Adjusting for custom coded Webgility ECC Quickbooks Sync

Hello Zen Cart world! A recent Craigslist hire has put my store and gig in jeopardy and I really need some creative guidance here:

I have a ZenCart store that sells hair extensions. Every single color and style of hair has it's own product number. We can't do anything to change the product numbers because they are synced with the fulfillment center already.

The way I had previously had the system set up: every product number in ZenCart was an individual product. This worked perfectly with the integration of both Quickbooks and the Fulfillment center, but the client came back and demanded that customers be able to select the color from a drop-down menu instead of listing all the individual colors as individual products.

So I hired a so-called ZenCart expert to help with the issue and he convinced me that if he set up product attributes with the product number suffix and made the parent product's model number just the prefix - that he'd be able to map all the combos to their prospective products for the syncs.

Well, we implemented his solution (and I had to help cause we were on a deadline and he wasn't moving fast enough). Turned out we missed the deadline and I paid the guy for all the work he did and he assured me everything was set up correctly. I couldn't test because I'm usually not at the client's computer. After the missed deadline, we put off the project for a couple of months until my client could come up with funds to keep development going.

Fast-forward to last night. After everything was successfully set up, the store won't sync to either because the product numbers aren't mapping and transferring with the attributes in-tact. Webgility ECC doesn't even recognize product attributes.

So here's my question: is there some creative way that I could bypass actual product pages and have users select the product they want through a drop-down menu on an EZ page or something?

I'm not really seeing any solution to this issue that can be fixed with the current set-up. I think attributes are dead to me, now. Any help or brainstorming would be greatly appreciated. I would hire another guy, but there is no more budget for help. It's just me and I.

If y'all are interested in taking a look at the store - you can visit it by going to http://nordichaircontrast.com

Thanks so much for your time and I hope to hear from some of you, soon!

-Nabil

Looks like it's working OK internally. I got the hair I selected in the right color in my shopping cart. Is the only problem the Webgility failure to sync ?

stevesh:

Looks like it's working OK internally. I got the hair I selected in the right color in my shopping cart. Is the only problem the Webgility failure to sync ?

Yeah... the whole ZenCart side of the store is working like a dream. It's the syncing that I need and apparently syncing with product attributes in ZenCart is a global pain that a lot of people share...

That's why I was thinking that there might be a way to go back to having every color a single product and finding a way to bypass the product page altogether...

I have no idea if that's even possible. But I'm hoping.

Well, it would be kind of a cluster, but I suppose you could extend what you're doing now one more step. When I click on Bounce Bounce in the Products sidebox it takes me to an EZ page with links to the various length selections. Then when I select a length it goes to that product info page where I can select a color (attribute). You could have the length selection go to another EZ page created just for that product and length with links to the colors which would link to the specific length/color product. Each product/length/color combination would be a separate product.

They make it difficult/impossible to find pricing on the Webgility website, but if I recall correctly, it isn't cheap. Seems like they would have figured out attributes by now.

stevesh:

Well, it would be kind of a cluster, but I suppose you could extend what you're doing now one more step. When I click on Bounce Bounce in the Products sidebox it takes me to an EZ page with links to the various length selections. Then when I select a length it goes to that product info page where I can select a color (attribute). You could have the length selection go to another EZ page created just for that product and length with links to the colors which would link to the specific length/color product. Each product/length/color combination would be a separate product.

They make it difficult/impossible to find pricing on the Webgility website, but if I recall correctly, it isn't cheap. Seems like they would have figured out attributes by now.

That actually sounds like a great solution! Would probably take a bunch of work, but I could probably push through it this weekend and get it squared away. My biggest concern with that implementation: is there a way I could possibly disable the product page for each product color? I don't want to have separate pages for bounce bounce 16 light blonde show up in google and have to style a million different product pages.

Thank you so much for your help!

Can't speak to Google, but you're going to need a product info page eventually for the Add To Cart function, unless you have the Length EZ page links direct to the Color subcategory product listing where each product is a color and you have Add To Cart buttons on those products in that listing. That's probably the way I would do it.

