Webapp (requires payment) creating multiple/duplicate products

Question

Each time someone submits a new Webapp that requires payment, a new Ecommerce product is created.  Is there a way to have the Webapp use the same product?  I also have an online shop, and it's making the product management overwhelming.

Answer 1

I have tested all sorts workarounds for this problem. My situation was that we had a single payment webform set up and we were using this same form to accept payment for multiple events (the web form HTML code was inserted into the event detail and used to submit the event booking).
Here's what was happening:
A product was automatically created by Business Catalyst. Product code is the WebFormID of the webform used to submit the order. Product name is a concatenation of {web form name}/{event name}
An order was created in the CRM referencing the new product.
BC will create a new product when an order is placed unless the combination of Product Code + Product Name already exists. This is patently stupid since the Product Code is the primary key here. In fact, BC even warns you that this is bad as soon as you view the product page in admin.
I searched everywhere I could think of to find a way to tell the web form which product to use when creating the order. No joy. There does not seem to be a way to override the automatic creation algorithm. I posted a question about this in the forum here and never got a response.
As Shannon points out, these ARE real products as far as the database, OneSaas etc are concerned. We use OneSaas to synchronise to Saasu and this synchronisation process repeatedly failed due to missing product codes in Saasu (which is the product master by the way).
So, the only solution I could find was to duplicate our payment WebForm so that there is a unique and distinct form for every event our customers could purchase. I then modified each event so that it used the corresponding WebFormID of it's dedicated WebForm in the action URL query parameters. I didn't need to modify anything else in the event (since every webform is exactly the same - the HTML is identical. Hooray for code re-use ... NOT!).
In Saasu, I then create an Item to represent each event booking using the WebFormID as the Item code. There's no need to run around and create the products on BC. It will create diabolical looking product names using the WebFormID and if you create these manually you NEED to make sure that the name you enter is EXACTLY as BC will create it ... or you'll get a duplicate product ... again.
OneSaas now works correctly as we have it set up to pull in products from Saasu. It can pick up the new orders and relate these to Saasu products/items and then sync the invoices to Saasu.
Problems With This Approach
Your WebForm code is duplicated across multiple events. If you want to, say, change the payment methods that you accept you'll need to change each and every webform as well as modify the HTML code in the event.
You get a unique product for every event that you offer. This may not be what you want (my client didn't). At least it will synchronise.
You MUST remember to create products in Saasu any time you offer a new event. At least you can use a sensible Item name in Saaus (rather than the auto-created BC garbage) as matching is only done on the code.
If you have an external process that extracts Items from Saasu so that you can create matching products in BC you'll need to be careful not to overwrite the product names for your webform related products. Or you'll get a duplicate product created on the next order.
If anyone has a better approach I'd be happy to hear it.