Make my own shipping module?

[RobThePyro]

How difficult will it be?

lol.. Hi everyone! ok basically we have a zen-cart for our company with over 20 000 items! we stock electronic components... In order to update the website I wrote a C# app that takes the stock prices and quantity's from the stock system at work, does some analysis on them and writes them to the zen MySql DB. took me quite a while to develop that app but it works reasonable well.. but besides the point!

at the moment we have multiple table rates; overnight, door to door, economy. etc etc... and they work based on the products weight up to 10Kg..(after which orders become difficult...) however since we serve our entire country (South Africa) and neighbors this is certainly not the most efficient way to do things... i.e. too high shipping for close customers and too little for far customers etc.

What we want to do is move to a system where we send the shipping weight+volume+postal code to the customer to the shippers and calculate the shipping price dynamically and on the fly... now one of our shippers provides a SOAP interface to this service (you can check it out here: http://interfaces.bercoexpress.co.za/express.htm)

Now my questions for the pro's are:

1. How do I add dimensions/volume to the products in the DB for shipping purposes?
2. Can I make call's to the SOAP methods with some PHP from within zen-cart or am I going to have to devise a more creative solution?
3. Is the a shipping add-on that does something similar to what I need (I keep reading about the Canada post module) that I could hack into getting it to do what I need? or would I have to write a module from scratch?

I have experience with C#/asp.net MSSql (and taught myself alot of the MySql quirks for working with Zen) and only limited PHP experience but I'm willing to learn if i can use it to solve this problem...

Any help would be appreciated! thanks guys :)
~Rob.

[RodG]

How difficult will it be?

How long is a piece of string?

What we want to do is move to a system where we send the shipping weight+volume+postal code to the customer to the shippers and calculate the shipping price dynamically and on the fly...

Been there, done that... set up my own quote server.... oh... too far...

now one of our shippers provides a SOAP interface to this service (you can check it out here: http://interfaces.bercoexpress.co.za/express.htm)

I'm not familiar with SOAP, so any firther comments should be considered educated guesses :-)

Now my questions for the pro's are:

1. How do I add dimensions/volume to the products in the DB for shipping purposes?

The short answer is 'decide where you wish to store the data, then modify the code to make use of it'.

1. Can I make call's to the SOAP methods with some PHP from within zen-cart

Yes. (He says cautiously).

1. Is the a shipping add-on that does something similar to what I need (I keep reading about the Canada post module) that I could hack into getting it to do what I need? or would I have to write a module from scratch?

Use the Canada Post module as a starting point because 'most' of your work is already done. Alternatively, take a look at the 'ozpost' module (which works in a similar manner, but uses XML data which make save even more work).
The 'ozpost' module makes the exact same database/file changes to support product dimensions as the canadian post module. I would suggest no matter if you start from scratch, or use one of these modules as a base, it would be wise to maintain consistancy in this regard.

I have experience with C#/asp.net MSSql (and taught myself alot of the MySql quirks for working with Zen)

Hhhmmmppphhh... it isn't MySQL that has the quirks, it is MSSql.
Basically, you just had to teach yourself to avoid bad the habits that MSSql allowed. :-)

and only limited PHP experience but I'm willing to learn if i can use it to solve this problem...

You won't have a problem with PHP, and by using canadapost/ozpost as a guide you'll have few problems adding the dimension data.

You probably won't have too much of an issue sending/retrieving the data for quotes either .... Your *biggest* problem is one that plagues us all.. and that is the packing/stacking of the items placed in the cart... there are no easy solutions to this.

Good luck.
Rod

[RobThePyro]

How long is a piece of string?



Been there, done that... set up my own quote server.... oh... too far...



I'm not familiar with SOAP, so any firther comments should be considered educated guesses :-)



The short answer is 'decide where you wish to store the data, then modify the code to make use of it'.



Yes. (He says cautiously).


Use the Canada Post module as a starting point because 'most' of your work is already done. Alternatively, take a look at the 'ozpost' module (which works in a similar manner, but uses XML data which make save even more work).
The 'ozpost' module makes the exact same database/file changes to support product dimensions as the canadian post module. I would suggest no matter if you start from scratch, or use one of these modules as a base, it would be wise to maintain consistancy in this regard.



Hhhmmmppphhh... it isn't MySQL that has the quirks, it is MSSql.
Basically, you just had to teach yourself to avoid bad the habits that MSSql allowed. :-)



You won't have a problem with PHP, and by using canadapost/ozpost as a guide you'll have few problems adding the dimension data.

You probably won't have too much of an issue sending/retrieving the data for quotes either .... Your *biggest* problem is one that plagues us all.. and that is the packing/stacking of the items placed in the cart... there are no easy solutions to this.

Good luck.
Rod

I think this piece of string is going to be Looooonnngg lol...

Ok tomorrow I'm going to grab the canada and ozpost modules and install them on my local server and have a play arround.

I have an I.T. Diploma in C# and MSSql (+network and hardware stuff etc) thats why I know it :)

What do you mean by the "packing/stacking of the items placed in the cart..."

Shot for all the advice! clearing up alot of things for me :) hopefully this should be quite fun

~Rob.

[gjh42]

Unless each item ships as a separate package, how are you going to automatically figure the number and size of packages that an order will take, using dimensions (and possibly weight too if that could be a limiting factor)?

[RobThePyro]

AH I see the issue! one of the ways things we want to do which would help with this problem is use a standared size set of packing boxxes. so the smallest pne possible is used for each order but once the largest box is reached a second box is added and so on...

I can see how that would be difficult to impliment thou...

~Rob.

[RobThePyro]

So basically I need to make a procedure/formula that takes a varying amount of "box's" of different size's (lxbxh) and figure out what smallest size they will all fit into neatly, and if that box is bigger than a certain size then 2 or more (main) boxes must be used...

I dont suppose someone has done this all-ready and a nice simple way? probably asking a bit much there.. goggle hasn't revealed much... this is going to be tricky...

~Rob.

[gjh42]

Sounds like a mathematical game theory problem...