Hot off the presses, figuratively speaking, it’s Affiliate Manger - Login for 5.x!

Like it’s 4.x predecessor, the Affiliate Manager - Login module provides an interface that Affiliate Manager affiliates can use to view and/or modify (that bit is optional) their personal and referral data including hits, orders, payouts paid, and payout’s due. The layout and content of the pages are entirely configurable from within the module’s admin; the outer portions of the Merchant pages are maintained by Merchant “page templates”; and the main content is configured by the module’s own “templates and token”. The best of both worlds in that you can control things like the navigation bar, category tree, outer table, etc. in the same manner that you do with stock Merchant but you can control the main contents of the page from within the module’s main admin with our more robust, module specific, tokens.

Continue reading Hot off the presses, figuratively speaking, it’s Affiliate Manger - Login for 5.x!…

Update on Pulse

Well…we’d hoped to have this ready today but I have a shortened day–celebrating a belated Chinese New Year at my son’s (and wife’s) school. There are several cosmetic issues that need addressing but, more importantly, it hasn’t been tested extensively yet under the same condition that you will encounter when you install it, i.e. when the logs are still empty. So profuse apologies for the delay. Hopefully we can get some time over the weekend and have it ready for Monday.

Here are some screenshots so you know that it really does exist:

Product Flyout - AJAX has arrived!

The world of AJAX has arrived in module form to the world of Miva Merchant! We have just released a new 4.x module, Product Flyout, that allows you to mouse over products in your store and see a pop-up displaying the product name and description (think Netflix). Product Flyout requires our template modules and the OpenUI to work properly. Register Product Flyout as a Third Party Token, replace a token or two in your templates, and you will have dynamic pop-ups in your store!

The module is currently compatible with:

• (added 3/10/08) Storefront Template
• Category Page Templates
• Other Page Templates
• Product Page Templates (mainly for use in the related products template)
• Search Manager

The module is in beta and is selling at a discounted price of $40. After we test it out and work out the kinks, it will be priced at $49.95.

http://vikingcoders.com/go.mv?ID=LC_FLYOUT

We plan on releasing a 5.x version of this module as well. Be on the lookout for other AJAX modules over the coming weeks and months!

- Luis

Affiliate Manager 5 and Other Development Campaigns

I’m always surprises me at how quickly time passes (Thursday already!?). By now you’d think I would have adjusted my expectations. I had intended to post every few days but that didn’t last long.

The update of Affiliate Manager to compatibility with Merchant 5.x (although it’s a bit of a stretch to call it an upgrade given how much re-writing had to be done) has been done for a number of weeks now but the development of the module is still on going. It was my intent to add the ability to permit “product specific” payout configuration (i.e. the ability to, on an affiliate-by-affiliate basis, set different payouts for different products) to the initial release. However, I ran into some indecision on how best to implement it which slowed it down enough to get left out. I am still working on it but the indecision remains on how best to go about it. I polled a few developers who were looking for the features for their opinion on how they saw it as working but I never got a reply. So, I’ll lay out some possibilities and see if any one out there has an opinion (more specifically an opinion on how best to go about it….we all have opinions but not all are particularly relevant to this particular question).

In earlier versions of the module, “product specific” payouts were sort of a hack (and that hack still works in 5.x). The merchant would set each product’s “cost” to a particular value, then configure each affiliate’s payout to be based on a % of the product’s cost and thereby achieving a variable payout for each affiliate. Of course that kept you from using the cost field for anything else, but it was a nice representative of that “bang a square peg into a round hole” mentality that typified the glory days of Merchant (ahhh, the memories).

In the 5.x version of the module I’d like to add this as a more particular option configurable on each product’s page in admin. The question is how far to take it; how many options are really going to be used? Currently, each affiliate can have their payouts configured as a percentage (of the price paid, product cost, list price, or “profit”), a “per purchase” payout, and/or a “per product” payout. And each of these can be configured separately depending on what “level” the a referral was. Do we need that many configurable options for the prdouct-specific payouts? Would it be safe to assume that product-specific configurations would be necessary only for “primary” affiliates (i.e. those directly responsible for the referral)?

