Capturing additional order data

[glasgow]

I need to capture additional data at the time of order. This will be a non-trivial amount of information that could involve capture of several items via checkboxes, textboxes and even tables. I have made some headway by using a customised Product Layout - which at least gives me the chance of entering this data on-line. However, what would be the best way of physically storing this information - i.e. getting it to the server and, preferably, holding it with the 'standard' order database info?

Thanks in advance.

[NormanRouxel]

I've done an extension that allows the single Other Info input line to hold a large number of fields, some of which can be optional.

This info entered there is held in the shopping cart and passed to the order stage within Actinic. You can read more on www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/

If you must have checkbox items then it might be possible to use these to change a sub-field on the Other Info's (to Yes/No). Or you can just ask the Customer to enter Yes/No into a text field.

One other thing to watch out for is that Actinic pages are within <FORM..> tags so be careful of breaking them by creating your own FORMs (you can't have a FORM within a FORM).

[glasgow]

Thanks Norman.

It is feasible that I could have a form that needs to capture 30 plus different 'answers to questions'. I would expect answers to be specified via text boxes, radio buttons and dropdown lists. The responses would need to be validated. In addition to these I may need to capture tabular data with 4 columns (text, text, currency, date) and possibly even unlimited rows.

Are you suggesting that:

a) I may be able to capture this information using one of your patches?
b) I could use the "Extended Product Description for Customer Reports" field to pass this information through to the final order?

Thanks again.

[NormanRouxel]

If you've that much to capture and require validation then my Multi Other Info patch won't be enough. It's fine for capturing Name and Adress type data, but doesn't perform any sort of validation. It's also limited by the length of the Prompt being 255 characters and all your individual sub-prompts have to fit into this. Also the captured data is limited to 1000 characters. Both are Actinic limitations.

An alternative solution would be to add your own form fields and JavaScript validation code, then put all the data into a single additional parameter that is submitted along with the usual Actinic parameters. It is possible to patch ShoppingCart.pl and the cart management scripts to pick up such data and add it to the cart Contents but this involves Perl skills and isn't simple - and also leaves you with a non-standard Actinic. That data could then be added to the order process (by patching OrderScript.pl substituting it for the Extended Product Description data perhaps).

[glasgow]

Thanks for the honest reply and further suggestions Norman. I might just be able to handle the capture and validation stages but the Perl aspect might be more, er, challenging. I have raised a support incident on this and will see what emerges.