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Contribution Request: Manual Order Entry


ActiveTuning

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If they already have this, point me to the right direction.

 

We should be able to manually input an order in via the admin...It's quite a pain if I need to give somebody a small discount, that I have to order it myself, and then change everything through MySQL. Or have the customer order at the wrong price, then change data in MySQL.

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There is a contribution by that name, but I'm afraid it's horribly complicated to install, and honestly, has WAY to many moving pieces for my taste.

 

The is another contribution that is called 'Order Update' this is a terrific tool that someone might be able to change a bit to allow for adding an order through.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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Our module allows you

 

to do a manual entry

 

or

 

modify the order placed by a client on your site and change cost, price, shipping cost.

 

 

 

see more details in contribution

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,955

 

 

Let us know if you need help in installation. we do not think it is difficult to install .

 

in order to be very flexible , we added several maintenance tables but part from that it gives great flexibility in managing your orders and process them directly through the admin

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Of course you don't think it difficult to install. You wrote it.

 

But if you take the general consensus of programmers here, I think you'll fid htat they agree with me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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Well

 

We mentionned in contribution that we can help in installation.

 

 

you have to realise that this module does a lot of things.

 

 

-> order modification after it is placed.

-> manual entry.

-> order tracking

-> new invoice and packing slip

-> new reports

 

 

Since we took the position to keep an audit trail between the order tables and the shipping tables, new maintenance and shipping tables had to be created to save all this information

 

 

This module is not just an enhancement of the catalog like adding a new format or change colors but brings completely new functionalities and process,

 

Thus it needs to be both very flexible for different store owners (implying new maintenance tables to modify easily info) and be able to process and modify an order from multiple sources (catalog or manual entry)

 

 

thus you need to be able to record all this data and make sure an audit trail is kept along the way.

 

but in any case we hope for OSC that core programmer will tackle an order processing module in the coming releases .

 

As far as we are concerned a nice catalog is half the work. after you still need to be able to process an order correctly and keep all data available for the client to lower the level of support and bring them all tracking information about their order.

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If you have other modules/addons installed this is one hell of a nightmare.

 

It modifies way too many files and takes a long time to install.

 

The featureset is GREAT... But I'd rather it just be a seperate module compeletly so it doesn't mess with other things I need.

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palmsgardens,

 

Hey I'm not knocking your work at all. I think you've done a good job with it.

 

However, I don't think you are going to find many people are interested in it. The reason is, as Trailz indicated, nearly everyone has a ton of mods already added to their site. And your contribution is so big, and affects so many different scripts, that it is nearly impossible to incorporate into any other shop besides a fresh install.

 

What everyone NEEDS and most people WANT is a very, very simple script that will allow us to manually add an order to the database through the admin.

 

We don't need order tracking, we already have it.

We already have a very simple script that gives us order modification. And while a new invoice and packing slip is nice, it should not be incorporated into a manula entry mod, because most people don't want it.

 

Perhaps you should follow Ians example and offer a 'Loaded Snapshot' that has your contribution already installed. Other than that, I'm afraid you won't find many takers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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actually one of the posting is false: it IS a separate module, all info modified is saved in our separate tables. we do not touch at all orders tables. we do not touch ANY other table or data in core OSC.

 

All maintenance tables are not updating anything in core application but are used for this module only. (because in fact they did not exist in core application...)

 

we modify all orders amounts and totals in OUR shipping tables just for that reason because we do not know where the core application is going to go next.

 

Thus it is really a NEW and separate module from the core application.

 

 

 

from your last comment, you seem more on the development side that on

the store management side.

 

thus managing an order is more complicated than erasing previous order placed by a client

(as an example what is happening when you modify totals of an order placed by credit card? : you change the order and amount but you still

have received an amount received by credit card. where is the difference ? with a simple modification template; you no longer know what happens)

 

 

I do not agree with you : core OSC does NOT have order tracking at present

 

-> where can you enter carrier name, tracking number, shipping date in core application ? i do not see any fields for that.

 

-> how do you give tracking information to the client when order is shipped ? there are no functionalities in core application

except of course doing a manual email for each order

 

it means client have to send email or call to know what is happening with the order. and you waiste your day trying to answer emails or phone call to clients.

 

our module allows store owner to email all shipping informations and he can review it online as well when he logs in to his account.

