A Moan about offline ordering & subsequent I wish

[pinkequine]

I have a lot of trade customers who order over the phone or by fax. There are several problems.

Before you have first saved the order
1. If you input an order line, then go back to it to change an option e.g different size or colour, it messes up the preview on the offline order screen, and also any subsequent reports, everything you have changed seems to get lumped into other order lines.
2. If I have hidden producs, I'd like them to be ... hidden! Which means I don't want 1,000's of items to trawl through to be able to select the ones I want.

After you have saved the order
1. If you cancel an order line, it still shows it on the screen and also the reports. If it is cancelled I don't want to see it.... because its cancelled.
2. If you add an order line, it messes up the preview on the offline order screen and also any subsequent reports, everything you have changed gets lumped into other order lines.
3. You CANNOT amend an order line, you have to cancel it, why!


I am absolutely tearing my hair out over this, the invoices look an absolute mess if you make any changes and I can't possibly send these out to customers, they would not be able to understand them. This leaves me having to cancel the order and re-input the whole thing from scratch!

I have raised a bug over this, as its not just invoices/packing lists that are affected it is all the reports. PLEASE PLEASE can this be high on the priority list.

Thankyou

[TraceyHand]

I agree, Denise and I often find myself cancelling a whole order to input an new one too rather than send out an amended invoice etc

I also don't like the way it displays choices different depending on whether you select the associated product from the menu or the choice from the list.
Even though the catalog is set up as "no orderline for main product...use associated product name etc...which works fine on the website... if you select from the radio buttons in the offline ordering, it displays as the main items with component/attribute/choice selections...which, IMO, is wrong

I do believe there is an overhaul of the offline order in progress already though so here's hoping these "bugs" are addressed.

[pinkequine]

Hi

seems like both you and I have the same views on the back end reports. I am just contemplating deleting a large order and re-doing it as we speak.

I do try to get my trade customers to order online, but most are still really old fashioned and would much rather pick up the phone **sighs** online the ordering works fab!!

All these problems actually relate back to stock, because the changes I have to make are due to things being ordered that are now not in stock. I am hoping to sort this out when Jan at Mole End sends me the permutations, she has this new program that creates them all for you and saves A TON of time!! Then I can input all the stock correctly saving and will know before I have even finalised an order if it is in stock YIPPEE!!!!

There is still the problem if someone changes their mind or adds/cancels part of their order, but hopefully it will be less of a problem.

I recall that you agreed with me on the stock functions of Actinic too.. I'm sure as I learn the program more will surface.. I seem to have this knack of finding bugs/problems or limitations in functionality. I think the last company I used were probably jumping for Joy when I left. You could almost hear their voices groan when they heard my voice on the line!!!

[TraceyHand]

You could almost hear their voices groan when they heard my voice on the line!!!

Believe me, I know that feeling!

and yes, anything relating to "stock issues" usually pricks my ears up LOL

[george]

Leaving `cancelled` items on an invoice has been a long time rank rotten issue with Catalog.

[Darren B]

I have to agree, i tend to place order online now, and just select we will contact you for you card details, when i comes to payemnt

i prefer this method as i use postcode lookup and it make address filling in easier. and i get the eaxt cost and shipping charges.

D

[cdicken]

Denise et al

Thanks for you thoughts and suggestions. I have fed them back to the development team. There are some changes at the moment in our Enterprise version of Actinic, which scraps the current wizard in favour of a single screen that you use for selecting products and taking address details. That should be finding its way into a future version.

I have fed back the frustrations with the cancelled order lines to the development team.

[Mike Hughes]

Chris, can I add a suggestion here?

There are cases where it would be correct to keep a cancelled item on the database and reports. It's important for auditing customer refunds and checking orders for questions along the line of "I have this confirmation email with this item on it, why didn't I receive it?".

What I would like to see though is the ability to 'delete' an item from the order for occasions such as an order entry error (for example, but use of the 'delete item' button should not be restricted).

So:

- a 'canceled' item would stay on the database and reports.
- a 'deleted' item would disappear.

Would this keep people happy?

Mike

[TraceyHand]

I was thinking about this too, Mike

I'm thinking the ability to remove an orderline in an order made online by a CUSTOMER, is a no-no

But there is a need to be able to remove altogether erroneous or cancelled orderlines made OFFLINE..either as offline orders or as offline adjustments/additions to existing orders.

[Darren B]

Add a vote for me, sometimes i use it when customers have changed there minds or alternative stocks are offered

[Mike Hughes]

Three other requests for offline ordering:

1. The customer details should only be needed once the list of ordered items is complete. No one wants to give their address until it's been agreed what (if anything) they're going to order. It might work as it is for business customers who are ordering from an established supplier but its useless for new customers in B2C.

2. Offline ordering shows the ex-vat prices (when set to inclusive prices) which is nonsense. I did see a bug report on this from a month or so ago with no reply. If not a bug, then please advise how to work around, otherwise fix.

3. Discussed before, but always a good one. Offline ordering needs to have price over-rides for ebay sales, etc. For this I need to be able to enter the prices including VAT and have actinic do the ex-vat calculation.

Mike

[cdicken]

Hi there

I've passed these onto the development team, but Actinic Enterprise has a revamped order entry screen which deals with most of the requested changes, and that should be rolled into the standard v9 (though maybe not all versions of it).

[Darren B]

Nice to see you again chris, poor old bruce has had a beating while you've been out the office.

Does this mean you will catch up with some of the other stuff going on aswell or is this a flying visit

[TraceyHand]

poor old bruce has had a beating

wasn't me

[cdicken]

I still moderate the forums, every day (even though I haven't been posting as much as I used to) so I've been feeling the heat as well as Bruce, never fear