The next stage in back-end functionality is now up and running: booth owners can now click on "Orders" in your Booth Administration area to view orders for your booth.

To test this out, I've added a few "test orders" to the system, and there should be a test order containing at least one item from every booth in the shop. To check it out, you must be logged on as the owner of your booth, and go to "Administration." When you click on "Orders" you'll see a list of all orders that contain items from your booth (your "list" may contain just one entry at this point! ) To see the details of any order in the list, just click on "details."

A few things to point out: there are two kind of "status" fields on each order, one for the order as a whole, and one for each item. This may seem a bit cumbersome, but it's the only reasonable way of tracking orders where the items come from different booth owners in different locations. The overall order status, which appears in the heading of the order, is maintained by the central administration software, so this is not something you will need to update. Basically the status it reports is PAYMENT status, and there are three possible states: "1" for Pending, "2" for paid, and "0" for cancelled or declined by PayPal. There is also a brief status description that appears next to the status number, which will briefly explain the status (such as whether the order is pending verification by PayPal or awaiting receipt of a check or money order, etc.)

The status field next to each ITEM on the order is for you, the booth owner, to update as you process the order. It is presently inactive and all of the items say "Pending," but later today this will appear as a link. When you click on the link, a status form will open up that will allow you to change the status and attach explanatory notes. This is where you will note when the item is shipped or the projected shipping date, along with any notes about shipping issues or timing that would be helpful to the buyer (who will also be able to view this for their own orders) and to yourself for your own tracking and record-keeping.

Now a question: as it's currently set up, you will see the entire order on which any item from your booth appears, INCLUDING items from other booths. Only those items that are from YOUR booth will have a clickable "status" field, however, so that folks do not inadvertently modify the status of items from other folks booths! Is this too confusing? If so, I can modify it so that you only see the order with your own items and shipping listed, as if the order were exclusively for your booth (and of course sometimes it will be!) The customer will still see their complete order with all items from all booths, but you will not have the potential confusion of having items listed that are not yours. What do you think? Either way is fine with me.

Love,
Greg

Hi Greg,

OK, now that I see there is something to check out at my booth, I'll have to switch computers so I can log in to the Co-op and check it out. I may even post an updated picture of our kids (teens) on a thread.

I vote for the option where you show only the booth owner's item on the admin area's order page. It not only makes things less confusing for the booth owner, but also respects the buyer's privacy. Call me a silly Scorpio, but I don't like the idea of everyone I shop with, knowing what else is on my shopping list. It's also critical for people who will put in a healing request with the RLC group, because they may have concerns about anybody else knowing about their personal matters.

Dani, I think Greg's reply about the email addy solves our problem about sending replies to people who put in the healing requests. I'd seen the test order this morning. But, I only noticed the shipping address rather than the email addy, so I was confused when you asked how we were going to reply. I thought maybe the email addy wasn't visible.

Hi Guys,

I checked it out, and although it doesn't matter to me which way it is done, I can certainly understand Suchi's point here.

I agree with Suchi about showing purchases and respecting the buyer's privacy. That would most definitely apply to healing requests.

Anonymous happy to hear from you.

Love, Connie

Okay, those are actually some good reasons for showing only the items that apply to your booth on your copy of the order . I'll make that change and get it up as quickly as I can.

Also, while we're thinking of privacy concerns, it's certainly necessary for the booth owner to have the buyer's shipping info (NOT payment info, which we don't ever collect onsite), so you can ship their order! But don't forget that this is confidential information that we have pledged to keep confidential, to be used only for shipping orders ... so please remember that you are bound to respect that and don't add them to your address book or share their email with anyone.

Love,
Greg

Oh, yes, Greg, that is very clearly understood. RLC won't really need the shipping address. All we need is the email addy so we can send confirmation replies.

Actually, as a future enhancement, you could give booth owners the option to pick what kind of shipping info they need. You could give three options on the product creation screen like: shipping address, email address, both. Depending on what the booth owner chooses for a particular product, on any order for that product, the booth owner can see only the relevant part of the buyer's shipping info registered with the Co-op instead of all of it. No point revealing unnecessary info. Just a suggestion.

Hi Anonymous

Do we know you?

Suchi

Anonymous was Kelly who forgot to log in! Normally unregistered users can't post, but since this is a brand-new forum, I hadn't yet finished setting up the posting rules, and Kelly came sailing in anonymously!

BTW, Kel, I forgot to tell you earlier that I finished re-sizing your new pix and they're up in your booth folder now.

