Product

A Product is a thing or a piece of work the business sells, described once: a good, a menu item, an equipment model, a spare part, a digital license, a service program or a consulting hour. Product Type* says which. A service is a Product with no stock; stock, purchase cost and recipes are facts of Inventory, not columns here. Who sells it and at what price is an Offer. BDS type: schema:Product.

Fields

Identity

Field	Storage	Meaning
Name*	Text	Trade name, without size or packaging
Product #	Auto-number	Local sequence; match by Name* and SKU°, not by number
Description°	Long text	What the product is, for someone who never saw it
SKU°	Text	Our own stock code; the vendor’s code belongs to the vendor quote
GTIN°	Text	Barcode digits printed on the product
Image°	Attachments	Photos; the first one is the one shown
URL°	URL	Manufacturer or vendor page
Documents°	Attachments	Manuals and spec sheets

Classification

Field	Storage	Meaning
Product Type*	Single choice	Good, Menu Item, Ingredient, Equipment Model, Part, Retainer, Subscription, Project, Hourly, Digital
Kind	Formula	Service, Digital or Good, derived from Product Type*
Category°	Linked records	Product Category; one category
Brand°	Linked records	Brand; one brand, blank for unbranded goods
Intake Step	Formula	Routes Draft or blank-status rows to their next creation step; blank for Active and Archived
Product Check	Formula	Name* and Product Type* are filled
Tags°	Linked records	Tags (mirror); optional

Who makes it and whose catalog it is in

Field	Storage	Meaning
Provider°	Linked records	Organization (mirror); the company that makes the good or delivers the service
Owner°	Linked records	Organization (mirror); the one group company whose catalog holds it; blank means shared

Composition, offers and substitutes

Field	Storage	Meaning
Components	Linked records	Lines in Product Component where this product is the whole
Component Of	Linked records	Lines where this product is the part
Offers	Linked records	Offers that sell this product
Alternative To°	Linked records	On a substitute, the main product it can replace
Alternatives	Linked records	Inverse: products that can replace this one

State and audit

Field	Storage	Meaning
Lifecycle Status*	Single choice	Draft, Active, Archived
Created At	Created time	When the row was created

Reference grid captured on 2026-10-28, before the intake views and label updates. Use the current view names in this guide.

Calculated rules

Kind

IF(OR({Product Type*} = "Retainer", {Product Type*} = "Subscription", {Product Type*} = "Hourly", {Product Type*} = "Project"), "Service",
IF({Product Type*} = "Digital", "Digital",
IF(LEN({Product Type*} & "") = 0, "", "Good")))

A Service row is also a schema:Service. Kind is blank while Product Type* is blank.

Links and cardinality

One product can have many offers, many component lines as the whole and many as the part. The field descriptions ask for exactly one Category°, Brand°, Provider° and Owner°, but every link field accepts several records; no formula checks that. The Provider is not the seller: a group company can sell a program another company delivers.

Intake routing

The creation intake uses these local formulas. Active and Archived records leave the routed steps; lifecycle changes remain manual.

Product Check

IF(LEN(TRIM({Name*} & "")) = 0, "⚠ No product name. ", "") & IF(LEN({Product Type*} & "") = 0, "⚠ No product type. ", "")

Intake Step

IF(OR({Lifecycle Status*} = "Draft", {Lifecycle Status*} = BLANK()), IF(LEN(TRIM({Name*} & "")) = 0, "Create - 1", IF(LEN({Product Type*} & "") = 0, "Create - 2", "Create - 3")), "")

Lifecycle

Create this record through the intake.

Start every new row as Draft. Set Active when it is in the catalog today. Set Archived to retire it; never delete a row that something points at. Archiving a product does not archive its offers or component lines; do that on each row.

Example

A fictitious program: Name* = Example Program, Product Type* = Retainer, Kind = Service, Category° = Reputation Management, Provider° = the group company that delivers it, Lifecycle Status* = Active. Components lists eight lines; Offers lists one offer at 2600 per month.

Next steps

Add a product and its offer · Compose a product · All entities