I’m currently in the process of upgrading/re-writing the Affiliate Login module and hope to have that ready next week. After that will be a new module, Affiliate Design which will replace the “Affiiate store-settings” feature of Affiliate Manager 4.x. I’m not entirely certain how best to go about changing the Merchant 5.x templates but I’m sure I’ll get it worked out.

ELM5 Scheduled for release in the New Year

ELM5, now renamed Pulse will be released as a public beta in early January. The module has been rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of the superior database power available when using mysql. As such, the module will not be available for mivasql stores–the overhead and limited functionality of dbase just does not make sense for a data intensive module like this. If you’re not sure which database you are using, click on Main in your admin and in the top right corner, you’ll see something like:

Production Release 3
Miva Merchant Engine v5.06
Database API: mysql

mysql is the magic word here. If you’re not using mysql, you may want to take advantage of the free Miva Merchant mysql conversion tool.
If you’ve used ELM Stats previously and there’s something you felt was missing from it that you’d like to see in the 5.x version, please let us know in the comments.

Simple Pay/Simple Ship for Phone Order Manager 5 and cURL for Soft Goods

This week we managed to knock out a couple of improvements to existing modules: the Simple Pay/Ship that we supply with Phone Order Manager 4 are now included with the 5.x version also.

With the restrictions some hosts place on php, particularly with regard to (the admittedly dangerous) allow_url_fopen, some store owners were unable to use Soft Goods. We have now release a download script that uses cURL instead.

Under Development

Next up on the code mill:

ELM 5

Payment module with configurable fields (a/k/a/ BROK_XTRAFIELDS) 5

Followed by Affiliate Manager 5 and Soft Goods 5.

Update, 8/13/07: We’re expecting ELM5 to take 6-8 weeks, as it is being rewritten from scratch (and a lot has changed in Merchant 5 with regard to the logging functions so we need to do a lot more manual capturing of parameters). Mike is returning from vacation today so I’ll follow up with news on Affiliate Manager 5 once I speak with him

–Bret.

USPS Advanced 5 BETA release

USPS Advanced 5 is finally ready for a beta release. Grab it now and help us work out any kinks. (Hey, it’s 7000+ lines of code and has all the complex functionality of our FedEx and UPS modules so there are bound to be some issues!)

We will have the documentation available for this next week (August 6 +)

USPS API Changes #2

5/13/07: USPS International users can download an update that will provide rate calculations using the new shipping method names. Click the “Check for upgrade” link within your module. The rate server appears to be working with these new names already.

…whereas it isn’t for domestic rates. We will therefore release a tentative update for USPS Advanced on Monday morning.

5/14/07: Version 4.003 has been released. This version addresses many of the required API changes. Unfortunately, the USPS rate server is not responding so the module–and all other USPS modules–will not be able to calculate rates. The rate server has returned and rates are being returned correctly.

USPS International users should upgrade to version 3.23 if they are not receiving the new rates.

USPS Advanced users should download version 4.004

USPS API Changes

We are still working our way through the details and testing out the changes as we go, but here’s a summary regarding the May 14 changes:

The forthcoming USPS rate changes have lead to some major changes in their API. Our USPS Advanced shipping module will support most of these changes. USPS Domestic and USPS International will only support changes that are applicable at the global level, e.g. the renaming of several international shipping methods. These two modules do not have the capability to support product or category-level changes, such as dimensional weights, the First Class mail types, etc.

The release of USPS Advanced and the forthcoming changes have lead to us stop selling the older two modules, USPS Domestic and USPS International. As mentioned above, we will continue to support current users by updating the modules to accommodate certain global-level features in response to the API changes. Anyone using USPS as a key component of their shipping activities will be much better served by USPS Advanced.

The international name changes are nicely summarized here.

The updates will be available prior to the May 14 switchover. Watch this space.

5/9/07: updates to USPS International are currently being tested. This update will be available prior to the 14th but should not be installed till then. Updates for USPS Advanced are 80% complete, with just dimensional weights still outstanding. We expect this part to go quite smoothly as it’s something we’ve done before in UPS Custom and FedEx Advanced. This too will be available before the 14th.