Dolphin Cart Beta Testing Archive

From FMWebschool Reference

Dolphin Cart is a shopping cart system designed to combine the strengths of FileMaker data storage and manipulation with the flexibility of a PHP powered web application.

Contents 1 Features 1.1 Easy Product Management 1.2 Order Handling 1.3 Payment Systems 2 Development 2.1 Beta Preview System Overview 2.2 In Progress 2.3 Free Planned Updates after Initial Release 2.4 Shelved for Future Expansion / Development 3 User Comments / Feature Requests 3.1 Web Interface 3.2 Payment Handling / Processing 3.3 Product Management 3.4 Other 4 Dolphin Cart Beta Testing - Errors

Features

• Convenient control panel to easily setup the system
• Easily customize the cart to use a language of your choice, all within the FileMaker interface
• Support for customizable and easily changeable templates
  • Ships with the default Dolphin template, more templates will be offered in the future but you are welcome to create and customize your own
• Customize all the text in the cart interface, add your own languages - all without leaving FileMaker

Easy Product Management

Dolphin Cart provides an easy interface for product management with a few options that go beyond the standard product catalog.

Some of the notable features of this system include:

• Easy stock level selection
  • This field can be modified with your own calculation based on a third party inventory table, allowing you to connect your existing stock tracking system to display real time data to the user.
• Easily remove products from being displayed on the web by marking them as not active
• Associate related products together to provide convenient links between products in the cart

Order Handling

• Modular payment system architecture, add and remove payment system module as your needs change
• Supports custom shipping/handling calculations
• Tax is applied individually per item based on the location the user selects
  • The location list is editable from the cart setup menu
  • The tax calculation can be modified to use extra data to determine tax rates, allowing you to have a mixed cart of taxable and non-taxable items
  • Adding custom VAT calculations based on the user location is a breeze. All you need to know is how to work with FileMaker calculations to customize your tax handling.

Payment Systems

Currently Dolphin Cart supports the following payment processing modules:

• PayPal
• Authorize.NET

Please add below to the list a payment system that you would like to see integrated, and add/edit the vote count in square brackets brackets to add your vote into the list:

• Google Checkout [5]
• NET1 Gateway (Sage) [1]
• fill filemakerpro database [2]
  • Is this just filling in the Credit Card / billing / shipping data into the database with no payment processing? --Mpetrov
• WorldPay [3]
• LinkPoint [1]
• yourpay.com [1]
• eWAY (http://www.eway.com.au) [1]
• CivicNet [1]
• Any european payment gateway [1]
• Verisign [1]
• Cybersource [2]
• BPay (http://www.bpay.com.au) [1]
• NOVA ViaKlix (https://www2.viaklix.com) [3]

Development

Beta Preview System Overview

FMWebschool has setup a test system to demonstrate the power of Dolphin Cart and invite constructive comments to make the product better before its release at DevCon 2007. The site is accessible at http://fmstudio.pointinspace.com/dolphincart/ .

In Progress

These are the items that we are currently implementing from within your numerous suggestions for this product. We got an overwhelming response and feature list, but our resources are limited - we will currently implement some of the most popular features and ones that do not require a radical redesign of the whole system.

• Tabs within product detail pages for well separated spec lists
• Adding a direct add to cart link on the listing pages
• Adding quantity selection before add to cart on the product detail pages
• Adding a few extra static pages
• Continue shopping button on cart page
• Add page navigation on bottom of the page, plus "back to top" link
• Clarify existence of related products with anchor links under image in detail page
• Recently viewed items list

Free Planned Updates after Initial Release

• Simple shipping option selection/calculation for the user (without integration with payment systems but would allow the usr to select the preferred option)

Shelved for Future Expansion / Development

These are the items that we think will be valuable to our users but cannot be implemented without significant change to the base system and resource reallocation. These additions will either come in the form of distinct modules to enhance functionality or updates to the cart software that will be distributed to all purchasers.

• Product attributes and modifications (such as choosing ram for a computer system product, or multiple colors of a product)
  • While this is a popular request, our first priority is to make a shopping cart product that is extremely clean, dependable, and bug free. Once we have a well functioning and tested core, we can go in and modify the architecture to support such product choices (which require back and forth database communication to determine price changes based on the selections) --Michael Petrov 08:17, 21 July 2007 (PDT)
• Good solution to sending download links / serial numbers after purchase
• Product image upload from within the FileMaker backend using the web viewer and PHP
• A shopping cart overview widget on each page under categories or on top of the page. Will be implemented as part of a future expansion template for the cart.

User Comments / Feature Requests

Please add your comments below by logging into this Wiki system using your FMWebschool forum account (register at http://fmwebschool.com/frm/ if you do not have one). Once logged in press edit next to this section to edit this section of the page. Please use the signature button on the top to end your comment in order to add your name and timestamp to it (if you cannot see the signature button, just use two dash (-) characters and four tildes (~) ).

