Upgrade or stay with 1.5.x?

I setup an OpenCart store 2 years ago for one of my jobs and really like it. (we are still running 1.5.3.1) The notice for the 2.0 upgrade came right at our busiest time of the year so I missed some of the emails surrounding it. I looked in the new features and cannot tell if some of the reporting features that I'd like to see are in there.

I am now wondering if I should upgrade to 2.x or stay with the current version. I just setup a multi-store and will probably need extensions for it. IIRC some extensions have to be reinstalled when you upgrade?

Here are a few things I am looking for. I'd love some back and forth on them, ie are they now in 2.0 or what extension have you found to do what I'm looking for?

- Multi-store - I will need the ability to disable one store or the other, not always both of them (most often the second store). I know there are extensions that can do this in 1.5.x

- How do I set up items to be purchased ONLY by points, not by money? At the moment, I've set each price to be $1000 to dissuade someone from buying them. I have not found an extension or discussion on this yet.

- I will need to import a fairly large group of customers into the database for the second store. These customers will have earned points by completing events throughout the year. I think I've seen extensions for this, and I've already tested a CSV import (customers) through the backend in cpanel. I did a quick test with the points and that didn't work but I didn't have a chance to troubleshoot it.

- I will need to disable the gift voucher from the second store. Have not researched this yet.

- I could really use more reporting capabilities. What has 2.0 added to the reports? I need to do regular reports that split out shipping and tax for each item. I end up doing this manually. I seem to be able to pull bits and pieces out of the backend but a) there isn't a clean way to do it in 1-2 reports, and b) if I run too much, it will hang the server. Sometimes even doing an export from the Dashboard will hang the server. Other times, the reports I do run from the dashboard don't add up right with tax and shipping. This will be a critical year for us as our state is changing tax rules on clothing in July. We are audited every year and the auditors will randomly pull items to question us on and it's looks as though I'm manipulating data when I pull numbers from the backend.

Ideally what I'd love is the ability to run a report that exports to Excel/CSV showing item purchased, state (we don't have to tax out of state items), cost of item, tax on item, shipping on item. That would allow me to sort and present reports to show how much we've brought in for certain items. Right now if I try to do that from the dashboard, I'm getting really funny numbers so I'm thinking the total is including tax and/or shipping. I need them to be separate for the way we do our internal accounting.

ie if I sell as shirt at $10 and it has .64 tax and $4 shipping, I need it to say all that individually, not that we took in $14.64 for that shirt. The tax and shipping breakdown to matter to us.

- Another report I'd love to get is a shipping label (like the sheets of Avery labels, not a specific label printer) which includes certain fields on it (ie size). We sometimes hold pre-order sales where we mail the items out and having the size on the label makes it easier for volunteers to match everything up. I was pulling this from the backend but now cannot remember if it was two separate reports that I had to merge. In any case, it was not a very simple process. When I am doing a handful of items, I just print out the invoices and cut the shipping address from the paper and tape it on the package. That can get tedious for 100+ items. Even if I can get the data to export, I can merge into a label template to print.

I think that's it for the moment, any comments and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

You created a very long Post, don't expect many to read all this, it's just to much. I just concentrate on the main matter...

If upgrading to v.2.x, you CANNOT 'just' use ANY of the existing Themes, and/or ANY of the existing Mod's. You cannot even use an existing DB-Backup, without, kind of, rework it to v.2.x, some Mod exists already to do this, but I don't know, if it works, and if it works, if special, not OC-Default Mod's have been 'used' in the older Version OC Software.

My very personal opinion:
I will stay with v.1.5.6.x latest Version (v.1.5.6.5_rc) for the following reasons:

1. V.1.5.6.4 +up is functioning very well. There are few or no known Bugs at present, despite of uncounted active live shops. It will work for another very long time, like a low Miles, used Car, built a Year ago.

2. All Mod's, I'll ever use, exist already.

3. Lot's of KNOWLEGDE exists on OC v.1.5.6.x, not only here, but all over the Web. Some 'OC-Specialists' have designed their 'own' creations, based on this Version, like OC-France, by Example, and I imagine, some of them will stay on the Scene for a long time as well.

4. If I would build an online 'Bases' to possibly even make a Living, I would rely on proven and 'reliable' Tools. Everything else is just an attempt to business suicide.

However you decide, good Luck!
Ernie
ipc.li/shop/

hmf wrote: - Multi-store - I will need the ability to disable one store or the other, not always both of them (most often the second store). I know there are extensions that can do this in 1.5.x

I'm working on a rebuild of my Store Manager add-on (a multi-vendor/multi-store management tool), which (amongst other things) allows you to put any sub-store into maintenance mode without impacting on other stores.

- I will need to disable the gift voucher from the second store. Have not researched this yet.

Already available in my MultiStore extensions add-on, which can be found at OpenCart Extensions (see link in signature) or at Fido-X IT and is included in the above-mentioned, upcoming Store Manager.

In relation to the Store Manager, I have a working demo of what has been done so far at Demos @ Fido-X. This is a multi-store demo. You can log in to the admin with username/password pair of "demo/demo" to view the Store Manager (under the System entry in the menu). You can also log in with as any of the following: larry/password, mike/password or karl/password to see how their view is restricted to what they "own". Both larry and mike have a store, while karl only has products on the default store.

The MultiStore extensions add-on allows the selection of the store when entering the extensions (shipping, payments, order totals and product feeds) so that the extension(s) can be configured independently for each store. Since gift vouchers are part of the order totals, they can be configured independently through this method. On the home page on the front-end of each of the stores in the demo, there is a list of extensions and how they are configured for each store.

