WooCommerce Product Bundles v5 Beta

Exciting times ahead for all Product Bundles users out there: A major new release is on the horizon, bringing many requested features and under-the-hood improvements.

What’s New

The new version introduces a new data structure for bundled items, along with a modern database API for querying bundled items and retrieving, modifying and destroying bundled item data. The new structure is designed to allow lightning-fast data queries that were previously impossible, such as getting all bundles that a product belongs to. Here’s a list of the most important changes to arrive with v5:

• New database structure for storing and retrieving bundled item data based on custom tables for: i) bundled items and ii) bundled item meta. The new database structure is complemented by a new bundled item data class that handles all CRUD operations and a new API for querying bundled items and retrieving, modifying and destroying bundled item data.
• New “Priced Individually” and “Shipped Individually” options, configurable at bundled item level. The new settings replace the current “Per-Item Pricing” and “Per-Item Shipping” options for ultimate pricing and shipping flexibility in any application.
• Bundle-specific fields in REST API order/product responses (GET only).
• New “Insufficient stock” reporting section to keep track of bundled products with insufficient stock and detailed bundle availability data in the admin area. Bundles that contain out-of-stock items will now appear with an “Insufficient stock” status, followed by a list of all bundled out-of-stock products (example).
• Bundles are now editable from the cart by enabling the “Allow editing in cart” option under the “Advanced” edit-product panel tab.
• Support for downloadable content at bundle level, by checking the “Downloadable” option found in WC core product types.
• Support for fetching bundled variable product variations data via AJAX.
• Extended “Sold Individually” options, to prevent multiple bundles from being bought in a single order: i) unconditionally, or ii) conditionally when their configuration is identical.
• New “Layout” option to give a tabular look to the single-product template. Integrates functionality previously available in the free “Tabular Layout” mini-extension.
• New functions to allow validating and adding bundle configurations to the cart/orders programmatically, and new cart/order functions for establishing bundle parent/child item relationships.
• Support for the WordPress Import/Export Tools and the WooCommerce CSV Import/Export Suite.

What’s Next

With v5 scheduled for a Q4 release, it’s now time for testing and bug squashing. If you:

• are a WC developer and use Product Bundles in demanding projects, or
• run a large store that is critically dependent on it,

and would like to be involved in testing, drop us a line – we’d love to hear your feedback. The catch – make sure you have a valid PB licence on woocommerce.com.