Order email layout

[mash]

Hi guys,

Have done a quick search on this subject, none of them really answer my question.

I am interest in knowing if you can change the layout of the email which is automatically sent when an order is completed online. The general feel as it is a text document you can do very little with it.

What I need to be able to do is either add the product reference and / or add a customvar which has the delivery date for the plant pack.

The reason being is that we sell plants through the year but with fixed delivery windows, April plants will be delivered in April, single order may have multiple delivery dates, and some customers are getting confused when the plant should arrive.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi Mash,

If you are using your own reference numbers (ie not autogenerated) and you do not hide them on the website then the reference numbers should be displayed automatically on the emails.

With regards to the delivery dates, do you get your customers to select a date using our 'date prompt' or are they fixed dates for each item that you already have custom property set for?

[mash]

Hi there, we do use our own codes for each product (APR-CABB-Caste would be cabbage grown in April), unsure if we want the codes on the site visible, may be a bit messy. Is there any other way of doing that?

If you go to http://www.organicplants.co.uk/acatalog/ you will see how we do it. It is just being able to link the delivery month with product. While you are there could you suggest a way of centring the images and text, the text is aligned with the left margin, nice to have it centred (Section images and associated words).

Is it possible to use custvars to hold delivery information?

Any thoughts would be grateful, kind regards Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi,

If you untick the 'View | Business Settings | Options | Hide Product Reference in Online Catalog' option and then make the following change to your product line template, then you can hide the reference on the product page but it will be displayed in the basket and therefore, will appear on the email:

- Search for:

NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTREF

- replace it with:

<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="NETQUOTEVAR:PRODUCTREF">

Save and close the template and update your site.

Alternatively, you could create a non-optional component for each product that has the title of the delivery month. This will then be added to the basket with each product too.

I can't see a way of getting the value of a custom property into the emails but will ask our development team.

While you are there could you suggest a way of centring the images and text, the text is aligned with the left margin, nice to have it centred

Looking at the source of your section list page, you already have an alignment in the cell for the section name but you have spelt it incorrectly. I can see:

<TD ALIGN="CENTRE" VALIGN="TOP">

but it should be

<TD ALIGN="CENTER" VALIGN="TOP">

Amend your section line template and update the site and it should work.

[mash]

Thank you, have correct the spelling issue, don't I feel little silly. Will have a look at the Product reference later on today hopefully.

I would be interested in the custom property as we were planning to use them to add harvet information for the plants and also use them for searching new products or special variety. Have not managed to get that to work.

Can not do everything, thank you for your help and have a great weekend, kind regards Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi Mash,

To get a custom property to show in the confirmation email, try the following:

-Create a custom property called DELIVERY (Advanced | Custom Properties)and define it for each product, note if all products in a section have the same delivery message then the CUSTOMVAR only needs to be defined at the section level.

- Edit 'c:\program files\actinic v7\sites\site1\OrderScript.pl' in a text editor such as notepad

- Search for '# Add product line', you should see...

#
# Add product line
#
MailOrderLine( $$pProduct{REFERENCE},
$$pProduct{NAME},
$$pOrderDetail{QUANTITY},
$CurrentItem{'PRICE'},
$CurrentItem{'COST'},
$nDescriptionColumnWidth,
@TableFormat
);

- change the above to...

#
# Add product line
#
MailOrderLine( $$pProduct{REFERENCE},
$$pProduct{NAME} . " Delivery:" . $$pProduct{CUSTOMVARS}{DELIVERY},
$$pOrderDetail{QUANTITY},
$CurrentItem{'PRICE'},
$CurrentItem{'COST'},
$nDescriptionColumnWidth,
@TableFormat
);

- Save and close the file and update your site.

[mash]

Tracey, thanks for your help on this, I was hoping to say that I had been successful however, alas no!

Completed the instructions to the letter and still no success, keen to crack this.

Current result from the email

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aubergine ''Black Beauty'' 5 £2.30 £11.50
+ Postage 5

Did try the reference idea but it made the email quite messy plus should the reference to the postage.

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
REF DESCRIPTION QUANTITY
PRICE COST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
APR-AUB-24U-BlBeu Aubergine ''Black Beauty'' 5
£2.30 £11.50
APR-PandP + Postage 5

Through my testing ideas they are going to think that we had loads of orders! Any thoughts would be appreciated, did enter it at the section level and the product to see if that made any difference.

Once agains, thanks Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi Mash,

It has worked for me with the custom property at the product level. Have you ticked the 'Use as Customvar' option in the properties tab?

[mash]

Hi have been out all day, will try and report back, kind regards Mash

[mash]

Sadly this is not working for some reason, does it matter which email it sends out, email is being generated from "Act_CustomerEmail", thought it may be due to the fact that I had not refreshed the site, just doing that now but it is taking an age, already crashed once!

Just about to rush out so it will be at the end of play when I see the results.

Thanks for your help, take care Mash

[mash]

Hi, I refreshed tha site and the dalivery date did turn up in the email however as you will see there was a lost of information:

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
----------------------------------------------------------------------
30 4 Delivery:10th April 2006 £2.30
30
30
+ Postage 4
30 1 Delivery: £2.30
30
30
+ Postage 1

Unsure what happened here, have refreshed the site with an earlier snapshot, hopefully will sort this issue but that does take us back a step, any ideas.

Thanks Mash

[mash]

Right I have tried a number of times getting the delivery date into the email, however, it becomes formated with out the product name as in my last posting. Is there any way of over coming this and increasing the width of the email?

Anyway thoughts, do let me know, kind regards Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi Mash,

Sorry for the delay in replying but when I test out the above I get:

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Calculator Delivery:March 1 £8.51 £8.51
======================================================================
Subtotal: £8.51
Order Adjustment Example: £0.85
Shipping (Second Class Post): £0.71
VAT: £1.76
Total: £11.83

The posting has lost the correct formatting but I think you can see that it works.

Can you post your OrderScript.pl file (zipped) so I can check it out for you. I will need to know the exact version of Actinic you are using (Help | About..).

[mash]

Tracey, no worries, I am currently juggling so much that it was just another spinning plate!

Attached is the required zip. Currently using 7.0.3.0.0.0.FIBA but only last night I downlaoded the patch v706GBGAUKPatch to install soon.

I guess that March can be a date, I did set up a txt file for each delivery period so that the date could be entered at that point updating all the relevant products as with any plants they determine when they are ready!

Thanks for the help, kind regards Mash

[TraceyG]

Hi Mash,

The script you posted did not have the amendment on it. When I made the change as per my posting above it worked ok for me.

I guess that March can be a date

March is just the text that I put into the value field of the delivery property for the product - this can be whatever you want it to be.

I did set up a txt file for each delivery period so that the date could be entered at that point updating all the relevant products as with any plants they determine when they are ready!

What do you mean by this?