 

I am afraid that order processing can NOT be simple in an efficient store.

in a simple script you would not have all info necessary in same system and you just go to systems to systems to find the information to give to the client.

 

 

-> and concerning your point that you do not need order entry, well you must be using paypal in that case. 95 % of the orders paid by paypal are not registered correctly in OSC.

 

paypal payment is made but items staysd in the cart and are not copied in orders tables as a pending order.

 

it means that if you do not have a manual entry where you can login in the account of the client and confirm the order all the way, you end spending hours with phpmyadmin trying to figure what is in the customer basket and recreate the order or have to contact the client to know what is ordered.

once again , we think manual entry for some payment method is necessary.

as well if you have phone or auction orders you can create the order rapidly.

 

 

but it is of course our view. we prefer to process orders as fast as possible

and have all info in the system for the client to review it on his own. it is more cost effective

 

 

but we are happy to see that some contributions are there to do simpler things for store owner who have simpler order process. it is perfect for them.

 

 

however our view is that an order processing module should be able to store tracking information and all other infos needed if you do auctions for example.

 

if you do an auction you want to be able to store auction end date, auction number in a meaningful way in order for client and store owner to know what is happening

 

there are absolutely no fields in core OSC to store that , (except of course in bulk in a comment field: in that case you spend a lot of time just sending emails to bidders with tracking info)

our module allows manual orders and auctions to be processed faster without loosing any info

 

 

of course it can seems like an overkill for store owners who just process their order placed on the site and do not have a need to keep all tracking information with the order or do manual orders.

 

but we do know that in our case all info stored in our order processing module is needed to process the orders we shipped.

this module was build not as a developer fantasy (which we are not) but as a store owner processing all day mail orders. (and wanting to know what is happening)

 

and a store owner definitely wants to know

 

-> what is his cost and profit margin (not in core osc) ,

-> his real shipping and packing cost (not calculated one)

-> keep auction and manual orders in a same place and give access to it to client

-> keep all tracking info about the order available to client and emailed automatically and not have to do manual emails

(did not see anything of that sort in core OSC)

 

 

This is our view of an order processing module for our needs. of course all store owners have different needs and can work on their own module to replicate their process.

 

 

 

we will not go in a "simple" script like tool as it is not possible to process an order correctly and keep meaningful information for future analysis or tracking.

 

but we respect definitely any other simple script contribution which would help some store owners who need a simple functionality on their store.

 

and in conclusion, we are not giving this contribution to OSC to have as "many takers" as possible as you mention. we are not professional developers or web designers developing for a living

 

All we do is trying to give back to the community our real hand experience of order processing and reporting. and in that case you need a serious module to keep track of all this data. but we do not really mind if people do not agree to our order shipping process. it works for us and the orders we process.

 

this is how we process orders in our store and some other may find it useful for their store, if not perfectly fine

one can develop his order processing module based on his store requirements.

 

we just contribute the module we use and have a real need for it . we do not do development just for the sake of development as we do not have the time.

 

good day

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palmsgardens,

 

Wow, that is a heck of a post. I can only say that I wish it was in English so that I could understand it.

 

I was able to piece little bits and pieces of your scattered thoughts together into cohearent ideas and concepts, and the following is in response to those. Please forgive me if I have not interpreted your language properly.

 

First of all, let me say, that I in no way meant to offend you. I think that the work that you have provided is TREMENDOUS! Fantastic job. I also think that the functionality that you have included is TERRIFIC! Great job!

 

I am mearly pointing out that the contribution that you provided is not AT ALL realistic for the average merchant/programmer just looking for a way to MANUALLY ADD AN ORDER.

 

What you fail to realize is that there are THOUSANDS of us that have already installed HUNDREDS of contributions to our shops. Some of the most popular contributions that we have included in our shops ALREADY are the USPS/UPS ORDER TRACKING contribution and the PAYPAL IPN contribution. So you see, while it is not included in the core code of OSC, it is in fact ALRADY INCLUDED IN OUR SHOPS.

 

My point is, there is no need to re-invent the wheel. These contributions already give us much of the functionality you have offered.

