Essentials
When first setting up your store to use the cut list plugin, a few things will make the experience a lot easier.
- Install the WooCommerce plugin
- Start with the Storefront theme, which is an official theme developed by WooCommerce.
- Start with as few plugins as you can get away with.
- Do not use page builder tools until you’ve tested them with the plugin.
- Do not use caching plugins which mangle / change the load order of our javascript.
- Ensure the plugin is set to automatically update.
Any issues you will face are almost always due to the points above. See troubleshooting for help.
Installing the plugin
To install SmartCut, first head to the GitHub repository.
Download smartcut.zip from the assets, then ‘Add New Plugin’ > ‘Upload Plugin’ in WordPress
Using on a local server
If you’re testing your installation on a local server, please use localhost as the hostname – this will allow domain validation on a local machine to take place, otherwise you will receive a server connection issue message.
Product category
To identify product which are cut-to-size, a special product category is required. This is the first thing you should do.
- Setup a product category to identify cut-to-size products [Woo – Managing product categories].
- Set this category in Settings > SmartCut > Shop options.
- Add this category to every relevant product.
Setup a cut-to-size category before anything else
Global & product settings
Within the main admin page, if you open Settings > SmartCut, these are global settings applied to each product. If you’d like to override these options you can do so in the SmartCut settings available in each product admin page. Not all global settings can be set at the product level. Using global settings can reduce your admin time when you need to make changes so think carefully before using a product level setting.
Product settings override Global settings
Pricing
Pricing for products is managed by WooCommerce and set at the product level. This is the same for edge banding. There are additional pricing settings managed by SmartCut including surcharges, price per part, and others depending on your pricing strategy. These are set in Settings > SmartCut > Pricing settings and some can be overridden in the product.
Pricing strategies
SmartCut supports a number of pricing strategies to suit your business, please select one that’s most suitable for you. These include the following:
- Full sheet
- Part area
- Cut length
- Full sheet plus cut length
- Full sheet plus number of parts
Various other options are available for various surcharges – please view the settings page to see them all.
Product structure
Product structure is one of the most important decisions to make for your store and this depends on your product hierarchy and pricing strategy. The top level choice is made when a user clicks on a product within a product list (for example the landing page of your shop). The second level choices are made within the product. Here are some examples:
| Top level | Product |
| MDF | Color, thickness, size (if selling full sheets as an option) |
| 18mm MDF | Color, size |
| 18mm MDF Oak finish | Size |
| 2440×1220 MDF 18mm MDF Oak finish | No product options |
As you can see – there are various ways to get the user to the choice of material type, size, thickness and color. SmartCut supports all these options and it’s up to you how to do things. WooCommerce handles any other choices which are not relevant for the cut-to-size logic.
Variable products are used to allow product level choices. The fourth option above can be achieved with a Simple product. Please consult the WooCommerce documentation to read more about these product types. There are templates which are suitable for all these approaches.
Product templates
You can generate a number of example templates by clicking on Tools > SmartCut Templates from the main admin page – they will all be private so users cannot see them. It’s likely one of these templates will suit your product hierarchy and pricing strategies, and they can be copied and changed to suit.
If you would like us to setup a template for your product hierarchy and pricing structure, please get in touch.
Product attributes
The WooCommerce product attributes are used to configure your simple or variable product. Any dimensions should be in millimeters or inches.
Simple products with fixed stock size
Use length and width attributes to set your stock size
Variable products with multiple thicknesses
Use thickness attribute to set the thickness options. Separate with a pipe symbol e.g. 8 | 12 | 16. Do not add units.
Variable products with multiple sizes
Use the size attribute with the format 2440×1220. To add multiple size options separate with a pipe symbol e.g. 2440×1220 | 1000×1000. Ensure you do not also use length and width. Do not add units.
Variable products with multiple sizes with the option to purchase full sized stock
Add a ‘Cut-to-size’ option. For example, 2440×1220 | 1000×1000 | Cut-to-size.
Adding a text value indicates that full size stock are available to purchase, plus the option to cut to size.
