Downloads Orders Status Settings - An EZ Solution!

If you're confused about how the Downloads order status works, or you've found yourself in danger of downloads not being released when they're supposed to be, here's a solution I came up with, that works really well. Start from scratch, and organize and rename the status options in ways that seem more logical to the way you do things. It's easy and only takes a few minutes.


1. Localization -> Order Status. Delete ALL of the options except for Pending [1].

2. Now, you're going to enter in replacement options, keeping in mind that they're all going to be assigned numbers in the order in which you add them. Leave out any you don't need, but keep them relatively in this order, as you'll soon understand the reason for.

Order Status options I created, in this order:

[1] Pending
[2] Order Cancelled
[3] Refund Issued
[4] Processing (PayPal Order)
[5] Processing (Mail Order)
[6] Shipped
[7] Status Update
[8] Download Reset

If you have other payment modules that you use, substitute and/or add them here, in the middle of this list. You may want to write or type it out before you start entering them, so you don't mess up the order. Just make sure you adjust your numbers... use mine as a guide for how to "translate" your own.


3. Modules - > Payment. Here, I personally only have Money Orders/Checks and PayPal enabled. If you did the renaming correctly, the options and their numbers in your payment modules should correspond.

I set Money Orders at Pending [1] (default).
And PayPal at Processing [4] if paid and Pending [1] (default) if still unpaid.

Follow suit for whatever other payment modules you have.



4. Configuration ->Attribute Settings. Again, you want to use your order status numbering structure above for this one.

Downloads Controller Update Status Value = 8
Downloads Controller Order Status Value >= lower value = 3
Downloads Controller Order Status Value <= upper value = 7

What's happening now is that when you want to reset your customer's download, you'll now see an option that makes more sense to you, "Download Reset" [8]. (You can also click the button next to the file in the customer's history to do the same thing, by the way).

As for payment-related downloads, options 4 through 6 are now the options where a download can be released (greater than 3, less than 7; that's what we set above...) during the status of Processing (4 & 5) and Shipped (6). This works well if a customer ordered both digital and tangible goods at the same time. Once payment is received/cleared, if the order is still being processed for the tangible, they can still have access to the downloads now, or if there are no tangible goods or the entire order is ready to go at the same time... just jump ahead to "Shipped." They get their downloads, and there's no confusion.

"(Status) Update" (7) can now be used solely for any other correspondence you need to have with the customer, before or after their order is completed. Cancellations (2) and Refunds (3) are more likely to happen early in the process, so now you can take care of those too. And in all cases, there's no confusion or worry about whether someone will have unauthorized or late access.

And once again, "Download Reset" is there, with no guesswork. It's the last option, resetting downloads will be its sole purpose, and you'll never forget it.

That is an interesting layout on utilizing the Orders Status and downloads ... thanks for posting the solution that works for you ... :smile:

My pleasure. Thank YOU all for posting such great information about the cart in general. I'm glad I could finally contribute something, and I hope that it helps someone later.

All observations or posts on techniques, ideas, game plans, etc. are a benefit to everyone ...

Sometimes just hearing how another person lays out a feature makes the feature all that more understandable ...

Thanks for the support! :smile:

Vivakineival, this was a great idea and I jumped on it!

However, now I'm having some issues.

First, I'll say that I wasn't able to follow your order exactly, because I couldn't delete the order status designations that were already in use (i.e., processing, delivered, status update)

My intent was to renumber things so that it worked in the same way that VivaK's did, even though my list is numbered differently.

So here's how my order status is set up in Localization-> Order status

1. Pending
2. Processing
3. Shipped (I renamed "Delivered" to be "Shipped")
4. Status Update
5. Processing Paypal (even though "Processing" is in use, I liked VivaK's idea to separate Paypal and Check/MO so they have two different Processing statuses
6. Processing MO
7. Download Reset
8. Refund Issued
9. Order Update (I put this in to be used for "other communication" for the customer)


In Modules -> Payment:

Check/Money Order -- set to 1.
Paypal IPN -- Pending orders status set to 1. ; Payment complete set to 5.


In Configuration -> Attribute Settings:


Downloads Controller Update Status Value = 7
Download Controller lower value =2
Download Controller upper value = 8
Download expiration is 7 days, 3 downloads



Here are the problems I'm observing:

- When a PP order is complete, and the customer is returned to her account, it shows downloads as been unlimited with no expiration date.
BUT in the same customer's account (in Customers-> Orders) the yellow box shows, to indicate it is expired.

- When I go in manually to switch a MO to 6., the downloads don't show in the orders - it says expired. I have to click the Yellow icon to green in order to get it to change for the downloads to be available.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
LW

Since in both cases, it involves Zen saying it's been expired, presumably before even one download attempt has been made... One thing I'd check, is that your download expiration settings are what you want in both Configuration -> Attribute Settings-> for the default setting AND ALSO Catalog ->Downloads Manager -> for the specific product. The Downloads Manager one will likely override the Attribute Settings.