 

What you have that actually INTERESTES MANY OF US, is a way to MANUALLY INSERT AND ORDER. Not process an order, not change and order, not track and order, but MANUALLY ADD AND ORDER. Unfortunatly, we CAN'T INSTALL JUST THIS FUNCTIONALITY from your contribution to our shops without including the rest of it.

 

What I am suggestion is that you take JUST THAT FUNCTIONALITY, BY ITSELF, and offer a contribution that will allow us to MANUALLY ADD AN ORDER, with out all of the rest.

 

If you could do this, we would all be eternally gratefull. If not, then thank you anyway.

 

Respectfully yours,

 

Wizards and Wars

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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One of your point is correct

 

 

I think the first thing core developers should focus after the milestone version they just released is an API (like in IBM Netcommerce, oracle financials, SAP and other professional softwares we used to develop with in a previous life...)

 

It would give to any contribution a clear set of rules to add-on a contribution. if the contribution can not be imported through the API, thus

it is at store owner own risk.

 

(API should be able for example to add new config lines to application_top and configure.php,

a great contribution we just saw is to put all languages files in table instead of text files: would help greatly in updating to new releases and avoid loosing all modificatins everytime you upgrade. we think our next release will use this principle: by the way it is used in SAP and oracle financials, thus solution can not be that bad)

 

if OSc wants to really gain from all contributors developing for free new functionalities, they would need at least to provide tools to add new modules in a standardised and easy way.

 

however will not avoid any possible conflicts with other contributed modules if both update same tables and same fields in core application

 

 

from our side , the second priority in their development is backend order processing.

 

-> You will loose clients faster than you gain them if you can not process correctly an order

 

-> keeping track of your margins (thus adding cost field to items and attributes seems obvious)

 

 

 

good day

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I agree completly with thins post.

 

However, it seems to be somewhat off topic.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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Wizards and Wars,

 

While I agree with your assessment of this contribution, I think you couuld have handled things a little differently. Whether or not the average OSC developer will use this mod, the author selflessly donated the contribution for the benefit of all and, I believe, is entitled to a bit more respect than you offered him/her.

 

To whit...

 

Wow, that is a heck of a post. I can only say that I wish it was in English so that I could understand it.

You shouldn't say "respectfully yours" at the end of your post if you're not going to be respectful in the preceding text. The author's message was in English. There's no reason to be rude just because English (most likely) is not the author's native language. I had a hard time following it myself, but that's not the point. Assume, for a moment, that Swedish was the world's de facto international language instead of English. How well would you speak it? And would you want people to be equally inconsiderate to you? Just something to think about. :)

 

I was able to piece little bits and pieces of your scattered thoughts together into cohearent ideas and concepts...

Again, you could have conveyed this same sentiment in a more civilized manner. It's not always easy to formulate and organize thoughts in a non-native language. Oh, and while we're picking on other people's command of the English language, you might want to look into the spelling of words such as "coherent," "already," "interests," "unfortunately," and "merely." :)

 

I also offer as a friendly suggestion that all-caps text be avoided when possible. It is widely interpreted as shouting instead of the emphasis you clearly meant it to be. Given that these forums allow us to use bold and italic text, I think we should use these features or at the very least revert to *asterisks* when providing emphasis in forum posts.

 

As I mentioned above, I agree with the content of your messages above. Moreover, you were very respectful 95% of the time. I just thought I'd point out a few constructive ways of conveying the other 5% in a different manner. :)

 

Thanks for listening,

 

Justin

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Justin,

 

<chuckles>

 

Ok, ok. While I have to say that I meant no disrespect, I imagine that some of my remarks may have been minconstrued.

 

I would also have to imagine that if the wold spoke Swedish, and it was my second language, people that spoke Swedish very well would probably occasionally laugh from time to time. I'm not the sort to be offended, however, I can understand how others might. Therefore, I offer my sincerest apologies to Palms and Gardens, if he was in fact offended.

 

The general tone of my post was, however, respectful, focused, and on topic. Unfortunaly, I have yet to get a response that was the same.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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And you have every right to laugh at my spelling. It is a long running joke with people that know me.

 

My fingers think that they can type faster than they actually can. :lol:

 

"Minconstrued", lol

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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LOL... I often suffer from FTS as well (Fast Typer's Syndrome). My 8th grade English teacher would be appalled. :)

 

I'd like to point out that your forum posts here have been an enormous contribution to the OSC community. Your advice has gotten me out of a pickle or two, and your help is much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

 

Justin

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:oops: My meager contributions, advice, and donations are the least I can do.

