Oak is still the stored answer, kept in case the shopper switches back. A priced option on a hidden control is not charged, so the two behave differently on purpose. If a part should only be included while its control is actually on screen, add that control's condition to the part as well.
A parent does not have to be a real product. Leave it unlinked and it is a grouping: it ships nothing itself, while the parts inside it ship and are charged normally. That is the right shape for "Door assembly" as a heading over the pieces that actually go in the box.
If you link a product to an assembly and to the parts inside it, all of them are charged and all of them ship. That is correct when the pieces go in the box loose, and wrong when the assembly product already contains them.
Only you know which. Publishing raises an advisory naming both, and clearing the link on the assembly keeps its grouping and its condition while stopping it charging twice.
How many
Quantity is a plain number for the parts that never change. Quantity expression is for the ones that do, written over your control keys the same way a pricing formula is - width / 300, say, for the number of brackets a run needs.
When you write an expression, a Round selector appears, because the answer will rarely be whole.
Where several parts need the same expression, write it the same way on each of them rather than varying it slightly. Checkout works out each distinct expression once and reuses the answer, so thirty parts sharing one expression cost about what one part costs, while thirty near-identical expressions cost thirty times as much. It is the difference between a project that publishes and one that is refused - see Managing complexity.
| Round | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Up - the covering quantity | Almost always. Three and a bit brackets means you need four. |
| To the nearest | When over and under are equally acceptable. |
| Down | When a partial one is simply not fitted. |
| Not rounded | Only for a recorded part, where the fraction is the answer. |
New parts round up, because a covering quantity is what a real build almost always needs.
Anything you charge for ships as a whole number of things. Type a fractional quantity on a charged part and publishing refuses it outright. Leave a quantity expression unrounded and publishing warns instead, because it cannot know what the expression will work out to - at checkout the result is cut down to a whole number, so 2.35 is charged as 2. Either round it, or take the price and the product link off and record the measurement instead.
That is exactly why "Not rounded" exists: 2.35 metres of edge banding is the honest figure for a cutting list, and it is only honest while nobody is being charged for 2.35 of something.
Units
A unit says what one of them is. Piece, Each, Kit, Hour.
Units never touch the price. The price comes from the linked product or from what you typed, and both are prices for one of the thing. This is why there are no metres, kilograms or square metres in the list: offering "per kilogram" beside a price invites a reading that nothing here performs.
If you want a measurement in front of people, put it in Unit shown to people. It is your own wording and it is only ever displayed.
Already part of the base price
Tick this when the base price you typed already covers the part.
The part still ships as its own order line and still decrements stock. It simply adds nothing on top. Use it when your base price is the price of the whole default configuration rather than of a bare product.
When it runs out
Name the shopper choices that should be crossed out while this part cannot be sold, and they are marked unavailable as soon as your catalogue says so.
Nothing is guessed from the part's own condition, because a condition like "oak and large" does not point at any single choice. Naming nothing is safe: a shopper who picks a configuration needing a part you cannot sell is refused at Add to cart regardless. The only thing this field decides is whether they find out early or late.
Where your parts appear
- The option panel, if you add a Parts list element in the Layout tab. It shows labels and quantities. It never shows SKUs.
- The PDF documents, if you add a Parts table section. See PDF Documents. It shows labels, quantities and units, never SKUs.
- Order review in the 3D Bits app, against the version the order was actually sold under.
- A parts export, downloadable from Order review as a spreadsheet, shaped for a cutting list.
What is published, and what is not
When you publish, your configuration is uploaded to a public address that every product page downloads. The SKU is removed from that copy and is the only field that is.
Everything else on a part is published: its label, its price, its quantity and expression, its unit, its position in the assembly, and the product it links to. Anyone who views your product page source can read them.
Two things follow. Do not put cost codes or supplier names in a part's label - it is shown to shoppers and it is public either way. And do not carry the "SKUs are stripped" conclusion across to the manufacturer code field on an option, which is published in full.
The SKU still reaches you, in the parts export on the order page - it simply never reaches the shopper's browser, and it is on no order property and in no PDF.
Downloading or copying is a different path
"Removed on publish" means removed by publishing. Download scene config and Copy to clipboard give you the configuration as it stands, SKUs included, because the documented uses for those files - a backup, moving a project to another store, sending it to support - all want them.
If any part has a SKU, Composer asks before it hands you the file, and you choose. Keep them for a backup. Remove them if you are going to paste the file into a product metafield by hand through the older metafields workflow, since anything pasted onto a product is downloaded by every visitor to that page.
Download project file never asks and never strips: it exists to restore your work exactly, and a backup missing your part numbers is not a backup.
What publishing refuses
Publishing stops rather than going live with parts that could not be charged correctly. It refuses:
- a part carrying both a typed price and a linked product;
- a fractional quantity on a part you charge for;
- a negative price;
- a priced, unlinked part marked as already part of the base price, since that would quietly discard the price;
- a part that is inside itself, directly or through a chain.
Where to go next
- Pricing - the base price, formulas and the rest of the tab next door.
- Setting up pricing - the walkthrough, from nothing to a live price.
- Linked products - charging through products you already sell.
- Managing complexity - how many parts and options a project can carry, and which choices are expensive.