Besides selling single/stand-alone products, which are called Simple Products in Magento, you also have the ability to work with Grouped Products and Configurable Products.
For these topics we would also like to point at the Magento documentation at:
https://docs.magento.com/user-guide/catalog/product-create-simple.html
https://docs.magento.com/user-guide/catalog/product-create-grouped.html
https://docs.magento.com/user-guide/catalog/product-create-configurable.html
In Dynamics NAV and Business Central we also have the concept of Item Variants. Commerce 365 for Magento allows you to use Item Variants in both Grouped and Configurable Magento products.
Using Item Variants is not the only way to form Grouped or Configurable Products. You can also link Items to Items.
Grouped
Below is a screenshot of the default presentation of a Grouped Product in Magento. You will simply get a list of all underlying Simple Products and the ability to add multiple products to the basket at once. This feature is often used in B2B shops as it allows buyers to quickly (re)order different quantities of different product variations in one go.
To accomplish this setup in Business Central, select Type Grouped. Under Variants you will see all available Item Variants. These records correspond with the standard Item Variant table (5401). Per record you can configure settings like Status, Visibility and Manage Stock. Finally, these items also have to be Released in order for BC to push them to Magento.
For grouped items there is no need to have unique attribute values in order to form a valid Magento product. This is different for Configurable Products. See more info below.
Configurable
Another way of presenting multiple variations in the form of a single product with options is Configurable Products. The key difference between this and the Grouped products is that Configurable Products are presented as a single product with dropdowns per Configurable Attribute.
As you can see in the screenshot below, a Configurable Product looks like a Simple Product with dropdown lists of options that each represent an underlying Simple Product. Each Simple Product has its own settings and inventory value, and optionally descriptions and images.
This is a very powerfull feature which allows to publish a large catalog with many different variations per product. Configurable Products are ideal for fashion and other shops that sell products that come in different sizes or colours.
To accomplish this in Business Central, select Type Configurable, and select an Attribute Set Code which has at least one dropdown attribute. These attributes are necessary to be able to configure each underlying item as a unique item.
After applying the Attribute Set, scroll to Attributes and mark all attributes you want to include in the configuration as Configurable. You need at least one to be able to from a valid Configurable Product.
After configuring the main / parent item, make sure that each underlying item, whether you are using Item Variants or Items, has its own unique set of attribute values for the Configurable Attributes. Next to this, make sure all settings like Status, Visibility and Manage Stock are configured as needed, and then Release the item.
Automate your configurations
By now you probably have found that creating configurable products is quite a labour intensive task. That is why often customer look at automating the whole process. The data that is needed to do this, is usually already available in your system. Together with our easy to use Internal API's, it shouldn't be to difficult for your implementation partner to develop code which automatically sets the right Attribute Sets, Status, Visibility, Inventory Settings and Attribute Values.