[1.5x] the built-in affiliate system is toooo basic...

I haven't had a chance to fully test the affiliate feature until just a moment ago. It is too basic and not user-friendly at all... OK, I love opencart and the 1.5x version is a pioneering one and I even believe it can beat magento some time later! But the basic affiliate system, in reality, you probably won't use it at all...
You know what, you have to add the commission in the order detail page manually. it is so time consuming and you of course cannot ensure every affiliate get proper commission for each order. Human makes mistakes and php scripts won't... So why not make the process of adding commission automatic?

It's not that difficult to make the process automatic but I would prefer it not to be.

As ever there are those for and against.

The reason I see for not making it automatic is that there could be errors with the order or you may need to cancel the order etc. Having the commission already added means you have to take it away again which looks bad.

You have to check every order you get and I really don't see one click as being time overly consuming??

Why would an affilliate not get the corrrect commission?

I meant store owner can overlook the "commission" row in the order details tag in the order details page.
Basically, you will probably only look at the contents of the "shipping details" and the "products" tags, when you are shipping your items. So sometimes you could forget the commission thing by mistake. It happens.

Even if you are careful enough and will check the "order details" tag of every order you get every day, but it is gonna be pain... What if your store becomes large one day and you receive hundreds of orders every day?

I guess at least there should be a list for transactions done through the affiliate system, so that you do not have to go through every order to check if an affiliate is involved.

marcelwoo wrote:I meant store owner can overlook the "commission" row in the order details tag in the order details page.
Basically, you will probably only look at the contents of the "shipping details" and the "products" tags, when you are shipping your items. So sometimes you could forget the commission thing by mistake. It happens.

i don't entirely disagree, but when you view the order, the order details page is shown so all you have to do is click. You can always move it to a different tab or higher up the page?

marcelwoo wrote: Even if you are careful enough and will check the "order details" tag of every order you get every day, but it is gonna be pain... What if your store becomes large one day and you receive hundreds of orders every day?

if that becomes the case I will be paying someone else to do the work for me while I take lots of extended holidays!

marcelwoo wrote: I guess at least there should be a list for transactions done through the affiliate system, so that you do not have to go through every order to check if an affiliate is involved.

Perhaps an 'Outstanding Commissions' page under the sales menu? Not an unreasonable idea....

i don't entirely disagree, but when you view the order, the order details page is shown so all you have to do is click. You can always move it to a different tab or higher up the page?

That's a good idea. Moving the commission row is easy enough for someone knowing of basic html.

Well, Daniel once talked about 3 types of softwares: off the self, customized and customized plus off the shelf. I guess I should be happy since Daniel offers his masterpiece to us for free.
I am planing to learn php, javascripts and all others involved, when my income becomes stable and sufficient to pay for bills. You are the only person who understand your own thoughts best, right?

Hopefully one day I can become one of those offering help here

I agree that the affiliates is a little basic, and i have had ideas to improve it, and will be shortly, ill release it once its done.

Ive already extended it by adding share links to each product which passes the affiliate id with the url to social networking sites. and i have modified the affiliate page to display more options.

I also plan to implement a section for affiliates where they can copy script code to paste on their own site to advertise which includes their affiliate id.

I am also planning on creating an affiliate products list page so they can easily select products to promote without surfing the whole site.

I dont like the idea of comission automatically being added, there are issues with this. But perhaps a 1 button populate could be made so all comission is added at the press of a button.

SXGuy wrote:I agree that the affiliates is a little basic, and i have had ideas to improve it, and will be shortly, ill release it once its done.

Ive already extended it by adding share links to each product which passes the affiliate id with the url to social networking sites. and i have modified the affiliate page to display more options.

I also plan to implement a section for affiliates where they can copy script code to paste on their own site to advertise which includes their affiliate id.

I am also planning on creating an affiliate products list page so they can easily select products to promote without surfing the whole site.

I dont like the idea of comission automatically being added, there are issues with this. But perhaps a 1 button populate could be made so all comission is added at the press of a button.

+1

I think I was one of the first to mention on these forums that I thought the affiliate system was very basic (http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=110&t=32674). Glad to see i'm not the only one who thinks that way.

I am hoping that one day the affiliate system is advanced either by Daniel, or by some kind developer who feels the same. I'm glad you are intending to tackle this at some point in the future SXGuy. I will be one of the first in line to by your advanced affiliate system extension.

At the moment though I reverted back to 1.4.9.5 because 1.5 is being fined, feathered, and plucked way too fast to actually be used on a production site. I can't keep up with all the upgrades. I think i'll upgrade once the development slows down and Q has taken over the upgrade process. LOL, maybe by the time we're at 1.5.9.5 I'll upgrade then.

I shouldnt think you will need to wait until 1.5.9.5 at the moment we are at 1.5.0.5 lol

i think a relatively bug-less site with main functions fully working would be down by 1.5.1 maybe even before.

I have been running stable sites from 1.3.2 all the way up to 1.4.9.5 with no issues.

Will the affiliate system trigger comission only for the first sale, or any sale made within the cookie time (30 days)?