Can any part of your day to day be automated?

[burt]

All we needed to do was to create a list of all products with numbers sold over 1, 2, 3, 6 ands 12 months and it now produces data on the information we give it. Improving some of the outdated reports

In the last couple of months I've been working on something I call "Pulse Analytics" - this analytics system has the ability to track all sorts of things and produce quite interesting reports.

Pulses are things like;

product_viewed
product_purchased
checkout_start
checkout_end
customer_login
... and so on.

I'm still sort of working on it when I have time and effort.

[burt]

Our biggest time waster is adding tracking information when we update the order status and then need to do the same to update Paypal. We use order comments to add in tracking data which gets added to the order status update email. On days we have over 40-50 orders and it takes time to manually enter this info. No idea how to automate it though.

Paypal have an API for that;

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/track ... integrate/

I'm unsure if @BrockleyJohn integrated it into his Paypal apps

[BrockleyJohn]

Our biggest time waster is adding tracking information when we update the order status and then need to do the same to update Paypal. We use order comments to add in tracking data which gets added to the order status update email. On days we have over 40-50 orders and it takes time to manually enter this info. No idea how to automate it though.

Paypal have an API for that;

https://developer.paypal.com/docs/track ... integrate/

I'm unsure if @BrockleyJohn integrated it into his Paypal apps

Not yet - needs a bit of thought to be widely usable. Probably more thought / research than work in it actually.

[burt]

Circling back on this...as I read something earlier which reminded me.

Automation is not simply "doing the same thing faster".
The real shift is when it frees you to do something completely different with that time.

With that in mind, is there anything in your work process, that could be automated...

[MyGamesShop]

Have the search bar opened without the additional click in the Categories / Products page. Like it used to be.
I input in the same format for each added product which I cut and paste then edit in the new product details. (Maybe an editable default template for new product for product description)

[AsTecModels]

There must be some really dull and boring part of your day-to-day shopowning experience...that can be eased?

FOR EXAMPLE

Let's say you get 20 orders overnight;

admin > orders.php
select the earliest of the overnight orders
click "invoice"
wait.
print it
click "packing slip"
wait
print it
back to admin > orders.php

Repeat 20 times.

How long? Let's say 20 minutes.

Instead, do this;

admin > batch

select the 20 orders
click print invoice
click print packing slip

How long: 1 minute

There must be more processes that are so dull like this, that we can make easier?

That would be ideal, and the same for the packing label.
Also have the queued emails automatically send out.

[14Steve14]

That would be ideal, and the same for the packing label.
Also have the queued emails automatically send out.

The batch actions modules are a time saver. So simple to use and well worth the initial investment alone. It saves us so much time every day. We print two copies of each invoice, one for our records, and one for the customer. It would be great if there was a way to send a PDF of each of the invoices rather than printing so may be worth a chat with Gary with that thought.

We also use batch actions to create a CSV which can be uploaded to our postal service, Royal Mail, which again saves so much time rather than adding them one at a time. If people wanted to speak to Gary I am sure he could create something to print the packing labels, but that may be harder depending on all the options for label sheets, but it may be worth the ask and may not as much as some would think, and would benefit other users as well.

I thought there was an option to send out the queued emails automatically. We use a cron job once a day, at midday, and never touch the system.

[burt]

Making a Cron job to send Queued Emails is literally one line of code in a file:

Code: Select all

<?php 
\Outgoing::sendEmail();

Save it shop-side in /ext/scripts/ or where-ever you want.
Then Cron to that file using whatever mechanism your hosting control panel provides.

[burt]

Have the search bar opened without the additional click in the Categories / Products page. Like it used to be.

Why not just change it to suit your particular need?

Alternatively;
Create a Hook which fires the collapse to an "open" state.

[Dan Cole]

@14Steve14 It would be great if there was a way to send a PDF of each of the invoices rather than printing so may be worth a chat with Gary with that thought.

John has a PDF Invoice add-on that can be purchased on his CartMart site and I bet he could tie it into your batch editor to do what you want. I'm not certain, but I think it was rewritten to use newer dependencies to make it more useful and easier to install.

Dan