[Old] Royal Mail Modules

From the 6th April 2009 the prices will change, quite substantially, 14 p increase on packets, 9 p on large letters 6p on first class.

If anyone is interested I shall be working on a SQL update that will just go into the Install SQL Patches section of zen cart. This data will not be GPL because of the whole I'm on strike thing.

Philip.

I has just come to my attention that there is a serious data entry error in the airmail side of the royal mail modules in Version 2.2.

This will be corrected by this evening. There also exists minor errors in Standard Parcels and all other insurance versions, as well as the signed for process.

It may be that for the last year prices have been being undercharged by 20p on inland post but up to £14.87 !! on worldwide airmail deliveries.

It will be posted here when 2.3 is ready.

Philip.

Until the zen team can review it it can be downloaded from here.

http://exploitingit.co.uk/versions/big_royalmail_v2.3.zip

Here is a summary of the changes, including SQL insertion and XSS flaws, and I threw in a couple of new modules (4 actually) for extra insurance on special delivery items as well as corrected numerous mistakes. Postal prices are valid until 6th April 2009 after that a SQL patch will be available for the new postal rates.

Released under the GPL, please send donations to [email protected], thank you.

9/03/2009 - 2009 (c) Philip Clarke

Rates correct to April 5 2009, SQL patch will be released for the 2009 rate increase,
Works with Zen Cart version 1.3.5 to 1.3.8
Airmail, Airsure, Airsure 500, International Signed for, ISF 500 Rates all corrected.
Standard Parcels, 100, 250 and 500 corrected and cleaned up.
Security update
Prior to this release, optional components for shipping estimator had XSS and possible SQL insertion flaws

Added Special delivery £1000 and £2500 insurance options.
confirmed working with ZC versions 1.3.0 to 1.3.8

HI Philip
Thanks for all your brilliant advice, so far.
I have a quick question

on testing my icons for the postage solutions aren't showing, just text repeated

is this a CHMOD issue?

Thanks

Samantha

Sorry, my fault, icons in wrong folder.
My mistake...... Sorry

That's okay, if it's an instruction issue, please tell me where I can make changed. 2.3 is a quick fix release 2.3.1 will have some cleaning up done to it which I'm going through now, like superfluous text boxes, comments in the code.

Philip.

One thing that caught me out was the update date displayed in the Eurozone 48 install message - it said 2006. A check through the file and editing the date to 2009 told me the right service was available.

Which leads me into the real problem I'm having.

On both 1.3.7 & 8 with the Mutual Advantage UK template, I can not get past step 1 of 3 in the checkout process, using either the Eurozone 48 or the International Standard shipping options, if my account shipping location is any European country except the UK.

It wasn't working (for me at least) with the earlier version which is why I tried the lastest update.

Am I missing something simple?

Thanks

Kev

Something simple: the address you may be using may not be in a zone because you haven't installed European zones.

But I'll install and examine the Mutual Advantage Template later on tonight, it may be a zone record issue though, in which case I'd need to examine your setup because my zones are pretty much set up correctly for the last couple of years.

With regards to the 2006, well that's what the prices were in 2006, whether someone updated the prices while I was not in the project is another things entirely, as they may have forgotten to update the text. I am actively working on SQL updates for the module to bring everything bang up to date. I know that the airmail services were very much out of synch with last years prices, and I only corrected them to last years price list as that's what I have and it was a quick fix required yesterday.

A SQL update for prices is preferable as it's instant and doesn't require uninstalling and re-installing the modules, so that's the way I'm going and it will be ready for the main royal mail services within the next two days, probably with the datapost and parcel force options following on just after the weekend. That is "if" this mutual uk template doesn't take too much time.

The funny thing is, that 3 years ago, the mutual UK template was one of the sources for the UK zones that are used for parcelforce and datapost.

mutualadvantage:

One thing that caught me out was the update date displayed in the Eurozone 48 install message - it said 2006. A check through the file and editing the date to 2009 told me the right service was available.

Which leads me into the real problem I'm having.

On both 1.3.7 & 8 with the Mutual Advantage UK template, I can not get past step 1 of 3 in the checkout process, using either the Eurozone 48 or the International Standard shipping options, if my account shipping location is any European country except the UK.

It wasn't working (for me at least) with the earlier version which is why I tried the lastest update.

Am I missing something simple?

