Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

[kayakbabe]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Tracy
Did you try searching for it in the forum search. This topic has been discussed many times and the solutions with full code are already posted.
I've found most things are already answered if you just use the search.

[tracymds]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Hey Kayakbabe- Thanks for the tip!

[RayYates]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Automatic Administrator Email of error conditions.

Something like this has been requested before but not quite in this form.

There should be an API in Merchant that sends the site administrator an email alert if an fatal Merchant or Admin error occurs.

Merchant Modules and third party modules could then take advantage of this API for example when the Credit Card or Shipping servers go down. This would actually apply to any module that relies on calls to external web sites as well as database error or any unexpected error condition.

The modules using the API would be required to make a registration call so that an admin would have the option of suspending certain email notifications ( i.e. turning off the alarm while the problem is being worked on)

The obvious advantage of this is that Store Owners and Admins can be proactive when problems happen, instead of waiting until a customer calles to find out there is a problem.

[RayYates]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Along with the API should come an error log viewable and re-setable within the Admin.

[William Davis]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Automatic Administrator Email of error conditions.

Something like this has been requested before but not quite in this form.

There should be an API in Merchant that sends the site administrator an email alert if an fatal Merchant or Admin error occurs.

Merchant Modules and third party modules could then take advantage of this API for example when the Credit Card or Shipping servers go down. This would actually apply to any module that relies on calls to external web sites as well as database error or any unexpected error condition.

The modules using the API would be required to make a registration call so that an admin would have the option of suspending certain email notifications ( i.e. turning off the alarm while the problem is being worked on)

The obvious advantage of this is that Store Owners and Admins can be proactive when problems happen, instead of waiting until a customer calles to find out there is a problem.

Sebenza had a great module for MM4.x called MIVA Fatal Error Plus, I had configured the e-mail notification to look like this.



I know its wordy, but its helped us out a lot, we tend to forget what some codes mean, what causes what, and/or how the module actually works.

The reason the IP address is in the subject line, is due to email action rules to file in a particular folder depending the referrer.

The error code links are to facilitate research if an unknown error code is detected. Each link will perform a different type of search.

The rest is self explanatory.

[kayakbabe]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I like Ray's email merchant upon error deal.
However, I don't want to know if scanalert or macaffee is looking for non existant files.. urls like ../../../etc/password, That would fill up a log file really quickly. Granted it would be useful in troubleshooting phases of a new store. But really when a store is stable and running, I want to know about errors that keep transactions from completing. Or that might indicate someone is trying to hack into the db. I don't want to know about google bot annoyances that clutter up a log file and really have no impact on bringing the store into a non shopable state.

so perhaps some kind of choice about the 'level' of error that is reported to the merchant (or specified email address) would be an improvement of this base idea.

Kinda like php has 10 levels of error reporting. You can see ERROR_ALL
or just the super critical errors.. or anything in between that you choose.
I'd really like that for empressa/miva merchant in an email.

Of course if the store is all the way down.. then we'd not get any email at all. There isn't a way to truly monitor on the store itself in conditions like that.
That is where some thing off site like alertra. com comes in handy. I have it scripted to simulate a shopper all the way through every step of checkout except the final purchase button. The more frequent the checks.. hte more incomplete baskets are created and the more altra costs... but once an hour is acceptable to me and not too expensive for the saving in the event of a multi hour outage of my store. Even with alertra telling my my store is not accesible. The logs that Ray suggested might sure help figureing out what the problem was.

I vote YES to both suggestions.. email error notifications (with error level choice) AND miva merchant error logs which log miva merchant specific errors.

[kayakbabe]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Miva have you thought about partnering with Alertra to get good rates for us Mivites!

[William Davis]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I like Ray's email merchant upon error deal.
However, I don't want to know if scanalert or macaffee is looking for non existant files.. urls like ../../../etc/password, That would fill up a log file really quickly. Granted it would be useful in troubleshooting phases of a new store. But really when a store is stable and running, I want to know about errors that keep transactions from completing. Or that might indicate someone is trying to hack into the db. I don't want to know about google bot annoyances that clutter up a log file and really have no impact on bringing the store into a non shopable state.

so perhaps some kind of choice about the 'level' of error that is reported to the merchant (or specified email address) would be an improvement of this base idea.

Kinda like php has 10 levels of error reporting. You can see ERROR_ALL
or just the super critical errors.. or anything in between that you choose.
I'd really like that for empressa/miva merchant in an email.

Of course if the store is all the way down.. then we'd not get any email at all. There isn't a way to truly monitor on the store itself in conditions like that.
That is where some thing off site like alertra. com comes in handy. I have it scripted to simulate a shopper all the way through every step of checkout except the final purchase button. The more frequent the checks.. hte more incomplete baskets are created and the more altra costs... but once an hour is acceptable to me and not too expensive for the saving in the event of a multi hour outage of my store. Even with alertra telling my my store is not accesible. The logs that Ray suggested might sure help figureing out what the problem was.

