Required Info at Checkout

[Orbit Storm]

Let me preface this by saying I did my best searching for an answer, but I just couldn't seem to find the right search parameters to come remotely close to what I'm looking for.

I currently own and operate a gaming server, and we offer "rewards" by way of donation.. that users are able to purchase via our shop. We have made a habit of asking users to enter their character and/or account name in the Additional Comments field just prior to checkout, but a lot of users tend to skip that, leaving myself and my Staff the precarious task of tracking down their account/email via the IP, etc etc etc. In other words, it's a nuisance and time consuming.

Is there a particular module, or edit I'm not seeing in the Admin panel, that would allow me to force users to fill out a required field just prior to payment (I believe it'd be on "Step 2" of the checkout process).

Thanks! :)

[DrByte]

Zen Cart has a "nick name" field in the customer's My Account. You could maybe leverage that in conjunction with this plugin http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1465 - "minimum account info required" to perhaps accomplish what you described.

[Orbit Storm]

Ah, nice one! That plugin will actually help in the long run as well, considering what we "sell" are virtual goods. Thanks for the timely response, and assistance. :)

[Orbit Storm]

Not to double-post, but I don't want to mix this with my last post..

turns out, the suggested plugin IS useful, however it doesn't exactly do what I initially created this thread for: requiring users to fill out a custom name field. I did some more digging and turned up another plugin: Extra Fields on Customer Sign Up (http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1137).

Problem is, the plugin linked by DrByte is not compatible with this new plugin -- I can only use one or the other as they overwrite one another.

[DrByte]

But, if you require customers to supply a nickname, then that'll be in their account profile, so will be available to you elsewhere.

Granted, the nickname feature is primarily intended to use in conjunction with a linked forum system. But can easily double for your purposes.

[Orbit Storm]

I had assumed the same thing, but even after enabling the "linkage" option, nothing appears on the sign-up or account details pages. I've already retraced the folder directories to be sure everything was renamed appropriately, and I can confirm they all were. I've even gone as far as re-uploading the whole package again, to no avail.

[DrByte]

Okay, well, there would indeed be some custom coding needed to force the nickname be copied into the order confirmation during checkout. But probably less coding to force the nickname feature to be turned on regardless of having a verifiable forum linked up than to add new custom fields to checkout.


But ... here's a way to make things much simpler still ... Why not just add a "character name" field as a TEXT attribute and mark it as "required"?

1. Create an Option Name of "Character Name"
2. Add an attribute to your product, by choosing "Character Name" from the left column, and "TEXT/UPLOAD" from the right column, and then choose "Yes" under the "Attribute Required for Text" setting.

Now when your customer tries to add that product to their cart, they'll be required to fill in the field for that, and it'll be added to that line-item in their shopping basket.

This has the nice side-effect of them being able to even buy something for another username also, as long as you pay attention to that info when doing your fulfillment activities.

[Orbit Storm]

Pure genius.. this is precisely what I was looking to do. There are obviously a ton of tricks I could stand to learn for ZenCart. I already added the Option Name, am aware that I don't need to add option values since it's text, but.. is it possible to mass-add this attribute to every product/category currently listed? Otherwise, this could be time consuming to edit. Thankfully I only need to set the "Required" attribute flag and click Insert.. so it would be relatively fast, but would still take awhile. ;)

[DrByte]

ya, the Attributes Copier option lets you copy attributes from one product to many others according to various criteria.

[Orbit Storm]

Set the attributes of one product, and copied it to the other categories I have.. worked like a charm. Might be a pain in the long run if users want to add multiple items (having to enter the character name each time), but it's better than nothing at all.

Thank you for all of the assistance. :)