Okay, the orders page should be all fixed uo now! If you go to your orders, you will see the same test order that was there before, but now it will only show the items (and shipping charges) from your own booth.

You'll also see that the entry in the "Status" field for each order item is now a link. When you click on it, you will jump to a screen that lets you change the status, and also add free-form "status details" ... this is where you will enter things like the expected shipping date (or the actual shipping date and method, once it's shipped!) After viewing and/or editing it, click the button at the bottom of the screen to return to the order. The status field itself should only be set to "Pending," "Canceled," or "Shipped," (depending on the actual status) with all further information entered in the Status Details box.

The user will be able to click on this status link on her own copy of the order to see these details (but won't be able to edit them), so they should be as clear and helpful as possible!

Since the test order in your booths now is not real, feel free to play with editing these status fields to get a feel for how it works! And please holler if you run across any bugs or problems!

Love,
Greg

I presume that since one can view the orders in "Orders", booth owners will not get email notifications every time an order is placed?

GOOD QUESTION

That was a very reasonable assumption, Ani -- but actually booth owners WILL still get an email notification whenever an order is placed! The order tracking system is just a convenient place you can always go to get an up-to-date list of all your orders ... and more important, a way to update the status of an order so that everyone can easily see whether the order has been received, whether it's been shipped (and if not, when it is expected to be shipped), and so on.

Love,
Greg

O.K. Email notifications would be helpful. However, I didn't get an email notification when the test order came in and as far as I know, neither did anyone else in the RLC. I'm assuming you had either suppressed the email being sent out because it was a test order or that it wasn't set up at that point of time.

Also, I don't see any link to track orders when I log in with my own personal id. Will the link be visible only when I order something or are you still working on the order tracking for buyers?

Suchi, you're a beta-tester's dream!

Both the automated email notifications and the users order history are still under construction, but should be finished by tomorrow. However, you wouldn't see any of these test orders when logged in under your personal user name - only I would, because I am the one who placed the orders!

I'm not sure whether to make the "My Orders" link visible to folks who have no orders or not ... what do you think?

Love,
Greg

Hmm...I'm still wondering if that was a sarcastic remark lol. Just kidding.

Yes, I know, I wouldn't see the test order you placed, but I was planning to do a test order of my own to see how it all works. Just wanted to confirm whether the buyer's order tracking functionality was done yet.

Hmm...I think it would be helpful to show the My Orders link to everyone irrespective of whether they have placed any orders yet. It's a good indication of where to go once a person has placed an order. Looking at it from the point of view of a new member registering with the co-op, not finding a "My Orders" link would make him or her wonder if there is any way to track the status of any orders they may make. Some may even be under the mistaken impression that there is no such facility available. Not a good impression to make.

Also, from the programming point of view, if you use a seperate file to generate the side-bar menu, then it makes more sense to keep the sidebar static throughtout the logged in session while checking on the actual Orders page to see if the user has placed any orders. Only one call to the database required. For a user with no recorded orders, you can simply use the kind of page you generate for empty shopping carts. Inform the user that s/he has placed no orders yet and direct him/her to the shopping index page to start shopping.

Greg,

Oh, OK thanks... I kept looking for the pictures to be up by the readings since you did that too last time. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to do that once I feel like switching computers and getting technical. Hopefully sometime tonight, then I'll work on sending around an anouncement about the Co-op myself via my email address book. That is if I get time on the computer later.

That makes sense, Suchi.

Kel, the new pix are up on your product pages now I was just rushed yesterday!

Love,
Greg

Great! You got the link up. Looks good so far. I'll go place the test order now.

The My Orders page gets a thumbs up from me

Just one question though, what is the "Approved" column about? Is it in any way affected by the status set by the booth-owner for that particular order? Or is it determined by the overall status of the various items purchased through that order?

And just for presentation's sake, wouldn't it be better to put the My Orders link above the logout link?

That's a valued thumbs up, Suchi!

Yep, I'll move My Orders above Logout ... I couldn't decide, really, so I just ended up putting it where I thought it would be more easily noticed!

Auto-email notification is almost there, then we'll be pretty much done with the core back-end functionality. Time to think about marketing now!

Oh, the approved timestamp applies only to PayPal orders so far - it is automatically filled in when PayPal sends us a confirmation that the payment for this order has been approved and credited to our account. Depending on how the payment flow ends up working out for mail orders, I may also use it to note when payment by check or money order has been received.


Love,
Greg

O.K. That should probably go in the FAQ. I hope to get cracking on the FAQ this weekend. I've never made one before so any rough guidelines would be most helpful.