Square Dashboard allows creation of inconsistent location settings between Items and Variations

[JTPets]

Product Area: Square Dashboard / Catalog Management

Severity: Medium - Causes API errors when updating inventory thresholds

Description:
Square Dashboard allows users to create an inconsistent state where an Item Variation has "Present at all locations" enabled, but its parent Item does not. This configuration is rejected by the Catalog API when attempting to update the variation (e.g., setting inventory alert thresholds), but Square Dashboard does not prevent or warn users from creating this state.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create or edit an Item in Square Dashboard
2. Set the Item to NOT be present at all future locations
3. Edit a Variation under that Item
4. Enable "Present at all future locations" for the Variation
5. Save changes (Dashboard allows this)
6. Attempt to update the Variation via API (e.g., PATCH to update inventory_alert_threshold)

Expected Behavior:

• Square Dashboard should either prevent this configuration, or
• Display a warning that the variation's location settings conflict with its parent item

Actual Behavior:

• Dashboard allows the inconsistent configuration
• API calls to update the variation fail with error:

{
  "category": "INVALID_REQUEST_ERROR",
  "code": "INVALID_VALUE",
  "detail": "Object '[VARIATION_ID]' of type ITEM_VARIATION is enabled at all future locations, but the referenced object with token '[ITEM_ID]' of type ITEM is not.",
  "field": "item_id"
}

Impact:

• Third-party integrations cannot update variations with this mismatch
• No visibility in Dashboard that this issue exists
• Users must manually audit catalog to find affected items

Suggested Fix:

1. Validate parent-child location consistency when saving in Dashboard
2. Add a catalog health check to identify existing mismatches
3. Improve error message to suggest the fix (enable parent item at all locations OR disable it on variation)
   @isabelle for vis

[JTPets]

I got a lot of items to fix aparently....343?