Stock control!

[leehack]

Do gift vouchers while you are there, you will retire within 6 months.

[gabrielcrowe]

while i wish an elegant solution was this simple, there are a host of problems related to this.

i was considering hijacking the buy button and then dealing with the lack of stock using script, thats easy...

but where does the stock information come from? i was thinking an sql database, that populates the dropdown, as the page builds with some ajax, therefore making it impossible to order those things out of stock.

where on the receipt page, there would ahve to be something that removes the exact item from stock. the stock would have to basically be a large table with all permutations of item in it.

this pipedream is actually possible, but the work required and the problems encountered when detecting the dropdowns per product and populating all the feasable combinations of items make this job a silly difficult one.

if this were a curry, it'd be a vindaloo, and if it were a difficulty level on halo, it'd be 'legendary'.

suffice to say, this functionality is beyond actinic. realistically.

[RuralWeb]

suffice to say, this functionality is beyond actinic. realistically

But when V8 arrived we were told it would allow fantastic things to happen - to date I am still waiting to be really impressed.

[Darren B]

suffice to say, this functionality is beyond actinic. realistically.

I was getting worried for a minute, i thought you were going to admit defeat, but alas you pulled back just before, my faith has been restored, more to do with limitations of actinic than you

D

[Darren B]

But when V8 arrived we were told it would allow fantastic things to happen - to date I am still waiting to be really impressed.

They did happen, design snapshots did not work, credit card numbers disappear, now that one is magic

D

[gabrielcrowe]

i thought you were going to admit defeat

i diddnt say anything of the sort sir. The game, is still afoot.

[fergusw]

a question to actinic programmers listening in:

what _exactly_ happens when actinic changes a single stock level. is this in the cat files?

so... the drop downs on the html page and the cat file? is that it?

My understanding is that there are no numeric stock levels held online by Actinic.
I may be wrong, but I thought it maintains the Stock levels 'state' in the .CAT files. There looks to be some simple flags in the CAT files

'MIN_QUANTITY_ORDERABLE' => 1, 'MAX_QUANTITY_ORDERABLE' => 2, 'OUT_OF_STOCK' => 0

This looks as if upon order download and local stock level adjustments the 'OUT_OF_STOCK' flag most likely gets set to 1, and hence when someone adds to cart the cgi returns the out of stock message.
Also, Actinic manges the changing of the HTML to display "Out of stock" messages where appropriate as well.

To get around this you would need to: {aimed at Gabe}

1. Generate a stocklevel.fil file which holds numeric stock levels online, prod ref, relevant CAT file association etc
2. Edit cart perl script files to decrement the stock level
3. Edit the cart perl script files to change the 'OUT_OF_STOCK' flag to 1 for the relevant CAT file once stock level gets set to zero in said stockelevel.fil file

The inherent problems with this are synchronicity with stock levels locally e.g. offline ordering ,back ordering, permutations etc amongst others.....

[Darren B]

i diddnt say anything of the sort sir. The game, is still afoot.

I know i was just getting worried, thats all

[gabrielcrowe]

Edit cart perl script files

God, i completely hate perl.

[RuralWeb]

God, i completely hate perl.

Guess that the end of the stock control debate then

[fergusw]

God, i completely hate perl.

Altogether now....

.oO~
Perls a stinger
It screws up when it runs the program(mo)
In a server
~Oo.

am I showing my age?

"edited to add - that song is almost a western pop haiku!"

[gabrielcrowe]

i think that propertyless products would be quite easy.

but the permutations and costings of the more complex items would be a nightmare.

[Mike Hughes]

I would simplify Fergus' suggestion and use the 'MAX_QUANTITY_ORDERABLE' field in the .cat file as a proxy for the stock level.

Then 'all' you have to do is reduce the quantity when items are ordered and set the out of stock variable when it reaches 0.

It would never be 100% accurate as the item could be in several carts at the same time, but it should be better than it is at present.

Mike

This sounds like the kind of thing that Actinic could probably do fairly easily themselves.

[fergusw]

i think that propertyless products would be quite easy.

but the permutations and costings of the more complex items would be a nightmare.

Yeah - I think for simple "1 product 1 add to cart" models your AJAX "add to cart" button hijack would be the most likely solution.

I'm assuming you are thinking of some kind of mysql database updated with stock levels with an AJAX PHP call for each add to cart button, only displaying button if stock level > 0, and upon clicking it would call another AJAX php page to decrement mySQL stock level before posting data onto to add to cart cgi?

[fergusw]

I would simplify Fergus' suggestion and use the 'MAX_QUANTITY_ORDERABLE' field in the .cat file as a proxy for the stock level.

Then 'all' you have to do is reduce the quantity when items are ordered and set the out of stock variable when it reaches 0.

It would never be 100% accurate as the item could be in several carts at the same time, but it should be better than it is at present.

Mike

good point, well made.
Just need someone to mod the perl files to decrement the order amount when order is complete online.