Why did all of my answers disappear from my end-user pages when I just enabled visibility on one of my products or categories?

Environment:

Oracle B2C Service, Customer Portal, Enduser Pages

Resolution:

In order to fix this problem when it occurs, you have to locate the sole product or category that was enabled for end-user visibility and then disable its end-user visibility.  You can locate the product or category by creating a custom report that incorporates the following fields and filters.

• Fields:
  • products.id.id
  • products.prod_hierarchy
• Filters:
  • interface.name equals {your_interface_name}
  • prod_vis.end_user equals Yes

For categories, just switch the above from products to categories and prod_* to cat_* of course.

It is also possible to use the Product Visibility (ID 13040) and Category Visibility (ID 13045) reports.  These can be copied and modified as needed to meet your specific business needs.

Cause:

If end-user visibility is not enabled for all products or categories on a given interface, the default answers list report assumes that product/category end-user visibility should not be taken into account by the report filters. This seems pretty intuitive by itself, but the problem with it is that if a site administrator enables end-user visibility for just one product or category and none of their answers are linked to that product/category, then all the answers will suddenly disappear from the end-user pages.

For more information on the impact of product and category edits, refer to the following:
Answer ID 1179: Effect on incidents and answers when moving or deleting products or categories.
Answer ID 645: Adding, editing, or removing Service products or categories