Alternative products are interchangeable, very similar, or comparable products that can be substituted during a sale or during production if the original product is out of stock. 

Prerequisites

• Product and Service Management (required)
• Processing a Sale (required for sales)
• Getting Started with Production module (required for production)

Table of Contents

• Specify alternative products for a product
• Substitute an alternative product during a sale
• Substitute an alternative product during production

Specify alternative products for a product

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Alternative products, which can be substituted for the original product during a sale or during product, are specified from a product's record. Users will need the Inventory: Products & Families permission in order to access and edit the alternative products page. 

1. Navigate to Inventory → Products → [select product] and open the Alternative Products tab.
2. Click + or Add more items to add an alternative product. 
3. Select another product from your inventory from the dropdown menu. 
4. Specify if the product is Interchangeable. Interchangeable means the original product can be substituted by the alternative product AND the alternative product can be substituted by the main product. Leaving this unchecked means that the alternative product cannot be substituted by the main product. 
5. Set the Matching %. This is a user-set value which sets which alternative products will be prioritised for substitution. A higher number means the product will be prioritised when substitution is required for a sale or production order. 
6. Set if the alternative product can be Used in Production and the Quantityof alternative product that is required to represent the original product.
   • NOTE: If Used in Production is checked, the alternative product will be selected without user confirmation when a production order is automatically released. Manually released production orders will ask for user confirmation before proceeding. 
7. Save your changes. 

Substitute an alternative product during a sale

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When a sale order is created for a product which is currently out of stock, the user can suggest alternative products to the customer. Hovering over the product name in the sale order will display a tooltip where the user can click Select Alternative Products. 

NOTE: Alternative Products must be enabled in Setting → General Settings → Tooltip Settings in order to see this link. 

This will open a window to display alternative products. The alternative products in the grid are sorted based on the Matching % specified for alternative products, showing the alternative product's name, location, price, and stock availability. Click Pick to substitute the product in the sale order. If the window is closed without selecting an alternative product, the sale order is not changed.

Substitute an alternative product during production

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Alternative products are substituted for out of stock (unavailable in shopfloor location and warehouse connected via logistics path) products upon production order Release. See Getting Started with the Advanced Manufacturing module for more information about production orders, logistic paths, and shopfloor locations (Requires Advanced Manufacturing module subscription). 

The alternative product with the highest available Matching % where Use in Production has been checked will be selected. If there are more than one alternative products available with the same matching percentage, the first SKU alphabetically will be selected. 

NOTE: If Used in Production is checked, the alternative product will be selected without user confirmation when a production order is automatically released. Manually released production orders will ask for user confirmation before proceeding.