Deactivated products in "Add products to deal" view

Mike B.

Hello,

The current implementation of deactivated products in “Add products to deal” view is not suitable for our setup.

We are using SmartDocs, and if the user deactivates a product from a product list in “Add products to deal” view, what currently happens is that the product still gets displayed in the product table (e.g. in a quotation), only that amount per line is 0,00EUR.

This is counterintuitive in our opinion, since the customer doesn’t really understand what it means (see example no. 1. below).

This is even more of an issue in our current setup, since we don’t show our customers the “per line” unit prices for a specific deal, but only the total price (see example no. 2 below). So what actually happens is that we’re basically offering the deactivated product too, whereas its value doesn’t sum up in the total value. If one makes that mistake, we are giving that product away for free.

I would expect the following behaviour: if the user deactivates a product in the “Add products to deal” view, it doesn’t get displayed in SmartDocs at all. Can this bee a possible feature (if not generally, then maybe based on some config option)?

Thanks.

Mike B.

I wonder if someone managed to look into this. I am sure the product team agrees too that Product A being displayed in the tables from the examples above is misleading.

Just to emphasise it: 140x5=0,00 is not quite correct.

Tony Xavier

Hello @Mike B.,

Indeed this is a valuable feedback and to provide some context, this was an intentional choice for our clients who wanted to use the deactivated products as a workaround to represent recurring products (eg annual subscriptions) or to inform customers about products that were offered but declined.

Rest assured, your feedback has been conveyed to our product team for further consideration. In the interim, we recommend as a workaround removing or deleting the product from the deal instead of simply deactivating it.

Mike B.

Thanks for the answer @Tony Xavier .

I understand the setup described for those specific clients. I find though that the current implementation in SmartDocs is misleading. I also understand if a strikeout of the entire line with deactivated products might not be possible because of the Google Docs API implementation, hence my proposal not to have that line displayed at all.

Thanks for the workaround too. Of course, that is how we are proceeding currently: removing a product from the deal when not needed. However, if the implementation would be as suggested (i.e. deactivated product not displayed in SmartDocs), there would be an additional scenario nicely covered:

For the same opportunity (i.e. the same deal) a deal owner is sending out several quotations (either multiple quotations - updates, alteranatives - to the same customer, or quotations to different customers bidding for the same project). In case there are small changes in the structure of these quotations (certain products don't appear in each quotation), instead of constantly removing and readding them, one just deactivates/reactivates them.