Configurable options a bugbear in WHMCS

[meeven]

I find Configurable product options to be limited, confusing and a real pain in WHMCS both for admins and end users. Consider the following:

 

• If you set the base cost set in the product pricing screen and add a 'quantity' field config option, the order screen displays the quantity field with the multiplication mark next to it. If you click on 'Update Cart', the resulting price shown doesn't multiply the base cost by the number of accounts but just shows the cost per user. For example, if I have set monthly pricing for one email account to $1 and I add a 'quantity' field config option for customers to specify 10 email accounts as their requirement, the resulting cost displayed in the cart is $1, not 10.
  
• This told me that I had to probably set the pricing for each billing term in the config option screen as well. So, I added another config option called 'Cost per user per month' and set the price once again for each billing term. The cart now calculated the cost for 10 users, but added the base cost so that it now showed $11 for 10 email accounts instead of $10. It's very counter intuitive to tell users that if they want 10 users, they have to actually enter 9!
  
• To solve this problem, I removed the pricing from the product config screen and specified it only in the config option screen. Finally, the cart correctly calculated the price as $10 for 10 users. However, on the product listing page for the product group, this is how the product costs were displayed:
  
  • $0.00 monthly
    
  • $0.00 quarterly
    
  • $0.00 semi-annually
    
  • $0.00 annually
    

  [*]When you add a quantity field as a configurable option, it shows minimum and max. quantity required fields. The max quantity field is supposed to be left blank for no limit. However, this never works and the cart will always throw an error. Finally, WHMCS support advised me to set it to 99999.

As you can see, this is enough to confuse the heck out of both admin and users.

 

I have been grappling with this for over a week now. Could someone shed some light on how to solve the problems I have listed above? My requirements are:

 

• The pricing details (as per billing terms) should be displayed correctly on the product grouping page in the cart instead of the silly $0.00 monthly etc.
  
• The cart shouldn't add the base cost (effectively adding another user) when customers enter a quantity and leave them scratching their heads about why it costs more than the number of users they are buying for. Making them click the edit configuration link to correct this is not the solution when they are in the buying process.
  

Any help would be greatly appreciated. The lack of finesse in configurable options is the reason I stopped using WHMCS for nearly two years. It would be sad if I couldn't get this working again even now.

Edited September 24, 2010 by meeven
addition

[WHMCS John]

You can customise the /templates/orderforms/*your active template*/products.tpl so that the output from the pricing tab isn't displayed but something manual instead, something like:

 

{if $product.name eq "Product1"}
<div class="cartpricing">
$1 per slot
<div>
{else}
<div class="cartpricing">
{if $product.paytype eq "free"}
{$LANG.orderfree}
{elseif $product.paytype eq "onetime"}
{$product.pricing.onetime} {$LANG.orderpaymenttermonetime}
{elseif $product.paytype eq "recurring"}
{if $product.pricing.monthly}{$product.pricing.monthly}<br />{/if}
{if $product.pricing.quarterly}{$product.pricing.quarterly}<br />{/if}
{if $product.pricing.semiannually}{$product.pricing.semiannually}<br />{/if}
{if $product.pricing.annually}{$product.pricing.annually}<br />{/if}
{if $product.pricing.biennially}{$product.pricing.biennially}<br />{/if}
{if $product.pricing.triennially}{$product.pricing.triennially}<br />{/if}
{/if}
</div>
{/if}