Change product parent (and therefore hierarchy)

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On a created product, the hierarchy field is locked. Moving a product into revise doesn't unlock the field either. How do you update the parent of a product? We have around 400 products (out of approx. 1600) that we need to update.

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ScottDurow 21 on at

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Hi,

Unfortunately, you cannot re-parent a product because this affects the product properties.

You will need to retire your existing properties and create new ones under the different parent.

Hope this answers your question.

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Community Member on at

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In the most spectacularly disappointing way this does answer my question (disappointment in Dynamics, not you!!!!).

Personally, I think this is a massive oversight in the development of Dynamics because the implications are pretty significant. Product re-categorisations happen, it is not something weird or strange. To have to essentially delete and re-add the product is a very poor way forward.

In our situation for example, and I wouldn't have thought we are unique, each product has 3 prices - GBP, USD & EUR. So for each product, we will have the retire the old one, create a brand new one and then add three new price list items. Like I mentioned in my original post, we have 400 products... 400x3 = 1200 new records will need to be created just because we need to move those products into a new category.

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ScottDurow 21 on at

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Hi!

I agree that this is a pain, but I also see the technical reason why the product team chose to create this restriction.

Imagine you have 5 product properties that are inherited from the parent family - if you change the parent, what do you do with these product properties on orders that include this product already - the properties would essentially be orphaned and could cause data integrity issues.

So it does seem to make things simpler to enforce having to create a new product if you want to fundamentally change the product properties. The product family is mainly for the product properties rather than anything else - so you could always categories your products with another custom attribute.

That said - I FEEL YOUR PAIN since I've had a similar situation myself and had wished it was easier!

Thanks - if you could mark this question as answered that would be great (even though it's not the answer you wanted!!)

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Community Member on at

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Would be great if we could move into a parent if a product has never been set one before.

Surely that wouldn't cause much of an issue with properties from parent, as there would be none to handle :)

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Saqib 40 on at

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I have just changed the product hierarchy by using Business Rules: Below are the steps:

1. I have use the Description field of the product which was vacant. I have typed in the parent name in the description field.

2. In business rules under product entity, I have defined the if description field is "so and so" set parent to "this". Below is the screenshot of business flows.

3. It worked like a charm for me.

Cheers,

Saqib

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Manish V Khemka 40 on at

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I have been playing with this and the thing that bemuses me the most is why cannot they copy the product setup from Dynamics Nav / Business Central which is far more matured and flexible. I have spent now 2 weeks in trying to move my team from creating quote in D365 for sales from Dynamics Nav. But D365 despite the massive marketing push lacks some very basic feature which is already there in Dynamics Nav.

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Vijayakumar Kenchug... 1,077 on at

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Saqib,

Not right solution as it just populates the data but not saves the record with family hierarchy.

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Saqib 40 on at

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Hi Vijay,

I am hoping that you have administrator access to perform that

Regards,

Saqib

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JohnDion 15 on at

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Does this work for updating a product too? Creating a product isn't an issue, but changing one seems not possible. Can you use this business rule to then change the parent if the desc field changes?

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Costeri 15 on at

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I fully agree. Extremely painfull. I wonder if this was developed in the lab. Certainly not with sensible business users

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