You need the "add to cart" that the product info page has to complete the purchase. However, you might be able to put the skeleton of the form and add to cart code that the info page generates into the link on the ez-page.

The link to a subcat page with individual add to cart buttons for the final choices sounds like the cleanest method. it avoids hundreds or thousands of individually hard-coded add to cart links.

stevesh:

Can't speak to Google, but you're going to need a product info page eventually for the Add To Cart function, unless you have the Length EZ page links direct to the Color subcategory product listing where each product is a color and you have Add To Cart buttons on those products in that listing. That's probably the way I would do it.

That's another great idea!

Okay, so - my template's category pages look like this:

http://nordichaircontrast.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=69

If you were to imagine that page as color blocks, would there be a way that I could disable the link on the image and the title of the product and just leave the add to cart button?

You would need to edit /includes/modules/your_template/product_listing.php and remove the link code from the title and image generating sections, leaving just the text/image output.

It would take some doing, but you should be able to edit includes/modules/product_listing.php to remove the <a href ...> parts in the product name and image statements. I have done so, but it was a while ago and I don't have the file anymore.

One minute late, as usual.

gjh42:

You would need to edit /includes/modules/your_template/product_listing.php and remove the link code from the title and image generating sections, leaving just the text/image output.

stevesh:

It would take some doing, but you should be able to edit includes/modules/product_listing.php to remove the <a href ...> parts in the product name and image statements. I have done so, but it was a while ago and I don't have the file anymore.

One minute late, as usual.

You guys both RAWK!

Thanks so much for all your help, dudes/gals! I'm gonna sit down tonight and try to implement some of this and see what happens! I'll keep this thread updated and keep everyone posted. And if y'all are sitting on the john and have any new ideas, serve them up!

I'm not a coder, but Glenn might have some ideas about using your current color images as the Add To Cart buttons in the product listing. Then you could eliminate the product image and product name in that listing. Much cleaner.

stevesh:

I'm not a coder, but Glenn might have some ideas about using your current color images as the Add To Cart buttons in the product listing. Then you could eliminate the product image and product name in that listing. Much cleaner.

That would be ideal - but I perviously considered a solution like that a pipe dream... Glenn, do you think a solution like that is doable?

It should be doable, perhaps by adapting the Images for Titles plugin to replace the add to cart button image with the appropriate color image. I would have to look at it some to get a good approach, and don't know when I would have spare time.

Since this overall concept would have base products with one image each (color), it may be possible to move the product image code into the add to cart section so that the main image appears as the button.

The product image would need to be activated so the information is retrieved from the db, but the image output section would need to be suppressed. This is similar to procedures I developed for Flexible Product Listing (posted in a forum thread but not formally submitted to Plugins).

You would also need to have switches to implement the custom code only for hair categories, as the accessories would probably not do well with that kind of listing.

On balance, it would be a lot easier and probably work just as well to show the image above the add to cart button, with the link code in the image disabled.
You would probably still want some switches to show more for non-hair categories.

Hmm...

This is starting to sound like a little too much work - especially since the whole thing is already set up and working correctly.

I think just listing the colors and removing their links might just be the best option to make all this work...

I'll start with it tonight and keep you guys posted. Thanks so much for all of your help!

gjh42:

On balance, it would be a lot easier and probably work just as well to show the image above the add to cart button, with the link code in the image disabled.
You would probably still want some switches to show more for non-hair categories.

Ha! Yes, I agree with you. How would I set up the switches? I've never even heard of that. Is that using a plugin?

No, that would be some custom coding in product_listing.php. Something along the lines of ```php
if ([int]$currentPath == '23') { //where 23 is the top category of hair products; can be more complex selection
//run custom code for non-linked image
} else {
//run stock code
}

If you use only the color swatch as the image, and have the swatch name as the final product name, then there would not be further differentiation needed between types of products beside the link/nonlink.

I was making it more complex than necessary. The product listing page will have only one cPath for all its products, so the test can be just

if ([int]$cPath == '23') {