Add a document per order

[RicM]

Hi,

Is there a way of adding a document per order? I'm thinking of a Terms of Service PDF.

I can see a way of adding the document as an attribute via option names and values but this will add the same document for each item rather than just the once. This method does have the benefit of producing a downloadable item - which would reflect the T&C at the time of purchase, but the repetition of the same T&C for each item would be irritating and waste bandwidth.

Thanks,
Ric

[DrByte]

Can you explain the business problem that you're trying to solve? Clearly there's a lot more behind the question, but you didn't state the reasons why you're asking this.

[RicM]

Yes I can explain.

I have downloadable products, stock photos, that come with usage licenses. The terms & conditions include (currently) two types of usage license and one or other of the two licence types are selectable as attributes.

The licences govern what a customer can and cannot do with an image. Customers can have different licenses for different photos within one order. The customer will have checked the box "I have read and understood and signed in blood... etc..." at step 2 of the checkout process. I don't care whether or not they have really read the T&C only that they acknowledge that they have.

The issues are:

• Though not desirable, the scope of licenses can change and it is useful to have a copy of the T&C's extant at the time of purchase
• Company staff may change and it is useful for the photo to be linked to its license so that others can use it appropriately

I have tried:

1. zipping the T&C with each downloadable image. This leads to massive bloat, excessive bandwidth and results in multiple instances of the T&C document being downloaded when there are multiple products
2. I have tried adding an appropriate license document as a download to each of the two license attributes. Again multiple images may have the same licence document which will appear as many times as there are downloadable products. This option at least gives the customer the option to download the T&C whereas the first option does not. See attached image as to how that would appear against product 005-036.

I have two choices:

1. be content that the user has checked the "I have read the..." box and leave it at that
2. find a way of adding a copy of the T&C with the order so that it is there for future reference

Option 1 has the benefit of not placing additional obstacles in the way of the customer's buying experience. I cannot think of an elegant solution to option 2 but I thought I'd ask just in case.

Thanks,
Ric

[DrByte]

That's an awfully large T&C file! PDFs are often unnecessarily huge. If it were just text-only content, then it would zip very nicely into each image zip package, adding just a few bytes, not massive bloat. The added benefit of it being within the zip is multifold:
a) the customer *does* download it, and has it directly associated with the rest of the zip file's contents, namely the product to which the license applies - surely this has useful implications if litigation were ever necessary, and is a clear reminder to the customer to consider the license whenever using the product
b) the license is in fact the one that applies to that file, because you zipped the correct one into the zip in the first place
c) no custom coding or configuration required
d) as you said already, places no obstacles in the way of the customer's buying experience

I see no reason why a PDF is necessary. If you were trying to "protect" it from being edited, PDF isn't really the best approach. A JPG or PNG would be better in that regard. But still even that gains little over just using a standard TXT file which spells out the T&C.

[RicM]

Yes, all those advantages accrue when zipping the T&C with the image. However I discovered that if ever I want to change the T&C's at a certain point in time, I have to replace all the image files with new ones so that, from that point on, they contain the new T&C's.

7 different sizes x n images is an awful lot of files to delete and replace. For that reason alone I abandoned attempt (1) in favour of attempt (2) - the one to which the attached image in the previous post relates.

Since there is no such thing as a default product to which I could attach a download file that gets added automatically to an order, I think, having explored all the options, that simply embedding the date in the Option Value (see attached images in this post) will at least force that date reference into the order and the invoice. I can always use an E-Z page to hold links to the T&C file(s) for download at any time. Changing the Option Values is a breeze should a new T&C be issued.

Thanks for helping me think this through. Much appreciated.

Kind regards,
Ric