Thanks to both of you!

IP - I've made very short posts that never got one response so I was trying to get everything wrapped up in one this time. Thank you for taking the time to read it! I will try to do specific posts for some of the points to see if that helps.

Fido - I will check out the extension you mentioned.

I have no issues at all with the version we're running, the only reason I would be interested in upgrading would be if it gave me the reporting capabilities I needed. I thought I saw one of the promotions saying reporting would be expanded, but when I looked at the documentation I couldn't find what I was looking for.

I don't use any themes or other extensions so I wouldn't be losing anything by an upgrade at this time.

I'm also open to taking away the second store and making the "special" items (that can only be purchased via points) a category in the main store, but that almost seemed like it would cause more headaches when importing the customers and their points, as some customers may already have accounts. Previously we just had a page with PayPal buttons, so the whole ecommerce thing has really been a learn as we go thing.

Thanks again!

hmf wrote:IP - I've made very short posts that never got one response so I was trying to get everything wrapped up in one this time.

Compared with 'other' Places, huge amounts of Posting are never replied to, because it makes no sense, at first, trying to find out the meaning of the Post. For Many, it's obviously to much of a Task already, to 'form' a decent Posting, but don't even try to take time to 'form' a 'decent' question, logically based on some, fundamentally required, Version type or Mod's, used- Information.

>> hey Doc, it really hurts, but I don't know, where and why... <<

As a consequence of this, one possibly get's tired to assist such 'Boozo-Brains', they won't have a Chance to succeed 'in the real World' anyway, so, it's just a waste of time. That's probably, what many feel, at least, after a while..., beeing confronted with ever the same Nothing but hot Air.

Personally, I feel a little different. Probably because I have no real need to make money with or by OC. It has been chosen to act as kind of PHP 'worktool' to get familiar with it's 'inner Functions', because, I did not 'play' with PHP- or Framework-Stuff before. Still, I fell in Love, a little, like always, when I find something, able and just waiting to further be 'explored' and 'tuned', in order to hopefully 'meet/beat' the surrounding Crowd by Performance and overall Handling.

After bulding about 25 differently 'set up' OC Test-Shop's during a good Year, I guess I reached the point to be able to know, what it really takes, to build a 'basic' Version, matching the upmost typically swiss-german Consumer 'way' of shopping online. It's gonna be implemented into a range of basically active URL's, registered Years ago, but never or not longer used. This by an old, actually retired Fellow, so trying to keep his Brain from falling apart. Despite of still beeing 'Master' of a kind of, OC-like, 'multi-usable' Framework-Type, Adult Club. But it's of no help either, at least not for the Brain...

So, I'm just here for the fun of it, that probably made me stay as well. And since I 'learned' on Forum's too, why not give something back to others as well, for some of them, it will be of Help, like it used to be to me. And it keeps me 'training' my english as well.

So much to this, you all have a great time!
No offense...!
Ernie

PS: My latest Job, just fully Inno-DB indexed, category-product-counting cached, remote-sited-images and a drastically volume-reduced DB. It's just about all, it really takes, to STILL offer the Customer a Product Counting Service, one of the most important Things, to keep Customers from clicking on empty Sections. 2, 3 times, and he/she is gone, for good...
http://bigmax.ch/shop/

Images below:
Volume reduced DB, I just left Austria, Germany and Switzerland. 2'484 Lines instead of 6'664 Lines in an empty OC-DB!

IP_CAM wrote:

hmf wrote:IP - I've made very short posts that never got one response so I was trying to get everything wrapped up in one this time.

Compared with 'other' Places, huge amounts of Posting are never replied to, because it makes no sense, at first, trying to find out the meaning of the Post. For Many, it's obviously to much of a Task already, to 'form' a decent Posting, but don't even try to take time to 'form' a 'decent' question, logically based on some, fundamentally required, Version type or Mod's, used- Information.

>> hey Doc, it really hurts, but I don't know, where and why... <<

No offense taken at all! I totally get it, and was actually coming back to modify my title when I saw your responses. I should've put "Need more reporting" in it. That's why I try to do just one short post.

Love that you are keeping your mind active! I spent 20 years in IT and even though I don't do it for a living anymore, I really enjoy working with something like OC that allows me to think that way again.

fido-x wrote:

hmf wrote: - Multi-store - I will need the ability to disable one store or the other, not always both of them (most often the second store). I know there are extensions that can do this in 1.5.x

I'm working on a rebuild of my Store Manager add-on (a multi-vendor/multi-store management tool), which (amongst other things) allows you to put any sub-store into maintenance mode without impacting on other stores.

- I will need to disable the gift voucher from the second store. Have not researched this yet.

Already available in my MultiStore extensions add-on, which can be found at OpenCart Extensions (see link in signature) or at Fido-X IT and is included in the above-mentioned, upcoming Store Manager.

In relation to the Store Manager, I have a working demo of what has been done so far at Demos @ Fido-X. This is a multi-store demo. You can log in to the admin with username/password pair of "demo/demo" to view the Store Manager (under the System entry in the menu). You can also log in with as any of the following: larry/password, mike/password or karl/password to see how their view is restricted to what they "own". Both larry and mike have a store, while karl only has products on the default store.

The MultiStore extensions add-on allows the selection of the store when entering the extensions (shipping, payments, order totals and product feeds) so that the extension(s) can be configured independently for each store. Since gift vouchers are part of the order totals, they can be configured independently through this method. On the home page on the front-end of each of the stores in the demo, there is a list of extensions and how they are configured for each store.

Hi, I just went to check this out and I see it's for 2.x. Do you have a 1.5.x version?

Thanks!