Magento2: Missing "Apply To" when editing Product attributes

[pjw345]

Preconditions (*)

1. Magento 2.3 (fresh install)
2. PHP 7.2.14

Steps to reproduce (*)

1. Store -> Attributes -> Product
2. Add New/Edit attributes

Expected result (*)

1. Expect to see a field "Apply To", i.e. All Product Types, Selected Product Types

Actual result (*)

1. The field is not shown, unable to apply an attribute to a specific product type, i.e. only to Simple

[magento-engcom-team]

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@pjw345 do you confirm that you was able to reproduce the issue on vanilla Magento instance following steps to reproduce?

• [ ] yes
• [ ] no

[magento-engcom-team]

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[shikhamis11]

this issue can be in feature request but I believe this must be there as it is quite good functionality which is missing in magento 2.

[magento-engcom-team]

:white_check_mark: Confirmed by @shikhamis11
Thank you for verifying the issue. Based on the provided information internal tickets MAGETWO-98127, MAGETWO-98128 were created

Issue Available: @shikhamis11, _You will be automatically unassigned. Contributors/Maintainers can claim this issue to continue. To reclaim and continue work, reassign the ticket to yourself._

[magento-engcom-team]

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[magento-engcom-team]

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[sagarwebkul]

I am working on this at #dmcdindia1

[magento-engcom-team]

@sagarwebkul thank you for joining. Please accept team invitation here and self-assign the issue.

[hewgim]

Is there any news on this? It seems like this functionality is extremely important. There are loads of attributes that would apply to say simple products but not configurable products like EAN numbers etc. Are we instead meant to put configurable products and simple products in different attribute sets ?

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[orlangur]

@shikhamis11 it is not "missing" in Magento 2, this field was intentionally removed. It simplifies merchant UX who does not have to keep in mind product types anymore and make it possible seamless automatic product type transition simple <-> virtual <-> configurable.

Please double check with Product Owners that we ReALLY need to revert this improvement.

@pjw345,

unable to apply an attribute to a specific product type, i.e. only to Simple

There must be no attribute applicable to simple product type only, any attribute applicable to simple product type must be applicable at least to virtual and configurable.

[hewgim]

@orlangur,

I'm not sure it "simplifies" product creation at all. I don't see why attributes for simple products should always apply to configurable products. It means that you can't make certain important attributes mandatory like EANs, UPCs, size and color type attributes etc because these values would then also have to be set on the configurable parent product. You would then have to set arbitrary meaningless values for these attributes on the parent product in order to save it. I think that leads to a whole lot of confusion. I've just put a Magento 2 website live and its pretty difficult to explain to the client why a configurable product has size and color attributes.

I currently maintain around 10 active Magento 1 sites, and most of them have attributes which should only be mandatory for simple products.

I also have a couple of sites where certain Amazon attributes are applied to the parent only, so that the data only has to be entered once. When the simple products are fed to Amazon they all inherit attributes like "Wash and Care" instructions from the parent. These are made mandatory attributes because Amazon requires them. If they had to be filled in for each simple product as well as the parent, that's a lot more work and also the chance that the attributes on the simple products are not kept in sync if an update is made.

Anyway that's my 5 cents worth.

Regards Mark

[bigheadsmith]

@hewgim I totally agree. I've just migrated and I have hundreds of grouped products that I can't save when editing unless I input some random info for attributes that don't apply to those product types

[bigheadsmith]

So glad I waited until lockdown to start on migration. At least this way I get to drink whilst working out what features have been fudged out since Magento 1

[plumthegreat]

@orlangur,@hewgim

I am a Magento 2 Merchant and this creates anything but a simple merchant UX. A configurable product is NOT a simple product. A simple product is a physical product with attributes that are not relevant to a configurable product eg. Size, Colour, Amazon Size Map, Amazon Colour Map, Google Colour Map, Weight, Price, Special Price, EAN Number, UPC Number, etc etc etc. As a merchant it is completely wrong and confusing to allow seamless transition between configurable and simple products. To make matters worse in Magento 2 when you explicitly add a configurable product and save it before adding any size / colour configurations it turns into a simple product ! It is then impossible to add configurations manually and Magento 2 also wants me to add a size and a colour to what should be a configurable product. The whole workflow is a mess. Please go back to Magento 1 way of setting up configurable products which was much easier for a Merchant to understand.

[orlangur]

@hewgim sorry for delay, I've reached @kandy and Product Owner with which we originally developed "streamline Production Creation Flow" in a day after your comment. We agreed that scenario like you described was missed, so, we need to return Apply To field back to UI.

Just to give some background, the intention with product type transition was to eliminate the borders between product types at all (for instance, cover bundle products as well) in order to simplify workflow for inexperienced merchants but it is maybe an _oversimplification_ ;/

It is then impossible to add configurations manually and Magento 2 also wants me to add a size and a colour to what should be a configurable product

@plumthegreat it was possible at least at the time we developed this feature, I will check.