Thanks

Kev

Honest answer, "I don't know if you are missing something simple". I have however found something bad in Eurozone 48 that may help you, first port of call is to install this 2.3.1 (AND EVERYONE ELSE SHOULD TOO)

http://exploitingit.co.uk/versions/big_royalmail_v2.3.1.zip

because I made a mistake in airsure 500 where I'd left some debugging things inside and it splurges zone rates all over the page in a H2 header so it's obvious. Also Eurozone 48 is missing some options that seem to have disappeared over the years including the all important "hide invalid shipping".

Now getting back on track. we'll go through the basics.

In your admin you should have some zones set up Admin/ Locations / Zone definitions because the modules need to know where each country is, if not then uninstall and re-install Euro48 and international standard, they should pop in there automatically with the correct countries in each zone (I've really got to hand it to myself, I did a great piece of programming then, because I seriously could not remember how it had been done and was expecting something really complex).

Once you have installed the new modules, then add a fake french address and order something. In eurozone 48 and whichever other ones you want to turn "Hide Invalid Shipping" to true, that way you should be able to see why you are not getting any options displayed. In the case I was testing out, the first thing that popped up was that my cart was bigger than £250 which was set as the maximum order value in both modules but because I had invalid shipping set to false, I couldn't see the shipping options.

That should at lest get you started a bit further along the way and hopefully get picked up by any search engines for common mistakes when installing the modules, in the next release I'll turn all the invalid shipping options to "false" so that people can debug better.

Philip.

Thanks for the reply Philip. I've been through all you suggest and I still can't get past the first of the 3 checkout procedure pages, selecting the shipping method on the checkout_shipping page (step 1 of 3)

The zones are in place, all of the correct information relating to shipping type, weight and cost display, but if I click on the 'continue' button (tried both CSS and standard) I am not progressed to step 2.

It's almost like ZC isn't processing the module or getting an expected return value?

I also removed all other shipping modules except Euro48 and still couldn't get to step 2.

I also get the same result using the default template.

Thanks

Kev

Yes I see what you mean, it apepars to submit and then redirect back to the page, yet doesn't for other options like airsure.

I'll have to get some debugging into there and find out where the problem is.

Philip.

Hi - is it possible to use this extension to do the following:

my client wants to have the following options available:

next day £5.50,
next day before midday £10.50
next day before 10.30 £15.00
saturday before midday £32.00

I've looked at zonetables and maybe a conversion of the flat rate but I was wondering if there was a simple way out there first (not being a lazy beggar first of course).

thanks

Basically no, especially the saturday one.

It would be quite easy to copy some modules and convert them and the text descriptions though, the saturday one would require a bit of module modification so it only turns on on a friday (I have done this before).

Philip.

cool thanks - oh well that'll teach me! I'll have a look at the flat rate option and doing copies of that then.

thanks again

Flat rate may not be good if his items vary by weight, these set would be more appropiate for conversion. Royal mail 1st packet would be a good one to start with, as it has scope for weight expansion, unless his courier has a whole "scottish highlands" thing going on, and then he'd need UKZR and that will be alot more work.

Philip.

Hi,

I'm just updating my shipping mod as it's currently working with "World Zone 1" and "World Zone 2" (which Royal Mail used to be using). As Royal Mail's airmail prices are now divided between "Europe" and "Rest of World" I need to update the country codes. Can anyone here confirm that the country codes used by ZenCart are ISO 3166-1 alpha-2?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2

Does anyone have a list of the codes for Europe and Rest of World?

Thanks in advance,

MoonCow

Can you confirm which version of these modules you upgraded from and to ? and also which version of zen-cart you've got ? because ZC may have installed different country codes at different times (certainly has done due to changing political landscapes).

I also do not understand the question as for the Airmail, Airsure and international signed for, they should be split into Europe and the rest of the world right now with no additional modifications needed. I have

Royal Mail defined European Countries
AL, AD, AM, AT, AZ, BA, BE, BG, BY, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FO, FR, GI, GL, GR, HU, HR, IS, IE, IT, KZ, LI, LT, LU, LV, MK, MT, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK, SM, RU, UZ, UA, TM, TR, TJ, CH, MD, MC

