Looking for some community feedback
In an effort to make using Edit Orders easier to use (and more intuitive) a few changes have been proposed to the handling of products and attributes. Additional ideas / thoughts are welcome.
Background
Currently product and attribute fields in Edit Orders always override any automatic calculations. This behavior allows store owners to change / alter names, prices, taxes, onetime charges, etc. However if a store owner changes an attribute, price changes (onetime and total) are not updated to reflect the change (because they are overridden by the editable fields).
Proposal #1
- Only allow editing the quantity, name, and tax, and attributes on products by default.
- Do not allow editing of price and onetime charges.
Proposal #2
- Allow editing everything by default.
- Add a "checkbox" to indicate charges should be recalculated (ignoring the input fields).
Proposal #3
- Only allow editing the quantity, name, and tax, and attributes on products by default.
- Add a "checkbox" to enable editing of price and onetime charges.
- Save the preference to a new database field (remember for the customer + order + product).
Initial Thoughts
Proposal #1 would be the easiest to implement and continues the process of moving Edit Orders towards mimicking the customer facing experience. Store owners can still manipulate the overall price of the order using the included "ot_onetime_discount" order total module. Use of a separate order total module provides additional data for the creation of reports on margin erosion and discounting (and supports auditing).
Proposal #2 would require a little more coding, but retains the current behavior of Edit Orders (while optionally allowing "recalculation" of pricing according to product / attribute rules). One of my great dislikes about this proposal: allowing direct edits by default encourages store owners to be lazy and just edit product pricing (without entering auditing information). Generating a report of margin erosion and discounting becomes much more difficult (and in some cases will provide less data). I feel if prices need to be changed frequently after an order has been placed the price of the product (or attributes) should be changed instead.
Proposal #3 would require additional database and PHP coding. This proposal is a compromise between Proposal #1 and Proposal #2. By default store owners are not allowed to change product pricing. By requiring store owners to check another checkbox (per product), hopefully it would at the least spark the thoughts: "Why is this not the default? Can it cause issues? Is there another (better) way?".
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