Introduction to Variations

What are Variations?

A Variation is a way of tracking small differences of a product, such as size or color. Variations are created from combinations of Variation Attributes and can be either manually created or imported automatically from a connected sales channel. Variations can optionally be linked to Manufactures and Order Line Items. In this way, you can track exactly how many you made and sold of each Variation.

To begin this tutorial, we'll assume that we already have a product created called "Soap Bar" and this recipe already has a configured recipe. We are now ready to create some variations for this product, so we'll start over on the Variations page for the product. You can get to this page by clicking on the Variations tab on the product's detail page.

Once on the Variations page for the product, you should see a help section explaining a little about how variations work. You'll find the Add Variation button in this area and also in the top right hand corner of the page. Clicking this button will take you to the Add Variation form.

The Add Variation Form

This form allows you to configure a new unique combination of attributes and set a default sales price for the variation. As we haven't yet created any attributes, under the Attributes area we should see a link called + Add Attribute. Click this link and a dialog box will appear.

Clicking the Save button then returns me to the Add Variation form. So, we are now going to create the first variation for the attributes we have created. We'll choose the Lavender attribute and enter 7.50 as the default sales price. Click the Save button and you'll then be returned to the Variations page we were on at the start of the tutorial. This time, the list should now be showing the newly added Lavender variation.

From here, we are going to create the recipe for this variation - this is the exact material list that you use to create this variation.

To add the recipe, click on the variation's name Fragrance: Lavender and then on the detail page that appears, click on the Create Recipe button. You'll notice that the recipe for the product appears here by default, so you won't need to re-add materials that are common between variations. As we are making our Lavender variation, we are going to add two new materials: "Lavender Oil" and "Ultramarine Violet Colour" to the recipe.

Save the Recipe, and you'll be taken to your variation detail page. You'll see that the variation detail page is much like the product detail page - it contains the same tabs to allow you to see your sales, manufactures and make adjustments. You can also see the variation's batch recipe and calculated manufacture costs, along with the pricing guidance for your variation.

This variation can now be assigned to order line items - you'll notice next time you add a new order for the product that the variations section will now display dropdown selection lists for each of the attributes that you have created.

Manufactures can now also be created for the specific variation. The variation will display its specific recipe if one exists.

Inventory adjustments can also be added at the variation level in the same way as orders and manufactures.

You can also allow Craftybase to create new variations automatically for any variations that don't yet exist: for both the manufacture and order form, selecting a combination of attributes that are not configured as a variation will automatically create a new variation for you - this can be a more time efficient way of creating your variations as you'll be creating them as you make or sell them rather than all in one go. One disadvantage of this approach is that you won't be able to configure a recipe at the same time, so you'll still need to add this manually at a later stage.

Have some questions?

If you have any additional questions, please get in touch and we'll be happy to give you a hand. Alternatively, feel free to join and post your question in our official Craftybase Facebook group.