Royal Mail defined World Zones 1 & 2 Countries
AX, AF, DZ, AS, AO, AQ,AI, AG, AR, AW, AU, BS, BH, BD, BB, BZ, BJ, BM, BT, BO, BW, BV, BR, IO, BN, BF, BI, KH, CM, CA, CV, KY, CF, TD, CB, CL, CN, CX, CC, CO, KM, CG, CK, CR, CI, CU, DJ, DM, DO, TP, EC, EG, SV, GQ, ER, ET, FK, FJ, FX, GF, PF, TF, GA, GM, GE, GH, GI, GD, GP, GU, GT, GN, GW, GY, HT, HM, HN, HK, IN, ID, IR, IQ, IL, JM, JP, JO, KE, KI, KP, KR, CS, KW, KG, LA, LB, LS, LR, LY, MO, MG, MW, MY, MV, ML, MH, MQ, MR, MU, YT, MX, FM, MN, CS, MS, MA, MZ, MM, NA, NR, NP, NL, AN, NC, NZ, NI, NE, NG, NU, NF, MP, NO, OM, PK, PW, PA, PG, PY, PE, PH, PN, PR, QA, RE, IE, RO, RW, KN, LC, VC, WS, ST, SA, SN, CS, SC, CL, SG, SB, SO, ZA, GS, ES, LK, SH, PM, SD, SR, SJ, SZ, CH, SY, TW, TH, TG, TK, TO, TT, TN, TC, TV, UG, AE, US, UM, UY, VU, VA, VE, VN, VG, VI, WF, EH, YE, YU, ZR, ZM, ZW

and that hasn't changed for about 3 years.

Philip.

Oops, sorry, my mistake. I currently have the same as you (but that's the problem). It's just that I noticed things have changed a bit with Royal Mail (don't know when it happened). If you have a look at this page:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content3?catId=400036&mediaId=53600700

...you'll see that there is now no mention of World Zones 1 or 2 - it's just "Rest of the World" now.

A couple of days ago, someone from Norway (country code: NO) bought something from my website and they were charged shipping to a "World Zone 1 & 2" country, but if you look on the Royal Mail page above, you'll see that Norway is in the Europe list now.

So that's why I thought I needed to update my shipping module, but perhaps it's not just me?

That's quite funny, I have on my wall the chart dating from last april and it's been that way "i think" since the april before that.

Someone else released the versions when I quit, and since I'm back all I have done is correct the biggest errors. They'll be a SQL patch that will update all the rates for each module to bring it up to the standards for the change on 6th April 2009 so I'll sort it out then. There's a eurozone bug that needs yet another release too, so I am focussing on "bugs in the module" and "SQL updates for data" which will split the two nicely so that then I no longer have to worry about data problems.

MoonCow:

Oops, sorry, my mistake. I currently have the same as you (but that's the problem). It's just that I noticed things have changed a bit with Royal Mail (don't know when it happened). If you have a look at this page:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content3?catId=400036&mediaId=53600700

...you'll see that there is now no mention of World Zones 1 or 2 - it's just "Rest of the World" now.

A couple of days ago, someone from Norway (country code: NO) bought something from my website and they were charged shipping to a "World Zone 1 & 2" country, but if you look on the Royal Mail page above, you'll see that Norway is in the Europe list now.

So that's why I thought I needed to update my shipping module, but perhaps it's not just me?

Oh you asked for a tricky one involving all kinds of politics and ISO dominace.

These were the tricky ones

'Azores', PT
'Balearic Islands', ES
'Canary Islands', ES
'Corsica', FR
'Kosovo', Agreed not to use !
'Madeira', PT
'Montenegro', ME
'Serbia', RS

Kosovo in particular as passports were issued during UN occupation but now the code has been agreed not to use and there is no current ISO guideline for what to use.

The current complete list of "european" codes is:

AL, AD, AM, AT, AZ, BY, BE, BG, HR, CY, CZ, DK, EE, ES, FO, FI, FR, GE, DE, GI, GR, GL, HU, IS, IT, KZ, KG, LV, LI, LT, LU, ME, MK, MT, MD, MC, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, RU, SM, SK, SI, SE, CH, TJ, TR, TM, UA, UZ, VA

which covers all of the above. BUT there will be a change in airmail and all other services entirely.

What will happen is that since world zones 1 & 2 have been withdrawn, the modules will work like this:

• If the country code is in the above list then quote for Europe,
• If not then quote for the rest of the world.

This requires modification of all of the airmail modules but is does mean another thing, which is that if one has not set up oe's shop to have the Azores in the country drop down list, then the shopper would a) not be able to buy so wouldn't get to the modules b) the system only works if the shop owner puts the Azores in the ISO Portugal code. The modules are set up about as perfect as they can be, with this new generalised setting, howevre they are still reliant on the shop being set up correctly further up then chain.

These changes along with corrections for eurozone 48, international datapost and international standard will be released this weekend on my website. It seems that whomever is vetting the modules for download is taking their time at the moment, since I have a payment module upgrade outstanding as well as 2.3 and 2.3.1 not having made it onto the add-in list on this site at the moment, so it'll come of one of my server's until I get notified that it's "live" on this site.

Philip.

Philip.