Web Interface

• Other static pages (for about, contact, etc)? -- That way the entire site is built. :D

• Perhaps a bit trivial, but how about a login link on the left hand menu ..Mkimber 18:49, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• Include an option to view related items. That way if someone buys an iPod for example you could see related items like headphones and other accessories. --Tannerellen
  • Take a look at http://fmstudio.pointinspace.com/dolphincart/detail.php?id=1038, the functionality is already there! :) Also on the "Product Management" screenshot on this page you can see how easy it is to add related items. --Michael Petrov

• have a continue shopping button on the cart which will take you back to where you were before you added an item to the cart. Also include a buy button on the viewing page to make buying that more simpler.Have a form before payment to enter customer details. I would also like to see credit card details stored securely (details would be encrypted). Where you have the view cart on the top right, you could have number of products in cart or the total value of the cart -- Jalz

• The ability to enter a quantity and add to cart from the list view + ability to add more than 1 from the detail view. --Amccallum 12:16, 20 July 2007 (PDT)
  • I am thinking that quantity selection on the detail view is a good idea, but it might clutter the list view quite a bit. However due to popular demand on this page we are certainly adding a simple "add to cart" option for the list page. Comments about having the quantity selector on both the list view and detail view? --Michael Petrov 12:28, 20 July 2007 (PDT)
    • I would vote for allowing entry of quantities anywhere a particular product is listed. (The easier you make it, the more likely it is that customers will buy something.) --Dennis Chretien

• A shopping cart overview widget that always shows what the contents of the shopping cart are like the categories and search area. --Amccallum 12:16, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• I agree with the "continue shopping" button. You also might want to have an "add to cart" button on the item overview page. Maybe I don't want to see the details and that extra click will be a nuisance. Also I wonder if it will be painfully obvious that the user is to select the blue text to get to the details of the item ( and to order it)? Another point for having the "add to cart" button on the overview page. BTW, my shopping cart is currently at $424,658.81, don't worry, I'm good for it! --datacontrol

• Add tabs to the product detail page for detailed specs and such. Proposed by Bart on the talk page, please add your comments and suggestions for implementation of this feature there. --Michael Petrov 12:21, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• The ability to track shipments. Have preset shipping companies like Fed Ex, UPS, DHL set up the ability to manually set up a shipping company information in the preferences section. --Larry

• Put the page navigation at bottom of the page as well as at the top. --Larry

• The ability to have sub-categories under each category. Example would be under Accessories you could have an additional list showing Keyboards & Mice, PC-Cameras, Thumb Drives, etc. This would shorten the amount of pages someone would have to go through to find what they wanted. Also the ability if you select a specific item such as a thumb drive, there would be button to view all thumb drives. --Larry

• While I suspect that this can be handled in the page's HTML, I would make it clear that th product categories actually are links. --Dennis Chretien

• To be able to add the product form the summary page. I feel that most people visiting the page know the product and might nt want to go to the detail page, before adding to the cart. User: Don Ingram

• A currency converter link on every page, to a popup which convert the advertised price to local currency. --Glenn Singleton
  • You can handle currency conversion within FileMaker. All you need is a selection for the currency with which you wish to work and a calculated field. --Dennis Chretien

• The ability to save cart as wish-list, so that a buyer can return at a later time to add to the cart if interrupted for some reason. --BigBilby

• The ability to call up and re-use/edit a copy of a previous purchase cart (with refreshed prices of course) for recurring purchases such as consumables. --BigBilby

• Adding multiple items to the cart from product list (check multiple, then add) --Trikke 00:24, 25 July 2007 (PDT)

• I don't see a provision for "coupon codes", that should probably be in there. You know, where you can enter a promotional code and get a discount. -- Kupietz 14:12, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

Payment Handling / Processing

• Ability to cope with UK VAT and removal of VAT for non-EU countries.
  • Currently the tax calculations are based on the location the user selects in their cart view and the location of the store. Within the FileMaker database you can change the calculation to affect only specific locations and then use our translation table to rename the string "Tax" to "VAT" --Mpetrov

• Royal Mail shipping as an option.

• Include software product delivery via a download link and have the system automatically send the relevant serial code with the product.

