Guests Online Not Matching With Analytics

**yogeshvara** · 25 Jan 2017, 12:17 AM

Hello MC12345678,
I appreciate your thorough and considerate answer. I guess my problem was mainly the fellow I was working with who sold me on the flexibility and then stonewalled when I made certain requests. His main fear was that things would somehow blow up if he made modifications, so I ended up stuck with whatever vanilla thing was initially made, even if it was now outmoded or undesirable. I am working with someone now who seems more responsive and I'm hopeful I can get my ZC program back on track, taking advantage of ability to customize and the foundation that is already there.
We are at the tail end of our search for a new developer but haven't contracted for the new site yet. I have someone I like tweaking the old site while we develop spec.s for the new site. Any suggestions as to how to find a good site developer would be welcome as well.

**mc12345678** · 25 Jan 2017, 12:52 AM

Originally Posted by yogeshvara

Hello MC12345678,
I appreciate your thorough and considerate answer. I guess my problem was mainly the fellow I was working with who sold me on the flexibility and then stonewalled when I made certain requests. His main fear was that things would somehow blow up if he made modifications, so I ended up stuck with whatever vanilla thing was initially made, even if it was now outmoded or undesirable. I am working with someone now who seems more responsive and I'm hopeful I can get my ZC program back on track, taking advantage of ability to customize and the foundation that is already there.
We are at the tail end of our search for a new developer but haven't contracted for the new site yet. I have someone I like tweaking the old site while we develop spec.s for the new site. Any suggestions as to how to find a good site developer would be welcome as well.

So, unfortunately this particular thread has begun to diverge from its central topic, but, yes I would say that there were issues that you experienced and may continue to experience depending on how either you do or you allow someone else to operate. The concern of breaking something is natural and to be honest in some respects is expected. That's just one reason why almost any suggestion in this forum includes backing up, trying things out on a test "server", making mistakes... the important thing is to be able to recover and continue on. There may have been other valid concerns such as maintainability, cost versus reward, etc... most of the forward facing parts of the store are overrideable which means that the core files can be updated without affecting the overridden operation. The problem there is that sometimes a modification is made to the core files that *should* be made in the overrides and that requires someone to incorporate the changes...

As for searching for someone? Well, it seems to me that most that respond to issues also "dabble" in ZC on some routine basis. Who/what is the "right" person? Well, everyone works differently. There is a for hire section to this forum where members who have "subscribed" are able to respond. There are resources outside of this forum, etc... I would say that if nothing else, always be skeptical. Don't give away everything that is your business unless you have a way to fully recover. (ie. If you can on your own or with your hosts assistance copy a database and/or authorize a particular ip address access to that database (maybe), then there really is very little reason that anyone should have access to your cPanel.) yeah, it makes things more convenient than a developer writing to request an action, the owner requesting that action, the host performing and notification back. But... you maintain full access and can then prevent the other person(s) from maintaining the level of access that they had. It's not quite like medical science where your personal health may be at stake, but second opinions are not a bad thing... (forum allows for many such opinions to be expressed, like them or not.)

Be human. The person on the other side is as well... do your best, expect the best, and continue to improve. Also, be sure to explain what it is you wish to get out of either the short term or long term relationship. You and the person(s) may end up going separate ways, but in the interim progress is likely to be visible/verifiable and both should know what the current/next goal is and be allowed to accept/reject...

**yogeshvara** · 25 Jan 2017, 10:40 PM

Hello MC12345678,
Thanks for the good advice. This will certainly help.

Originally Posted by mc12345678

So, unfortunately this particular thread has begun to diverge from its central topic, but, yes I would say that there were issues that you experienced and may continue to experience depending on how either you do or you allow someone else to operate. The concern of breaking something is natural and to be honest in some respects is expected. That's just one reason why almost any suggestion in this forum includes backing up, trying things out on a test "server", making mistakes... the important thing is to be able to recover and continue on. There may have been other valid concerns such as maintainability, cost versus reward, etc... most of the forward facing parts of the store are overrideable which means that the core files can be updated without affecting the overridden operation. The problem there is that sometimes a modification is made to the core files that *should* be made in the overrides and that requires someone to incorporate the changes...

