Save a configuration and pass it on
In business-to-business the person configuring rarely decides. How a half-finished configuration travels through approval.
In business-to-business, the person who configures is rarely the person who decides. Someone puts it together, someone else approves it, and days pass in between. A cart that expires on sign-out is the wrong tool for that.
So a combination can be saved. It gets an address of its own that can be passed on - and that rebuilds the configurator later exactly as it was.
How it runs
- The buyer puts together as much as they can and saves it.
- They receive a link to precisely this configuration and pass it on.
- The approver opens the link. The configurator is back, with every choice and quantity.
- The order is placed from the same view - or a quote request goes out if the set needs discussing first.
The link leads to exactly this state. Carry on clicking to change it.
When it has to be discussed first
Some combinations do not belong straight at the till. Large quantities, project pricing, special colours. For those, a configurator’s product page can carry a Question about the product link. It leads to a contact form - and the current configuration is written into its comment field automatically.
The form is an ordinary Shopware form on a landing page you create yourself. What the comment text looks like is up to a Twig template. Worth knowing: the link sits next to the cart, it does not replace it, and it is switched per sales channel - not per configurator.
Saved configurations clean themselves up
Every saved combination is a record that would otherwise stay forever. A scheduled task deletes them after a configurable number of days - the default is 365. That is at the same time the answer to how long a shared link stays valid.
What arrives in the order
For downstream processing, what counts is what ends up in the order. Several switches handle this: the duplicated parent product can be removed, the components can be stored as products of their own, and the parent-child relation can be dissolved. An ERP then sees either one set or individual products - whichever it can cope with.
On top of that the whole configuration can be written into the customer comment of the order using a text pattern. That is often the fastest route into a system that knows nothing about bills of materials.