Publisher Product Migration

Rules for product migration

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If a product changes in such a way, that old project designs would be affected (hard change), then it has to be converted into a new product with a unique new product ID, and the old one must be deactivated after a transition time (active=0 sets it invisible). A soft change can be an increase in product price, a hard change can be a modified chunk attribute.

•	If a feature or option is no longer available, and a user wants to reorder an old product with this feature, then he has to select one of the remaining features or options in the shopping cart.

•	Remember that users may have spent weeks or months designing a product. Always plan product migrations or discontinuations some time in advance, so that users have a chance to upload and order their work.

Product availability matrix

Product no longer inside Products.xml	Product is obsolete; does not appear in product wizard or shop Product cannot be uploaded or ordered anymore Old project can be opened in the Editor to extract text and images
Attribute active=0	Product is obsolete; does not appear in product wizard or shop Product cannot be uploaded or ordered anymore Old project can be opened in the Editor to extract text and images If user opens old project, InactiveMsg appears
VisibleToDate is filled and expired	Product is expired; does not appear in product wizard or shop Project can still be uploaded and ordered
OrderByDate is filled and expired	Product is expired; does not appear in product wizard or shop Product cannot be uploaded or ordered anymore Old project can be opened in the Editor to extract text and images 3 days before expiration, the user gets a warning message when opening a corresponding project file

•	An expired OrderByDate is equal to active=0, except for the different messages.

•	Read here how products are handled in the 3P OpenCart & BackOffice.