Product Lines

What is a product line?

A product line is a label you put on service categories, for example “Splits”, “Ducted”, or “Commercial”. Product lines apply across the whole workspace, so one “Splits” line can cover Splits categories in several business units.

You use them to control what each user can quote. Give a user the “Splits” and “Ducted” product lines and they can only add services from categories tagged with those lines.

Product lines only affect quoting. Everyone with access to the price book still sees every category there.

Where to find them

Go to Manage → Settings → Product Lines.

Creating a product line

1. Go to Manage → Settings → Product Lines.

2. Click Add Product Line.

3. Enter a name (for example “Splits”).

4. Click Save.

The list shows how many categories, services and users have each product line. From the row menu you can Edit a product line to rename it, or Delete it.

Tagging service categories

Any service category can be tagged, whether it is a top-level category or a sub-category.

1. Open a business unit’s service categories and edit a category or sub-category.

2. Pick one or more lines in Product Lines.

3. Click Save.

A sub-category also gets its parent category’s lines. They show above the field as locked chips, with Inherited from and the parent’s name. The lines you pick on the sub-category are added to the parent’s, so a sub-category carries its own lines plus its parent’s.

Tagging a service

A service can carry its own product lines too, on top of the ones it inherits from its category.

1. Open a service and click Edit.

2. Pick one or more lines in Product Lines.

3. Click Save.

The lines of the service’s category and sub-category show below the field as locked chips, with Inherited from and the category names. A service carries the lines you pick on it plus those it inherits, so a service never loses a line its category has. Changing the lines on a service needs permission to manage product lines. Without it, the field is read-only.

Giving a user quoting access

On the user’s profile, Quoting Access lists both Business units and Product lines. Each choice adds to what the user can quote:

You select	The user can quote
Nothing (Everything)	Every service, as before.
A business unit	Every category in that business unit.
A product line	Every category or sub-category tagged with that line, in any business unit. Tagging a category covers all of its sub-categories.
A mix	Everything covered by any of the selections.

If you remove every selection from a user who had limited access, the field shows No access and the user can’t quote any services. To lift the limit, click Allow everything.

When a restricted user adds services to a quote, the picker only lists the categories they can quote and shows a note saying their quoting access is limited.

A service tagged with a product line is quotable by everyone holding that line, even when its category is not tagged. The category is listed so the user can open it, but only to reach the tagged service. The other services inside it stay out of reach.

If only a sub-category is tagged, the picker still lists its parent category so the user can open it, but inside it shows only the tagged sub-category. Services filed directly on the parent stay out of reach.

Deleting a product line

Deleting a product line removes it from every category, service and user that had it. The confirmation tells you how many of each will lose it.

A user whose only access was that product line keeps their limited access, so they can’t quote anything until you give them a business unit or another product line.

Things to check

• A sub-category shows lines you did not pick. Those are its parent’s lines, shown locked as Inherited from the parent. To change them, edit the parent category.
• A service shows lines you did not pick. Those come from its category or sub-category, shown locked as Inherited from the category. To change them, edit the category.
• A product line shows 0 categories. Tag at least one category or sub-category with it from the category’s edit dialog.
• A user can’t see a category in the picker. Check that the category, its parent, or a service inside it is tagged with one of the user’s product lines, or that the user has the category’s business unit.
• You can’t change your own Quoting Access. Ask another admin to change it for you.