 

 

Back to the topic, anyone feel like working on an Manual Order Entry :wink: that is a little easier to install?

 

I propose that the Order Update Toolwould be a great wstarting point.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As of Oct 2006, I'm not as active in this forum as I used to be, but I still work with osC quite a bit.

If you have a question about any of my posts here, your best bet is to contact me though either Email or PM in my profile, and I'll be happy to help.

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Ive tried installing the Order_Processing_module mod before on my old store already having 20 mods or so and it was the most horrid mod install atempt ive ever had.

 

I think it should be marked as a advanced mod especially if you have a much modified store already.

 

A great mod ide love to install but a pain on my side to handle.

 

I instead would like to see something different even from a manual entry.

 

Let me explain with a very simple example.

 

Lets take an order of the matrix dvd $8 and shipping is $2

 

Subtotal $8

Shipping $2

Total $10

 

Now the customer wants to buy something else (lets say matrix 2 $8) and doesnt want to pay shipping for just for that second item cus he wants matrix 1 & 2 combined shipping total.

 

Here goes one of many problems like:

 

Adding products to a order total would need a Recalculation Total depending if the customer order is still pending/processing or still open for added orders.

So if the order is still open then a recalculation total with the added order would be needed for the total of all the ordered products, the shipping and anything else that applies.

 

Matrix $8

Matrix2 $8

Subtotal $16

Shipping $3

Total $19

 

This would have to work if one order was already paid for and a second one added wasnt paid for yet.

 

Matrix $8 (Status: Paid)

Matrix2 $8 (Status: Unpaid)

Subtotal $8

Shipping $2

Total $10

(Order Status: Waiting for customer to complete payment on Order Total)

 

I think there should be some sort of open pending order status feature where the customer and store owner can easily not only view but update/add to their order if the order is still open for adding more to it.

That would be cool. Having the customer (aswell as the store owner) view if their order is still open can assign a hold or product added update value (with order change notification of course) to add more.

If the order still open then they could view, recalculate or even edit their preferences from shipping methods to even a change in a item like a blue shirt attribute to red all depending if the store owner has closed/updated the completed order to be processed.

 

Manual editing orders can be a pain cus you have to manually recalculate everything and have a very sloppy order history of the customer unless your very good with mysql.

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This contribution is wide ranging and takes time to install. As a newbie, I didn't know enough not to give it a try. I ran into some snags, and palmsandgardens kindly guided me through to the solution, which was a silly problem on my end.

 

I'd actually like to see this or another contribution get more complex, to where osCommerce can

1) have standard accounting features

or

2) be able to easily export/integrate with a range of accounting softwares/excel as far as order totals, shipping costs, etc. If I could upload the 'cost of sales' calculations from my accounting software, for example, the online reports could also calculate percentage profit, which helps a business-owner keep track of things. That would require a new field in the product description admin--one for "our cost"

3) how about automatically exporting all orders/sales either one at a time or in a 'digest' form of a tab delimited text file to import into not just Quickbooks, but MYOB, Ki Biz, Peachtree, and other commonly used accounting software? Because osCommerce has the ability to print invoices, it removes the need for us to enter every order manually into MYOB and print an invoice from that software before processing and shipping an order. However, someone needs to input the orders (ideally on a daily basis) into MYOB. I have an excel file which has the fields and template for an MYOB export, if someone's interested in this and would like to help make a contribution--perhaps in Palms and Garden's Shipping Contribution or as a separate reports section, there could be links (similar to the incredible Easy Populate?) to download a tab-delimited text file of the sales for various formats--MYOB being my need, Quickbooks (I haven't looked at the existing Quickbooks contribution, so maybe this is a suggestion for expansion of that contribution), Peachtree... I'm working with someone now on a contribution to e-mail personal-info-stripped order information to a bookkeeper--this is a bit different, but just as useful. I'm just not a scripting whiz or PHP pro. :cry:

 

Anyhow, yes, the P&G shipping contribution is large, but it's only a small step in the direction osCommerce needs to go towards being a complete online Commerce package which can integrate across operating systems and with the accounting/inventory software which hopefully over 90% of shops are using in their businesses. I can't imagine that any retailers of physical merchandise which gets shipped can just install osCommerce and run a (legal) business without integrating the sales, etc., with another accounting package on their 'box.'

