Removing options

[estuffs]

Is there a systematic way to remove options? I have a 1000+ colors that I want to change from a DropDown to DropImage for a better customer experience. From talking to support, you would have to manually remove this, no way I'm going to manually remove this.

Import files cannot delete options. Any ideas?

[ScribeTime]

Yes, I would think you could export the Product Options file, open it up in a program like Excel, change the appropriate column (I believe "featuretype") from Dropdown to Dropimage, and then re-import this file.

You would also need to add a column or info for the URL for the dropimages.
If you have several products that you need to do this for, you could make changes to one product (within the Admin panel), export the product options file, find the one product that you made changes for and then copy those changes for the other applicable products.

[Mark]

we have been wanting that feature for a couple of years. Apparently you cannot remove options that were configured before. It is frustrating because when you view your product inventory, all those option remnants are there and cannot be deleted. Also, if you choose to remove options, be sure to remove "each" option indiviually, before deleting the parent option type. In other words, if you have an option such as "color" you must remove each color first, before deleting the color option. If you delete the color option before deleting all of the individual colors, those colors will remain as "orphaned" options and will remain in your product database forever. And finally, these options add to your database size, so, you cannot reduce your database size if you are near the total database size limits. :(
So don't delete an option type unless you have deleted all of the individual options choices first!

[rrw]

Revisiting this issue--I have 917 products that I need to remove color options (not all, just a few) from, and I'm going to have to do each product individually! There has to be a better way!

[Mark]

Nope, each one manually.
Unless they have fixed this issue.
But, I have had issues for over five years with this....
I have orphaned options in my database from several years ago, and, have just learned to live with it.

[Shopguy]

Do you know if the same thing applies to deleting products without deleting the options first?

I've noticed that my database usage is up around 50% and my store is only a couple months old with less than 50 products. A few of the products have 10+ options and each option has over 100 choices. It took me a several tries to come up with a configuration that worked sometimes I deleted the whole product sometimes the option but never each choice one at a time.

I'm guessing that's why my database usage seems so high. I take it from what you've said there is no fix for this? That seems very sloppy from a DB perspective. Looks like I'll be stuck with a messy database forever.

[Mark]

Do you know if the same thing applies to deleting products without deleting the options first?

Yes it does, or at least it used to. If you delete a product that had options when deleted, the options will remain. Again, I have not tried it recently, but, this was the case in the somewhat recent past.

Perhaps there is a way with exporting/importing manipulation, but, I find that more difficult than it should be. If you could just click a checkbox and delete them, that would be nice.

[Shopguy]

Do you know if there is anyway to check from our end of things for these orphaned options?

Thanks for the insight. I make sure to read every new post on here for this very reason.

[ElegantWeddings]

Do you know if there is anyway to check from our end of things for these orphaned options?

Thanks for the insight. I make sure to read every new post on here for this very reason.

Do an export of your options via Store Manager.
You will see these "orphaned" options without a productid. (i.e. empty cell in excel)

To delete these orphaned options, you can import those once with the minus sign (-) in front of optionid

[Mark]

Will this work for advanced options?
Do you remove the advanced options first, then the regular options?

[ElegantWeddings]

Will this work for advanced options?
Do you remove the advanced options first, then the regular options?

I haven't tried it with Advanced options, but it should work the same.

Do a small file import for the advance options to see if orphaned options can be deleted with the "-".

[Mark]

Thanks for trying to help, but, when you export the product options, only the current options export, not the orphaned options described above.
So, for us, the options are permanently in the product inventory database!
We learned to just live with it....

[ElegantWeddings]

Thanks for trying to help, but, when you export the product options, only the current options export, not the orphaned options described above.
So, for us, the options are permanently in the product inventory database!
We learned to just live with it....

I know we have done this before with regular options. For advance options, did you checked the box for Generate for all options?

[Mark]

Yes, unfortunately, when you click on a product inventory, the old options are still there. We have just learned to live with it. It may work to remove product options that are currently configured, but, if you have made the mistake of deleting a product without removing the options first, they're there to stay.
Makes managing product inventory much more difficult.

[jimmy3dcart]

Yes, unfortunately, when you click on a product inventory, the old options are still there. We have just learned to live with it. It may work to remove product options that are currently configured, but, if you have made the mistake of deleting a product without removing the options first, they're there to stay.
Makes managing product inventory much more difficult.

Mark,

Are these options associated to products that you just deleted? There is a maintenance task that deletes all orphan advanced options for products that no longer exists.

If you didn't delete the product and this is still in the admin panel, then you might simply need to edit the product and click on the Advanced Options button, it'll automatically reset these and delete any unused ones.

Jimmy