• Feature Request (please vote): UPS [1], USPS [ ], Fed EX [1] Shipping modules for up to date shipping information [2]
  • I think it is important ot have all 3 options and to be able ot handle the different country codes used by each
  • There should also be the ability to use other more regional specific shipping options... Royal Mail has been suggested elsewhere (I'm assuming this would be for UK), in Australia we may also use Australia Post and I have had clients in the past who have wanted to include 'pickup' and 'internal' as no cost delivery options. So I think the shipping module would need to be fairly flexible and user modifiable. --Amccallum 13:15, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• Could mulitple currencies be handled? --Amccallum 13:48, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

Product Management

• Include options to discount products for sales between two dates

• Can this cart solution work with multiple databases as the source of the "goods" - which in my case is a number of databases that hold different genealogical indexes, and from which we sell copies of the record. Currently each database has its own shopping cart solution based on one I purchased from FMWebSchool many years ago. So orders are compiled only for items from a single database currently. --TheKiwi

• Can a product belong to multiple categories? From the admin screenshot it looks like each product can only belong to one category but it would be good if each product could belong to more than one category. I noticed that the featured product flag is treated separately and not as a category but could it not be a catagory to provide greater consistency and flexibility at the same time? If it was all controlled by categories a product could belong to several categories such as software, database, featured, specials, new etc. I'd be interested on others thought on this too from an overall database design view. And is there a facility for sub catagories (ie Software > Databases vs Software > Accounting etc) ? --Amccallum 13:46, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• I'd be interested to find out how different types of products would be managed in the system. For example a book or publication may have an ISBN and an intenal product ID and have a suppliers code for ordering vs software and other products that may just have a product ID and suppliers code. A book or publication would have an author and a publisher and generally it would be good to track both but products such as software would probably just have a manufacturer. --Amccallum 13:46, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• Have a recently viewed products, perhaps on the left hand side. Also have cross selling feature, so if I chose FMStudio as a product, I may also be interested in the additional modules. --Jalz

• Add a thumbnail of the product image to the management page --Ned 08:20, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

Other

• HTML email all customers

• The ability to have user selectable options for items such as size & colour for t-shirts or memory options for computers etc. This could either have no effect on the price of the item or it could add/reduce the price. --Amccallum 12:16, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• There are user comments for products but I could not see a way for users to add those comments. Is there a submit a review area that I missed? Or would this option be available once a user completes an order? --Amccallum 12:16, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• Do customers actually join when they make a purchase so they can just log in next time they return or enter their details as a one off? I'd like customers to register the first time they make a purchase and then log in whenever they return if possible prior to going to the payment gateway. --Amccallum 12:16, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• "Include a wish list feature. Include product history so you can do peopel who bought this also bought that. If possible include the adobe Spry sdtuff for validation of forms. Add ability ot do XML export of things like country, castegory, sub category etc in a wayt that Adobe Spry data can be used to suck these in.

• Add ability for a customer to create a profile that would store their basic demographics (no cc/payment info). This would allow for a future logon to show previous purchases and then the possibility to show them new featured products based on previous categories that they have bought from. Would also simplify the customer having to re-enter information for return purchases. --Jscarpetta 18:50, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

• I imagine you have studied the carts for major retailers like Amazon, Nordstrom, cdw, etc. It is amazing how complex this topic is. For example, when I sell a personalied or one-off book, it is easy to check out. But, when I sell three books with two titles going to three addresses, things are not good. Yahoo can not do it. So, I am very interested in this solution. johnarleth

• The cart must be able to handle products with multiple options. Two or three years ago I purchased FMWebschool's first attempt at a Filemaker based shopping cart and spent several weeks trying to integrate it into my website, without success. The main problem I had with it was with the cart's inability to deal with products having multiple options. For example, I make a wooden ring with a stone inlay. To order one, the customer must make two wood choices, one using a illustrated radio buttons, the other a drop down menu, each containing more than five options. In addition, another series of illustrated radio buttons allows the customer to choose a stone a list of more than a dozen. The customer must then choose the ring's size from a drop down menu containing over forty size options. I am currently using an online cart that allows me to easily list products with such complex option choices. The Dolphin cart, to be useable to me, would also have to be able to handle products like my stone inlay ring.

• [from Bob Patin/Longterm Solutions]

I would like to see editable pulldowns that are configurable by item. I too bought FX Cart, and have spent a lot of time customizing it to do these things, which I consider essential for a good cart:

1. A complete backend so that the site's admin doesn't need to own FileMaker to administer the cart

• • I believe this defeats the purpose of running a FileMaker powered shopping cart, since the whole point of using FileMaker is to take what it does best and apply it to the backend system. If you want something that is fully web driven then there are other carts out there already that do just that - but they took years to develop and have a much larger audience then FileMaker based carts. --Michael Petrov 08:36, 21 July 2007 (PDT)

2. A method for uploading images right into the cart from within the backend, integrated into backend system

3. 3 or more pulldown menus that can be set up for each item, for specifying options like color, size, etc.

4. I like the related items feature, but I'd expand it to show thumbnails for each related item, instead of a list. Customers like to see graphics.

Dolphin Cart Beta Testing - Errors

Please catalog any errors, bugs, or PHP warnings that you encounter at Dolphin Cart Beta - Errors