Capturing product additional data when buying

[phil64]

Hi everybody,

 

and thanks to all the participants to the osCommerce project. You've done a terrific job, and the product is very valuable.

I'd like to use it to power our shop. But so far, I could not find an existing solution to handle a few specificities we have. Before going to a painful customization, I wonder if anybody would have a suggestion.

 

Thanks in advance for yor help.

Phil.

 

business requirement 1 :

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We sell golden medals to hang to a neckchain.

Whenever a customer buys a medal, we want him to choose one chain (or none) and to decide to have the medal engraved or not. We don't want to validate the medal selection until he has made a choice on chain and engraving. We also need to capture a name and up to 2 dates to be engraved on to the selected medal. In addition, the customer has to choose fonts, styles and position on the medal for the captured text.

 

We look for answers to the following questions :

 

11. How to link to engraving and chain selection process from the medal product detailed description page ?

12. How do we ensure this process has been done before validating the order line ?

13. How to capture name and dates for a specific medal ?

14. How to store these name and dates into the order ?

15. How to link the engraving data to a specific medal in the order ? (The customer might order more than one medal, with different data).

 

business requirement 2 :

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We'd like to have our webSite dataBase synchronized with our local information system. We'd like to avoid capturing the same information twice, to be efficient and avoid possible errors. We anticipate to exchange XML messages both ways.

 

21. Is there a way to easily generate XML messages from the osCommerce dataBase ? For example, a complete purchase order.

22. Is there a way to update the osCommerce dataBase with XML messages ? For example, a new product, a new category or a price change.

[Guest]

for the main section, fairly easy using options for the products, as you can have an option for a chain, if yes, the size of the chain, option for engraving, if yes, what they want engraved, can even have the font/format they want done with it, so those are fairly easy.

 

now for the second part for local info system, you will need to do custom programming. you did not give enough info on your local info system, as to what type it is, what it is written in, etc, etc.

customization is pretty much what needs to be done.

[Guest]

dang system sent it twice . . .

[phil64]

Hi John, thx for yr answer.

 

I've considered options before my post. It seems OK for fonts, styles and positioning. But I didn't find the right way to meet the other requirements :

 

1. How do you capture customer information such as names and dates to engrave ? To my understanding, options have fixed descriptions handled in the admin module.

 

2. In which field(s) do you store the captured info in the order ?

 

3. Chains are products that can be bought separately from the medals. It doesn't seem very convenient to have them as options.

 

For the second part, somebody else will handle the local system. I'm only responsible for the webSite. We'll both agree on the exchange messages, and process them according to the relevant system (and dataBase) needs.

[straid]

Hi Philippe

 

I am doing the same sort of thing in a shop I am developing. Try going to this link

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,160

 

and download and install Chandra Roukema's Option Type Feature v1.6.

 

It adds the option of adding text boxes to your products attributes so customer

 

information can be collected. Hope this helps.

 

Straid

[phil64]

Hi Roy,

Thanks for your answer.

I expected to be notified by eMail of every new answer. I probably missed it ;-)

 

I'll have a look at the contribution you mentioned, but I've started my own customization already.

 

Phil.