Do not add units to dimensions or sizes
Other options
If you offer other options, which are unrelated to cut-to-size, you can add these using a variable product as you see fit. For example you can add color or finish options. Please consult the WooCommerce documentation to learn more .
Edge banding
Banding pricing and options are managed using standard WooCommerce products, which can then be associated with your cut-to-size product. You may choose to hide these products from the user so they don’t show up in the store independently. All banding must be priced per meter or per foot.
You might choose to hide your banding products from the user, you can do this by setting them to Private.
Banding names must only contain number, letters underscores, hyphens & brackets, no other special characters
Banding is priced per meter or foot
Simple banding product
Use simple banding product if you would like to present a single list of banding choices to the user. You will need to setup a product for each banding option – this could include thickness and colour. Pricing is controlled in this product. Add each product ‘slug’ to the global / local setting as appropriate. The slug will be will be used to identify the banding in order, PDF and CSV so make sure it’s something you’ll recognise and describes the banding choice fully.
Variable banding product
Variable banding products were introduced in version 3.1. Choose this type of product to represent your banding options if you would like to break up the choices. For example if you have multiple color and thickness options, you may wish to allow the user to choose these separately. Read more about how to use Variable products. Add your banding choices as attributes (for example ‘color’ and ‘thickness’), generate variations and add prices accordingly. Then add each product ‘slug’ to the global / local setting as appropriate.
Important – if you are using variable banding products, adding multiple slugs to the banding options will trigger an error. Only use variable banding product at once.
Import parts
Parts can be imported via the product page when the Settings > Cut list configuration > Enable CSV import is checked.
The import process requires a CSV template to be completed by the user. An example template can be found here. You will need to save this file to your site and let the user download it.
The CSV template can be opened and edited using Excel or another spreadsheet program, but it must be exported in the CSV format.
Column headers include length, width, quantity, rotation and name. Columns can be removed if not required. Rotation should be ‘l’ for length and ‘w’ for width.
Important – units used in the import must match your store-wide units set in Settings > Cut list configuration
Translation
Translation is done in two stages:
1. The cut list widget
The cut list widget is embedded in your store and requires a list of words to be manually translated via a Google doc. Please ask us for the work list and we’ll send it over.
2. Other store text
Other store text is translated using any WooCommerce compatible translation plugin. We officially support Loco Translate which will automatically identify the words which require translation.Ï
Troubleshooting
The cut list interface is not showing or not working
There are a few possible reasons for this, please check the following.
- ✅ The SmartCut plugin has been installed and activated.
- ✅ You have added the correct domain (paying careful attention to the www part) to your SmartCut account https://smartcut.dev/account and waited 24 hours for activation. You can contact us to update this faster.
- ✅ A cut-to-size product category has been created, added to Settings > SmartCut and applied to the product.
- ✅ A price has been applied to the product (simple product) or product variations (variable product).
- ✅ The product has been marked as in stock, or if you’re managing inventory there are at least one product available.
- ✅ You are using a supported theme – swap to Strorefront if not.
- ✅ If you have 1001 plugins, one of these may be causing trouble – disable as many as you can to find the culprit.
- ✅ If you have a caching ensure it is not messing with the javascript load order or mangling the code.
- ✅ You have cleared your browser cache to rule out any conflicts with previous versions.
If you have investigated all of the above and still having trouble, please get in touch. We will ask for an example page demonstrating the issue, and potentially admin access to your site. In depth support cannot be provided without an active subscription and confirmation you have run through the steps above.
I’m getting the message ‘We are having trouble connecting to the server’
If you’re using a local server, please ensure the hostname is ‘localhost’. This will allow you to run on a local machine.
If you’re using a live URL, then please ensure you have added the correct domain to your SmartCut account, and waited 24 hours for activation. You can contact us to update this faster.
A version update is causing problems
If you would like to downgrade to a previous version you can do so from our GitHub repository:
Select the version, download the smartcut.zip file, then upload this file via the WordPress Plugins menu.
Need help?
The SmartCut plugin is designed to be a self serve tool. We will endeavour to provide the support you need to get up and running using the product templates as examples.
If you require custom development or would like help setting up the specific products on your site this service is available at our standard hourly rate. Please get in touch for more information.