As for searching for someone? Well, it seems to me that most that respond to issues also "dabble" in ZC on some routine basis. Who/what is the "right" person? Well, everyone works differently. There is a for hire section to this forum where members who have "subscribed" are able to respond. There are resources outside of this forum, etc... I would say that if nothing else, always be skeptical. Don't give away everything that is your business unless you have a way to fully recover. (ie. If you can on your own or with your hosts assistance copy a database and/or authorize a particular ip address access to that database (maybe), then there really is very little reason that anyone should have access to your cPanel.) yeah, it makes things more convenient than a developer writing to request an action, the owner requesting that action, the host performing and notification back. But... you maintain full access and can then prevent the other person(s) from maintaining the level of access that they had. It's not quite like medical science where your personal health may be at stake, but second opinions are not a bad thing... (forum allows for many such opinions to be expressed, like them or not.)

Be human. The person on the other side is as well... do your best, expect the best, and continue to improve. Also, be sure to explain what it is you wish to get out of either the short term or long term relationship. You and the person(s) may end up going separate ways, but in the interim progress is likely to be visible/verifiable and both should know what the current/next goal is and be allowed to accept/reject...

**schoolboy** · 26 Jan 2017, 02:34 AM

Originally Posted by mc12345678

Such "limitations" generally are what was (perhaps at one point) considered a direction that eCommerce software was going or needed to go or provided a minimum amount of features to support the maximum number of people.

As to being sold on ZC, if nothing else you should have been explained the fact about how every bit of the software is customizable to your liking. All these things that don't work for what you are wanting can either be modified to suit or something else can be used to supplement the operation. Ie. The sessions/visits info? If you didn't have something like Google analytics or similar features from other search engines how would you know/be able to tell that anyone else has been able to get to the site? As to making such a counter more robust? Does that make sense when there are other available tools that can do so much more? And if further developed, who is going to maintain it? Again, something that is already otherwise available and easily incorporated into one's site.

As to resetting the "best seller's" history, well it is best to understand the source of the information. For example, looking at the sidebox best_sellers, the code uses the data table field products_ordered from the products table. This is incremented by one every time a purchase is made. Yes, unfortunately you can "reset" that number to zero across the board, but there is not a built in: reverse the count to this point in history, or remove all purchases made before a certain date. Such data can be obtained and the value(s) altered, but that really relies on the store owner maintaining the database or creating routine backups, or any number of ways to "reverse/rewind" the value. So in at least ZC 1.5.5d on the tools->store manager window there is a reset of the products ordered button which will reset the counter to 0 for all product. You could then restore the counter(s) by way of sql queries or other information/methods.

As to search options, well there too are plugins/modifications that can be made to provide various types of search results... even without other plugins, things can be tweaked to provide the types of results you want.

See the big thing here is, if you don't like how it works you can change it or get someone to change it. You are not stuck with it like you might be with a commercial product that is closed source.

As to "ticking" people off.. each of the above things could be (and I believe have been) addressed through a post explaining what your system configuration is, what it is that you are seeing, what you have found/tried, what the results of those trials were, what it is you want to get out of your request/change, and why it it is important to your business or other money income.

The core developers read through these forums and do make improvements/changes to accomodate as they see the large majority needing.

To be honest, there is no one and only product that 100% fits a business and a business shouldn't adjust all of its activities to fit the tool but instead should use/obtain/modify the tool to support the business (generally speaking as some processes are just not conducive to any business).

My sentiments exactly... I find it rather disappointing that so much is given for FREE with zencart - MUCH more than with other ecommerce systems - and yet people still "expect" more.

User and visitor tracking is extremely complex these days. It's not ZC's core purpose to track users or visitors. There are numerous other systems that can so this - even AWSTATS in Cpanel, which is pretty good most of the time.

I look more at the BUSINESS side of visits - ie: how many visitors arrive and end up at checkout_success, compared to those who arrive and don't end up there. To me, these are stats that matter most. Focusing on technical numerics has little value. Judge the success of visits by how many convert to sales. That's why I use zencart - and it's served me very well over the years.