Need to add a custom order attribute

Question

I am trying to figure out how to implement this feature, and I am looking for ideas. This is not specifically a programming question, though. Here are the specs:

1. The project is a T Shirt store for companies. Employees from various companies can come and order T-Shirts for their company.
2. We have just 4 designs. I am planning to set these up as 4 configurable SKUs, each with two attributes - gender (man, woman) and size (S,M,L, XL etc). When you choose a T Shirt for a particular company, we just emboss the logo on the T Shirt. We also offer an option of not having the logo embossed on the T Shirt.
3. I am planning to set a category for each company, and show the 4 configurable products on each of category(company) page.

If I follow the above scenario, my order details will have the purchased products with all the correct attributes, except for the category - so I end up without knowing which company the product was ordered for.

Another worry is that if we keep adding companies, the number of categories may get unwieldy...

Any ideas on how to tackle this will be welcome! Thanks!

Answer 1

Another way to do this task, you should track product category and set additional options for its category while adding to cart, using event/observers. See my solution:

1. Every "add to cart form" or "add to cart button" you should add category param to url:
/app/design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml:

<form action="<?php echo $this->getSubmitUrl($_product,array('category'=>$_product->getCategory()->getId())) ?>"
method="post" id="product_addtocart_form"<?php if($_product->getOptions()): ?> enctype="multipart/form-data"<?php endif; ?>>

/app/design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/product/list.phtml:

<button type="button" title="<?php echo $this->__('Add to Cart') ?>" class="button btn-cart" 
onclick="setLocation('<?php echo $this->getAddToCartUrl($_product,array('category'=>$_product->getCategory()->getId())) ?>')">
    <span><span><?php echo $this->__('Add to Cart') ?></span></span>
</button>

2.Add these observers to your config.xml:

<frontend>
      <events>
            <sales_quote_add_item>
                <observers>
                    <your_module>
                        <method>salesQuoteAddItem</method>
                        <class>Your_Module_Model_Observer</class>
                    </your_module>
                </observers>
            </sales_quote_add_item>
            <sales_convert_quote_item_to_order_item>
                <observers>
                    <your_module>
                        <method>salesConvertQuoteItemToOrderItem</method>
                        <class>Your_Module_Model_Observer</class>
                    </your_module>
                </observers>
            </sales_convert_quote_item_to_order_item>
      <events>
      <!-- other nodes -->
<frontend>

3.And your Observer.php:

class Your_Module_Model_Observer
{
    public function salesQuoteAddItem($observer)
    {
        /**
         * here we save category id and name to quote item option as 'additional_options'
         * @var $item Mage_Sales_Model_Quote_Item
         */
        $item = $observer->getEvent()->getQuoteItem();
        if ($categoryId = Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('category')) {
            $name           = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($categoryId)->getName();
            $option         = $item->getOptionByCode('additional_options');
            $categoryOption = array(
                'label'                    => 'Category',
                'option_value'             => $categoryId,
                'value'                    => $name,
                'print_value'              => $name,
            );
            if ($option == null) {
                $value = array('category'=> $categoryOption);
                $value = serialize($value);
                $item->addOption(array('code'=> 'additional_options', 'product_id'=> $item->getProductId(), 'value'=> $value));
            } else {
                $additional             = unserialize($option->getValue());
                $additional['category'] = $categoryOption;
                $option->setValue(serialize($additional));
            }
        }
    }

    public function salesConvertQuoteItemToOrderItem($observer)
    {
        /**
         * here we convert previous saved category option to order item option
         * @var $quoteItem Mage_Sales_Model_Quote_Item
         */
        $orderItem    = $observer->getEvent()->getOrderItem();
        $quoteItem    = $observer->getEvent()->getItem();
        $orderOptions = $orderItem->getProductOptions();
        if ($additional = $quoteItem->getOptionByCode('additional_options')) {
            $additional = unserialize($additional->getValue());
            if (isset($orderOptions['attributes_info'])) {
                $orderOptions['attributes_info'][] = $additional['category'];
            } else {
                $orderOptions['attributes_info'] = array($additional['category']);
            }
            $orderItem->setProductOptions($orderOptions);
        }

    }  
}

Here is my final result:

Answer 2

You can use company as one configurable option. And you configurable product will be have company, gender and size options. This prevent you to add many companies as a category and attach its products. And in your order details it will be showed properly.