Alternate Products are one way to provide options within a Project, not to be confused with Optional Items. Use Alternates when you want to give your clients a choice between Products. Alternate Products are only displayed on Proposal reports and their pricing is not calculated into any totals on the report. A Product can have multiple Alternate Products.
Alternates can be added to multiple Items at a time within the Product Explorer and Labor Explorer interfaces, as well as within the Project Editor. Select the items that you wish to add alternates to and from the Tools tab click Alternates and then choose Selected or All:
This will open the Update Alternates form:
Here you can click the Add button to select an alternate item. You can also Paste any Items that you have previously copied.
There are two options when adding Alternates in bulk:
When adding Alternates in the Catalog the "parent" Products will also automatically be added as an Alternate to the selected Alternate(s).
You can also add Alternates to Products within a Project, very similar to method above. In the Project Editor there is no option to add to "All" so you first select the Product(s) that you want to Alternates to and then from the Tools menu click Update->More->Alternates:
In the Project Editor, Alternates display beneath the "selected" Product:
The default color of an Alternate row is shown above but you can change this via an Application Setting.
Under the Layouts tab you can choose whether or not to display Alternates Products in your Project Grid:
There are additional functions within the Project Editor to Promote Alternates or to Discard Alternates.
You can also add Alternates to an individual Product via the Alternates tab when the Product is open for edit:
Note: When the Add Products form opens it may be filtered by Category\Subcategory but you can click the Reset button on the ribbon to clear the filter to view your entire Product list. There is a Project Setting if you want remove this pre-filter.
The only reports that display Alternate Products are the Proposal reports. Alternates display beneath the "selected" Product with the title "Alternates". The price that displays is the difference in price between the Alternate and the "selected" Product. If the difference in price is positive, the word "Add" displays by the price difference. If the difference in price is negative, the word "Subtract" displays by the price difference.
You can change the wording and color for Alternate Products via Report Settings:
On the Reports tab you can choose not to display Alternates on your Proposals:
You can also choose not to include Alternates on a Proposal via a Parameter within the Report Definition: