Affiliates module from Shriman Technologies doesn't work!

We have recently purchased the Affiliates module for Opencart 1.4.8 from Shriman Technologies, and here is a summary of our first impression:

- Many of its templates (*.tpl) are full of bugs, especially in its usage of HTML elements such as
<table>,<tr>,<td>, the <ul> <li>, or the <embed>.
- Some of the controller files have missing or wrong assignment of variables from the language files
- The installation manual has some errors, and it requires an experienced PHP programmer
to carry out the installation, not suitable for an end user.
- And last not least: We created an affiliate group with a flat rate per sale, then an affiliate belonging to that group, and then tested a sale using the affiliate URL (the Opencart shop URL with an added '&ref=19' in our test scenario) from another web browser and another PC on the network. The sale was set to status 'Complete' by the admin, yet no flat rate sale commission has been credited to the test affiliate.

I can probably fix these issues myself, yet my conclusion at this stage is:

Don't buy!

JNeuhoff wrote:the Opencart shop URL with an added '&href=19'

yikes anyone who uses href as a parameter yeah I would stay away.

I don't see the '&ref=affiliate-id' as a problem. Most affiliate tracking systems use something similar, and a simple 302-redirect to hide it from the browser URL field is sufficient to solve this issue.

I assume that this affiliate module from Shriman Tec uses cookie-based tracking after the initial detection of the '&ref=affiliate-id' bit.

At the moment, I am still busy fixing all the templates from that module, e.g. the affiliate sales report template is quite messed up. Then I'll fix the SEO-keywords for it, which don't work at the moment. Afterwards, I'll try to fix the cookie tracking which I think is the core-piece of this module.

As I said, I wouldn't recommend buying it at the moment.

Another update: I fixed the SEO keywords for affiliate information pages this morning. Also fixed the affiliate banners page.

Now I am trying to get the actual core functionality, that is, the actual crediting of sales rates and/or percentages to the appropriate affiliate to work.

JNeuhoff wrote:I don't see the '&ref=affiliate-id' as a problem.

no that's not a problem, but that's not what you said in the first post you said &href=blah which I would see as a problem.

Sorry, yes, that was a typing error on my part. It actually uses 'ref=affiliate-id', not 'href=affiliate-id'.

I have finished testing the affiliate module, took me a whole day to fix all the bugs.

The core feature, namely that of tracking sales so that affiliates get a proper referral fees, most of the time does not work!

Hi All,

This guy purchased the old product from US before few weeks.
I was already requested him to get the new product from US. But still he never did it.
And once the customer purchased a product, he will get the frequent update from us about the fixes.

For Affiliate Commission, Some commission like Sales Click, Customer count will get credited into affiliate account immediately. But some other commission (like Sales Commission) will get credited only when the admin completed the order. Since the order may be cancelled or rejected. So we need to take this solution also in our mind.

We have tested this module with the all the different browser and Networks. The program is working fine. Since it is mainly using database tables instead of tracking with cookies & sessions.

If you have installed perfectly without any issues and Bugs, the program should run perfectly.
We will help you to install this module in your system too. And if you have any issue, we will surely resolve all these issue with the free of cost.

And we have proper demo environment. You can test all the affiliate module functionality over there. And you can reach me at soft.technee@yahoo.com if you have any more doubts on this.

If client is requested, we will create a separate demo environment for him and then provide him to completely test this module.

This module is available in online to purchase soon in my website.

Please feel free to contact me, if you have any doubts on this.

Regards
Shriman Technologies

We only purchased it a few days ago for Opencart 1.4.8. And I can confirm, that it does not work as expected.

Your templates are a far cry from a clean W3C standard, with messed up usages of <table>, <tr>, <td> elements, and <div> and <table> elements mixed in the wrong way in some places, unquoted attribute values, unfinished <b> elements all over, to name just a few.

Then there are various un-assigned or wrongly assigned language variables in different controllers.

The SEO keywords for affiliate information pages don't work, Opencart mistakes them for those from regular information pages.

And most importantly, it does not reliably track sales for affiliates. You yourself stated in a e-mail that it doesn't even use PHP sessions nor cookies for tracking, which would have been expected as a bare minimum functionality.

Hello Mr,
We have clearly stated that in our mail, if you are facing any issue, then you should contact us via mail.
Our Support team will contact you and help you out to resolve all those issues.

But We don't know, why you are posting these kinds of issues in common forums. If you directly contact us, surely we will help you to resolve those simple issues( 1 or 2 file issue). Since we have developed nearly 150 pages. It may receive some of the bugs could come with the files based on the client environment/templates/setup/installation steps/installation guide.

We are still trying to cover up most of those kinds of such silly issues too. Very soon you can find the bugs free versions. And we already requested our customers, once our site is launched then they can able get the latest affiliate version directly from our site.

First listen us, we will give you instructions completely via mail & Chat by step by step instruction about, how our affiliate module is working. Then you start working on those things. You never requested anything from us about how our program is working. Without listening how you can claim, Our program is bad, full of bugs. This is not the right thing to do for the perfect person who is purchasing the code from the company who is selling online.

Anyway if you are still want to continue working with our system, contact us, we will help you to resolve those silly bugs.

Regards,
Shriman Technologies.

I think the reason for the OP creating the thread is to warn others that the module has certain flaws which need addressing. Would you rather your customers go up and you get hundreds of emails about issues???

The Shriman Technologies affiliate module has some interesting features, however the core functionality of reliably tracking sales for affiliates still needs some improvements, it still has too many problems. As regards the other bugs, we fixed them all ourselves, took us about 2 days to do so. After intensive testing we concluded that it wasn't fit for usage for our system and asked for a refund of the purchase price, which we didn't receive, so we had to initiate the normal PayPal refund process.

If it is of any consolation, after removing this module, we then purchased and installed the commercial PostAffiliatePRO software on our Opencart server. And that one too failed to track sales correctly for the affiliates, it only managed to track the clicks correctly. So again, PostAffiliatePRO didn't fully do its job either.

We are now testing iDev Affiliate Tracking software, another commercial product.