Who This Is For

Role requirements for this guide

OwnerAdmin

This guide is for businesses that sell products made to order, such as candles, prints, or custom goods, and use a Simply Asking configurator on their website. Everyone on your team can see the orders it produces on the Leads page.

What You'll Accomplish

The outcome

A build-to-order configurator walks a customer through designing their own product one step at a time while a live preview updates with every choice. At the end they pick a size and a quantity and press Add to bag. Their complete design, not just a product name, travels with the order so you know exactly what to make.

What Your Buyer Does

One step per screen, with a live preview

Choose the product

The buyer picks what they are making. Each option can show its starting price, and later steps adapt to the choice: a step that only makes sense for one product (for example lighting a candle) appears only for that product.

Make it theirs

They choose a mood or color, pick up to a set number of options (such as three scent notes). A flow can also ask for a name, with suggestions to help, or a label design. Options can depend on earlier answers, and changing an earlier answer clears the choices that no longer apply.

Watch it come together

The preview shows the product with their colors, the mood or name they chose on the front and their notes on the back. On the order step a candle lights itself. Buyers can rotate it, and on phones it sits above the steps.

Order

The buyer picks a size, sets a quantity, adds their name and email, and presses Add to bag. The button shows the running total.

What You Receive

Every order lands on the Leads page

Each order creates a lead. Open it on the Leads page to see the Order section: the size, the quantity, the price each, the total, and every detail of the design (for example Mood and Notes). The buyer's answers and contact details appear below it as usual.

Size and quantity: The exact variant the buyer chose and how many.
Design details: Each design choice, labelled the way it is sent to your checkout.
Checkout pending badge: Shown when the order was saved before your checkout was connected.

Pending and Live Checkout

You can launch before your store is connected

A configurator can run in one of two checkout states.

Pending: The buyer's order is saved as a lead and they see a calm confirmation (for example: your piece is saved and we'll confirm your order by email). Nobody is charged. Your team confirms the order with the buyer.
Live: Add to bag sends the buyer to your own store's cart with the size, quantity, and design details attached. Payment happens in your store, and the lead is still recorded.

Tip

Going live is a settings change: To switch from pending to live, your store address and the product variant numbers for each size are added to the flow and its checkout is set to live. Nothing about the buyer's steps changes. Ask your Simply Asking contact to make the switch once your store details are ready.

How the Flow Is Built

For teams that author their own flows

Flows are authored in Admin Settings under the configurator section, using the JSON view. A build-to-order flow uses a few extra settings on top of an ordinary configurator:

Multi-select steps: A choice step with a maximum (for example up to 3) lets buyers pick several options.
Conditions: A step or option can show only when an earlier answer matches, such as notes for the chosen mood.
Text and moment steps: A text step collects a short name with suggestions. A moment step plays a preview action, such as lighting the candle.
Order settings: The checkout is set to configure mode with a maximum quantity, and each size is a catalog row with its price.

Pro Tip

Make the lead easy to fulfill

Tip

Name each detail for your workshop: Every design step that should travel with the order has a short label, such as Mood or Notes. Use the words your workshop already uses, because that label is exactly what appears on the lead and in your store's order.

Troubleshooting

Common questions

A buyer's notes disappeared: Changing an earlier answer (such as the mood) clears options that belong to the old answer. This is intended, so an order never mixes options that do not go together.
The preview shows a still image: On devices without 3D graphics, or when the buyer asked their device to reduce motion, the configurator shows a still image instead. Every step still works.
The order says checkout pending: The flow's checkout was not connected when the buyer ordered. Contact the buyer to confirm and take payment.

What Happens Next

Keep going

Put your colors, fonts, and logo on the configurator with your brand kit, then follow up on new orders from the Leads page.