dynamic quantity recipe

I need to create a scenario for my items where the "quantity" of Item 1 is used for successive items, i.e.,

Item 1 = Qty * Cost
Item 2 = (Item 1 Qty) * Cost
Item 3 = (Item 1 Qty) * Cost
etc...

This type of quantity based manipulation may be possible but how you would implement it will depend on all of the specifics involved. When you are setting the second and third items to be based on the quantity of the first does it matter what item is first, or does this only work with certain items? Please explain as best as you can so everyone can understand the criteria involved and how it should work out.

This would only be for a specific item. The items have a parent/child hierarchy -- so the first item always remains the same. (sorry if I'm not being clear).

For example:

Party Package #1 = qty of 10 people * $10
add on option #1 = (same qty of 10) * $2
add on option #2 = (same qty of 10) * $3

Total cost $150

The reason for this is that I don't want users to be able to change the qty for the add-ons. Each add on must be for the full party.

Haven't heard from anyone in days...is this still an open issue?

Yes, this is still an open issue and I will check in with the tech support engineer working with you. For everyone's sake, I will reiterate that our policy is to respond within 2 business days. We do everything we can to respond within one but Mondays are our heaviest days. The more in-depth or "custom" your question, the higher chance we need a little time to write up a response to you or research your question. Thank you for your patience.

This is not something that you will be able to do using eCart calculations, this will require custom coding. Here is how it would work in a nutshell:

You would need to ensure that whatever options you have available would be available only for a single high level or first item. For example if you have an item called special party the options that are available for special party would need to only be available for that item. Any other item you would like to have options for will need it's own set of options that are also specific to only that item.

Once you have an item and options for that item setup you can check to see if the item is in the cart when the user tries to add one of those item's options. If it is in the cart then you can proceed to the add to cart functionality. When you apply this add to cart functionality to the page select the quantity field and ensure that it is set to not be updatable.

Once you have this in place the next thing to do is replace the current value you have for the quantity with the eCart function that will retrieve the quantity of your main item. This will allow you to have item options where the quantity is not updatable and where it is set to the quantity of the first item.

However if the user updates the quantity of the main item you will need to evaluate the quantity of the main item and set it to the options for that item. This part is a bit more complicated and will require you to edit the eCart update functionality. One way to avoid this issue would be to make the quantity of the main item not editable and use only the quantity that the user enters originally. This would mean that to update the quantity they would need to first remove the item from the cart then add it again with the correct quantity.

Please post back with any questions about any of these steps or the eCart code needed for any part of this.