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Author Topic: editing emails and other customer centric forms  (Read 8831 times)

Offline llegrand

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editing emails and other customer centric forms
« on: February 01, 2014, 05:37:12 PM »

While trying to change the email customers receive when an order has been placed I encountered some difficulty in the process of change.  I was able to figure it out,  but it more complex than this great cart should be.


With the files that are in the cart upload the syntax is poor - it says
Thank your for interest in (your busines name) products. Your order has been received and will be processed once payment has been confirmed.


At the least it should say
Thank you for your interest in (your busines name) products. Your order has been received and will be processed once payment has been confirmed.


But the real issue here is the process to make a change:
   First needed to search board and documentation - docs have no help,  board came up with this
   It is send by default. If you need to edit text look into:
   
   Model:
   storefront/model/checkout/order.php
   Template:
   storefront/view/default_html5/template/mail/order_confirm.tpl
   
So that got me to the template where one has to read the code to find the string  so you can
locate it within the Language Definitions or one can waste many tries on search hoping to find the string that is being used.  These are too difficult for a lot of users and more difficult than it should be for any user.


It is critical to customer relationships that the cart owner should be able to say on the emails text that is relevant to their business and at the least,  if Abantecart is going to pre-fill then the syntax needs to be correct, at the least.


Please consider enhancing this great cart by adding admin areas that show the form, email whatever and gives the link to the place there the language definitions are that control what is used.  One can't even use firebug on the emails to figure out what it might be called. 


My suggestion would be to add a section in the Design called Forms with something similar to the Layouts.  Ideally see the rendered form with the changeable UI showing would be quite  helpful


gordontaylor

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2014, 01:43:58 AM »
Yes, Lee and I worked on this, she found the place where the emails are generated.

I'm not being critical, but obviously the automatic email message were not set up by a native English speaker.

This is way beyond anything a newbie or a non-coder would be able to do.

It would be nice to be able to customize those email responses to ones particular store.

I would be happy to redo the XML page where those definitions are stored and perhaps it can be run as an update.

While the English is properly spelled, it's the grammar that is wrong ... something lost in translation no doubt.

If you'd like, I'll redo the text and email it to help (at)abantecart.com

Just need an OK from someone.

gordontaylor

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2014, 01:53:57 AM »

But the real issue here is the process to make a change:
   First needed to search board and documentation - docs have no help,  board came up with this
   It is send by default. If you need to edit text look into:
   
   Model:
   storefront/model/checkout/order.php
   Template:
   storefront/view/default_html5/template/mail/order_confirm.tpl

Exactly Lee, and that isn't even the right path it returned. It's not showing you the whole thing. Luckily I have everything in Dreamweaver, here is a screenshot of the path to the xml document.

The average user with no skills in finding and reading code would be completely lost.

Offline junkyard

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2014, 07:15:18 AM »
Exactly. Since XMLs are loaded into the cart's SQL only once (at the initial cart setup), in order for someone to change the spelling she would have to work with the System > Language Definitions filtering out a block name as  "mail" ,   possibly to get lost in 3 pages of keys and translations. To select the right key,  non-coders have to sign up as a test customer and trace back the key by the text in an email notification received in the Inbox.

While doable, there are situations when right block/key pair is too hard to guess from its name without checking the code.  On the one hand, editing Definitions is cool and straightforward when you get used to it. On the other, we don't know if this is correct approach to rely on the Definitions that much in the cart.

We understand it's difficult to implement things like this --  http://forum.abantecart.com/index.php/topic,1253.0.html :  simple WYSIWYG editor will not work because notifications are made of placeholders, not just a free text; and to combine both, you'd need something like the Design layout screen Lee mentioned.  Or users would need to learn every placeholder and put it into the editor text themselves...  Would it become a placeholder nightmare prone to errors and make the cart overly complex?   Just thinking how to facilitate managing that for new AC admins without making it worse.   Maybe an easy way to find the right block/key pair for a non-coder would be OK,  like a documented layout of each notification where each block/key pair is shown near default text, formatted as image or PDF doc linked from the admin panel ?  It could be just part of the ecommerce-documentation, if there was way to make sure that new AC user would know it's there (currently there's no definite screen to link the help icon to, for the notifications).

Wish we could remove that Logo image from all e-mailed notifications, anyway..  :)

Offline llegrand

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2014, 10:30:59 AM »
Thanks Gordon and Junkyard for helping here.  It seems like such a small thing,  but in the matter of customer relations it's really a biggie.  And making it "findable" for all would be a great assist. 

Junkyard -  in regards to the email footer -  the new extension WhiteLabel - (10 bucks in the store) does give you control over the footer and all other footers  - storefront and admin, too.  But it needs to be 1.1.8+.  Nice thing about that is extensions means we don't need to change it every update :)




gordontaylor

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2014, 10:49:56 AM »
You are so-o-o-o-o-o correct Lee. Today, as it's always been, your business is only as good as it's customer service.

In my retirement, I developed a new career and I was teaching customer service to many major corporations - and doing it remotely.

Even biggies like Walmart is suffering from poor customer service...in their case it's practically non-existent.


Offline Frankie

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Re: editing emails and other customer centric forms
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2016, 09:46:53 AM »
How could add fields to the confirmation email and not only edit what you already have . I speak of making a query to the database and display additional information in the confirmation email ? I have done the SQL queries but I have problems displaying queries in the template order_confirm.tpl

Cómo podría agregarle campos al email de confirmación y no solo editar lo que ya tiene. Hablo de hacer una consulta a la BD y mostrar información adicional en el email de confirmación? He hecho las consultas SQL pero tengo problemas al mostrar las consultas en el template order_confirm.tpl

 

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