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[Resolved] Gift Certificates - I can't see the details of Gift Certificates ordered


BooJewels

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I upgraded my CC3 store to CC6 earlier this summer and received a lot of help here and it has been running well since.  I've added a few mods and thought I was pretty much sorted, until I re-instated my Christmas ordering page and edited it for this year.  I realised that I had never tested the Gift Certificates, having set the variables some months ago.  Thankfully I haven't sold one in this time, but if I am likely to, it'll be at this time of year.

Having now tested them, they don't appear to be working well - as Admin, I don't see any of the information the customer adds when ordering, such as their message, name of the recipient and even their choice of email or physical Certificate.  Therefore I am currently unable to process the Certificates on their behalf.  I've temporarily changed it to post only, so that an e-mail isn't sent to the recipient and I've edited the language file to ask the customer to email me their requirements instead.

All I see in Admin for an order is that it's a Gift Certificate that's been ordered and the value.  The code for it (presumably the bit the customer/recipient would enter in the cart for payment) only appears in the Gift Certificate tab of the coupon area of admin.

I'm using v. 6.0.11 and with a modded custom skin eTone.  I do have Force Order Completed Emails selected.  The process seems to work as expected, but the data entered isn't sent to me or the customer making the purchase - it isn't there in their account if I log in as the customer.

My Gift Certificate page is:  https://www.boo-creations.co.uk/shop/gift-certificates.html

What am I missing?  In my testing, I've not paid for the certs I've bought, but have manually changed the order status from Pending to Completed - with email GCs, this then generates a message to the named recipient, but I (nor the customer who bought it) can see the details.  Can failing to physically pay prevent it from working properly?

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Perhaps the programmers never thought there to be a reason why the store's admin would have a requirement to view the comment posted by the purchaser to be read by the recipient?

So, I do not see any code that will reveal to the purchaser or admin any of the details about the purchase of the GC other than the amount purchased.

We can certainly add code to show this.

 

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59 minutes ago, bsmither said:

Perhaps the programmers never thought there to be a reason why the store's admin would have a requirement to view the comment posted by the purchaser to be read by the recipient?

Maybe on the email version, but if it's a card that I'm creating to post to the recipient, then surely I absolutely must see it.  I have customers overseas who either order goods to be sent to family in the UK for gifts, or in some cases, certificates.  Almost all of the ones I've done have been of this nature (I used to sell them in CC3 as a product in the shop with price options - but that made managing the value and part purchases a little clumsy) - where I print a card and send it to the recipient on behalf of the gift-giver.

How easy would it be to add this option, so that whatever they fill in the form on the Gift Certificate page becomes part of the order page in admin?

I was hoping that I was just being thick and just doing something wrong.

Alternatively, would it be easier to remove the Recipient Name and Message boxes from the GC page and leave a note instead asking them to put the details in the comment box during checkout, then it appears to me as 'Note from'?

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It would be fairly easy to add the details to the admin's Order Summary page.

Alternatively, swapping out the Comments box (leave the Name box because it is used in the To: field of the email) for a note to leave your message in the Checkout Comments box is also do-able.

The first solution offers an interesting possibility of creating a second Print icon (showing only if the order has a GC) to print the GC using a full-blown template.

I also want to add this observation: a GC is "real money". That is, many government jurisdictions require that a GC never lose its value over time, nor eventually expire. Nor be "locked" to its intended recipient. So, I would say not to be non-plussed if the GC code is used by a customer you were not expecting.

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As the Gift Certificates don't work as I might reasonably expect, I think I'd prefer to disable the current version of them.  Seems like there too many ways it potentially won't work well.  Even if I only offered it by e-mail, every single one I have done by e-mail manually, the customer has asked for it to be sent on a specific day, for a birthday or something, they don't necessarily want it going out at the moment they order.

It seems as though I can re-enable my old gift voucher product (imported from CC3 and currently disabled) which used product options for the customer to choose a value.  It looks like I can then allocate that order number to a coupon code of their chosen value that then works like a Gift Certificate and it will track the value as it's partially used. I just tried it and then spent most of it and the balance remaining showed That will still be an improvement over how I was doing it [rather clumsily] previously and on how it seems to work through CubeCart at present.  I already have a template that I paste the recipient's name and message for into along with the gift certificate code - to either print and post or send to either party as a pdf.

As for the legal aspects of GCs - I did research this at the time I enabled them and whilst what you say is true; some jurisdictions do require them not to expire - here in the UK where I am, as long as I make the validity period clear, it can be whatever I deem it to be and the law uses woolly terms like 'reasonable time' - the validity period is simply deemed a term in the contract between me and the buyer, as long as they knew what it was when they ordered. 

I chose 18 months as it seemed better than the year that most high street vouchers are valid for and I simply cannot guarantee that I'll even be alive in 18 months.  To date, every one I've issued (granted, not a huge amount) was spent within about 6 weeks and they often ordered more and paid the balance - so I don't owe anyone a single penny at the moment in terms of gift voucher/certificates.

I'll give it some more thought in the morning, it's gone midnight and my brain has turned to mush, so I'm off to bed.  Goodnight.

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[As an update, in case anyone finds it useful when searching in future.  I hate it when I search and find the same problem I'm experiencing, but they don't come back to let us know if suggestions made work or not, or how they actually addressed a problem.]

I have now done as described and made it a product to buy with price 'options'.  I also created a Gift Certificate category to add it to, so that now appears in the menu in the same place as the CubeCart original link did. 

On balance, I think this will be better [for me] as I can manually fulfill the customers requirements - which weren't possible through the original official system, but I would imagine for shops with higher turnover than me and maybe a lot more smaller certificates sold, that wouldn't be a suitable solution. 

When I sell a certificate, I can create a coupon with a unique coupon code to put on the paperwork for the recipient and with 'Gift Certificate Conversion' using the order number that then manages the value for the recipient. 

This is how I've done it:

https://www.boo-creations.co.uk/shop/miscellaneous/gift-certificate-choose-your-value-from-10.html

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