 

When you have employees who work on order processing, the multi-user capabilities are incredible. The ability to create documents to send with orders (instructions, special offers, rebate forms, warranty info, return policy, whatever) is also a great option, as they are kept in a central place and can be accessed from any terminal, as opposed to having to exist as stationery in every user's Eudora or Outlook, etc. Adding and saving internal comments about the customer or payment issures, etc. is also a fabulous part of P&Gs contribution for the "audit trail."

 

While there's a separate tracking contribution, I found this one easier to install and get functioning (I tried the other one first), and it works like a charm. I would pay $$$ for that in a commercial shopping cart package--it could be a good selling point!

 

Well, lest I ramble on all night about how useful and important P&G's Shipping/Order Processing Module has been to me (it's right along there with Easy Populate as being essential contributions for a small business with 1000+ products and growing inventory issues), I will quit for now simply encouraging anyone who is not sure about installing the P&G module after the above more cautionary statements to go ahead and do it on a (backup!) copy of your shop and if you have problems, e-mail P&G. These features are worth $100s of $$$ to me, and the several hours over a week or so while I was working on other developmental issues (and working full time) were well spent. I donated a fraction of my perceived value to P&G, which was warmly received. I just payed MYOB $189 for an upgrade of far less utility to my Account Edge software. Oops!

:oops: I'm still rambling!

 

:P

Kevin

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I'll say I have tried to install this mod to no avail as I kept getting errors. Now, I realize that it probably wasn't what I was looking for. What I am hoping to have is a way to enter purchases into my shop that were made from my old website "before" I had oscommerce so that my customers could log in and see their invoices ala "manual entry! Does this function already exist?

Thanks!!

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It wasn't really all that bad. I remember looking at the instructions for a previous version and saying "forget it", but the latest version seems to be a lot more clear. I managed to get this puppy installed in under 2 hours on MS1 which it wasn't even written for and had to do a few changes (the ol' new_value, old_value field thing). I think there were really only 4 or so files that are part of the core OSC that needed to be changed to a fair degree and for those I just used Simple Difference and manually made the edits rather than uploading a file that would not be compatible with MS1. The only thing that would have made life a lot easier were if the changes to the core files were documented instead of having to find them all. Other than that...no complaints. I think it is probably going to take me longer to learn everything that is possible with this add-on than it did to install it. :wink:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am trying to install the Manual Orders Oscommerce add-on and am having trouble with some missing or mis-named table fields. IE) When updating an orders status from Admin there is an SQL call to insert data into the ?new_value? and ?old_value? fields in the ?Orders_Status_history? table. Both of which do not exsist. The creation of them also appears to not exist in the supplied SQL setup queries. Am I missing something here? Or are there new SQL setup queries that I am not aware of? Is it possible that this was created for pre MS1 releases?

 

Please advise,

 

Thanks.

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New_value and old_value are no longer used in MS1 and newer snapshots and were replaced by, as far as I can tell, order_status_id (might be orders_status_id I don't remember). I know when I was messing around with one of the contributions hunting down wherever the contribution called for one of the former replacing it with order(s)_status_id seemed to fix the problem.

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hi justin,

 

i have the same problem, could you tell us what changes you made with old and new value and did you have the same problem i had here

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36872

 

thank you for a response

 

 

pldtm

PL DTM

-----------------------------------------

Sur un malentendu, ... ?a pourrait marcher

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A new release will be uploaded this weekend

 

 

changes are following

 

 

ALL translattions variables and ALL variable definitions were moved to 2 tables.

 

it means that you no longer need to edit files (application_top, onfigure, englis.php....) to have the module working.

 

you will just have to run a sql script uploading all variables.

 

it will help us avoiding to add new variables to install instructions.

 

all you will have to do is run a sql script to poplulate the tables with latest version.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT NOTE:

---------------------

 

our zip contribution exceeds the 300 k limit fixed by the osc developers.

we wrote several times to OSc core developers but no answer . it means we can no longer upload latest version of our module in their contribution

site.

 

 

We have a test site where you will be able to download latest version (we will give you address) and view the module in action before installing it.

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