I vote YES to both suggestions.. email error notifications (with error level choice) AND miva merchant error logs which log miva merchant specific errors.

I agree, I had actually made the same suggestions when we first got the module. That is why we have the IP address on the subject field, errors generated from McAfee IP addresses would automatically be forwarded to their own folder, and so on. Each search engine had their own e-mail rule as well.

[RayYates]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

The error trapping I envisioned would only be logging errors that occur within the Miva Merchant environment (not Empresa or Apachie). It would also NOT be tracking errors that occur within client side JavaScript like google tracking or hackersafe scripts.

The log file would actually be secondary to the email alerts. The main purpose of these alerts would be to notify site admins when something happened that prevented a customer from checking out. The log file would simple be a tool for tracking down the problem. In theory these should be very infrequent so the log file would not grow excessively.

For example if authorize net has a server outage or the Internet has a breakdown between the hosting company and authorize net the admin could switch to simple validation until the problem was resolved.

By making this an API other modules that depend on off site servers like Currency Magic or Runa to name a few, could take advantage of the system and easily alert the store admin.

[Datagg]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

This has truly been a issue that needs fixing.... For instance, Product A ($12.00) has 1 option and it costs $1.00 more if chosen.... They buy A, with option 1 and total cost is $13.00. This is great, yet say they buy two A products, then add option A... Price is then $25.00, when it should be $26.00.

Let me give an actual example.... One of our costumes, 3 were purchased & there is an optional attribute for a hat at $3.00. See, where im going? They added 3 costumes to there cart, chose the hat.. total cost reflected 3 costumes, 1 hat.. and they wanted 3 hats.

My new Jewelry store, today customer wanted a chain made for her, the cost of it is $2.00 per inch, she wants a 6" chain and wants the optional Magnetic clap ($2.00) . She decides to buy two 6 inch chains, one for her and one for her daughter and then chooses the optional magnetic clasp... her receipt not only shows 1 clasp for 2 chains, it shows only as $26.00, when it should be $28.00

The customer called us on this and asked, " i ordered 2 chains, yet only 1 clasp was added...." Once again we have to explain why.. & then explain we need to bump the price up because of it too... certainly not the best of scenarios. So I ask that there be some kind of change in the attribute system that reflects the product quantity to the attribute field & if applicable, its optional prices. Sorry for the long post, just trying to get the situation out there.

[lesliekirk]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Dan, I wonder if this could be better handled with the Inventory Kit Builder? I'm not sure if even that's the answer.

What you are needing is to be able to have the attribute quantity match the product quantity - more like moving a related item selection in with the product itself so when you click add to basket it adds them all.

Leslie

[Datagg]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Dan, I wonder if this could be better handled with the Inventory Kit Builder? I'm not sure if even that's the answer.

What you are needing is to be able to have the attribute quantity match the product quantity - more like moving a related item selection in with the product itself so when you click add to basket it adds them all.

Leslie

Thank you Leslie for the suggestion... Perhaps that would help the situation, not sure either, yet there is also the times when someone chooses 2, 3 etc products and only wants 1 of the optional stuff.... So, there would need to be some type of conditional, or something to allow them to choose. I recall an order last year, when the customer ordered 4 of a particular costume, which they then wanted 2 of the optional sleeves that were available for it. So he added 4 in the quantity, chose the attribute... of course he was baffled, as the basket only showed 1 optional sleeve. Luckily he called us and we set things right for em, yet it could have easily been an abandoned order. I shutter to think over all the years just how many left for this very reason. Then of course you have the same thing occur, when and if the optional attribute has a price & only carries over once.

For this very reason, I built the Jewelry site removing the quantity field, to force them to have to come back to order again if they want more.... yet this also has generated calls asking why they cant buy more than one at a time... So for now I put the field back up as this seems to be the lessor of 2 evils at this point. Hopefully one day this can be addressed as im sure this must plague many other store owners in there own particular circumstances .

[William Davis]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I believe that in addition to the Title, Miva should also include in the first x characters of the message of the initial post in the Miva Merchant Community Forum "Update" emails, at least in the "Miva Merchant 5 Dream Feature" thread.

Sometimes the Title of the message may either be misunderstood, or not adequately summarize the thread content for some folks.

[Mark Hood]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

When doing an import it would be really nice to just be able to enter the ftp'd location of the import file.

Miva can create a huge export file size however it can not handle a browser upload of that same file?

[tracymds]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I just ran into a new feature that I could really use (b/c 2 of my workers went out on medical leave!) Because I am running low on shipping help, I've been forced to no longer ship all of my "pending" orders each day, but rather prioritize orders by shipping status, ie UPS next day, 2nd day, then USPS priority mail, and finally UPS ground & Parcel Post last. However, there is no way to sort for products via shipping type. This is a pretty big feature for me right now, b/c currently i have to sort through every single order and look for a priority shipping status.