Admin: Change default for 'Notify customer' to off

**How do I change the default setting for 'Notify Customer' to 'off' **when I add comments or change order status on admin/orders.php?

I want to be able to change status as the order handling progresses without sending an email to the customer for every step. (I have status like "hold for payment", "waiting for payment to clear", "payment cleared", "packing", etc.) The customer can see all this if he/she wants by logging in and viewing, however I expect normally to send emails for "back ordered" and "shipped". In those cases I will manually check the box to notify the customer.

most email options in admin > config > emails

kobra:

most email options in admin > config > emails
I think there is something wrong in my admin email options panel because the only relevant entry there is:

Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status

It was set to 1 and I changed it to 0. This did not uncheck the Notify Customer checkbox on the order edit screen. I created a test order with witih a test customer. The customer emails are set to come back to me at a personal email address. I get the status change notification emails regardless of what Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status is set at (0 or 1).

I interprete the above setting to be designed to send or not send a copy of the email to the address specified elsewhere in email option panel. In otherwords, I believe it is designed to send a copy of the email to anyone in the store who needs to know this information and is not designed to turn off/on this message to the customer. That would be done in the Customer Notification checkbox and **all I want to do is change the default for that box from on to off. **

There are other problems with the admin>configuration>email options page on my system. The header appears to be of normal width (100%) however everything to do with Email Options is displayed with a table width well beyond the width of my screen. The footer appears to be normal as the ZenCart logo is centered.

Does anyone know what file from the installation files controls the Email Options. I would like to reload that page on my server as the first step to fixing this. I would also like to know where the table width for the Email Options is located.

Thanks in advance, Ron

If you have followed the overrides system for ALL files tht you have edited, and have the fileset of the version that is installed, you can just overcopy all the files using a GOOD FTP client,

filezilla is free and reported to be ironclad.

The emails are in /emails

Forgot:

Here are the settings you should have:

E-Mail Transport Method                                            sendmail 
E-Mail Linefeeds                                                                 LF
Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails                                   false
Verify E-Mail Addresses Through DNS                                     false
Send E-Mails                                                                       true
Email Archiving Active?                                                         false
E-Mail Friendly-Errors                                                            false
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) Email Address (sent FROM) 
Emails must send from known domain?                                   No
Email Admin Format?                                                             HTML
Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To 
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To - Status                        0
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To 
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To - Status                            0
Send Copy of Tell a Friend Emails To 
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To - Status                   0
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To 
Send Copy of Admin GV Mail Emails To - Status                          0
Send Copy of Customer Admin GV Mail Emails To 
Send Copy of Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To - Status       0 
Send Copy of Customer Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status                  0 
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To - Status                       0 
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To
Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List  
Allow Guest To Tell A Friend                                                        false
Contact Us - Show Store Name and Address                                 1
Send Low Stock Emails                                                              0
Send Low Stock Emails To
Display "Newsletter Unsubscribe" Link?                                         true
Audience-Select Count Display                                                    true
SMTP Email Account Mailbox                                                   YourEmailAccountNameHere
SMTP Email Account Password 	                                                 YourPasswordHere
SMTP Email Mail Host 	                                                                      mail.EnterYourDomain.com
SMTP Email Mail Server                                                               Port25
Convert currencies for Text emails 	                                    £,£:€,â‚

Kobra:

Thanks for the reply. The only admin settings I could find that appear to have some bearing on my questions are:

Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To

If I set the status to 0 then I believe we won't get a copy back to ourselves (keep in mind it says "Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails...". It seems we could use another option titled "Send Orders Status Emails to Customer- Status".

However, since that is not the case, it would appear I need to hard code the default setting from 1 to 0. I did that in osCommerce with no problem, but I'm having an awful time locating the right place in ZenCart files. All I want to do is simply change the default setting for "Notify Customer" to 0 (which should remove the checkmark) and still be able to click on the checkbox to reinstate the checkmark and temporary setting to 1.

I'm sure this is a simple thing to do if only I could find the location in the files.

As for the other issue, the display appearance of the Email Options page: I have not made any changes yet to these or other Admin pages so there has not been a need to consider the overrides system. However, thanks for bringing that up, because if I do hardcode the new default "Notify Customer" I need to consider that. I'm sure without your reminding me, I would have completely forgot that.

Ron

Ron

We just set up our Zen Cart and we love it! However, we are also trying to stop Customer Status e-mails like ronlee67 is. It's a snap to stop the copies of e-mails going to us -- but we can't find where the heck we tell it to stop sending out the status updates to our customers.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Jeff

To change the default you would need to change the code in the admin/orders.php

If you don't mind me asking- why don't you want to notify your customers? As a consumer I appreciate getting updated about the orders I make online.

Kim,

Thanks for the quick reply! Because of the nature of our business and that this is our first foray into online shopping, we tell our customers that we will ship within 2-3 weeks (that's been a long-standing policy). We always beat that, but we are not interested in them knowing what we did when -- in our case, we think it will confuse them more than help them :smile:

We have a small targeted customer base so the long shipping times are not that big a deal. We hope by using Zen Cart we'll decrease shipping times, and so far it looks like that will be the case -- but we're still not wanting to send status e-mails.

I apologize in that I am unable to find where to edit orders.php to stop status e-mails........help! :lookaroun

Thanks!
Brad

Jeff:
Here is the fix.

I find that my mail box is cluttered with tons of non-essential email and know there are many companies who prefer that emails be limited. What my customers say they want is confirmation of shipping with tracking numbers and any change in the status of the order which may delay their order.
If a customer needs to know any more detail on the progress of their order they can log in and view it in their account or contact us.

The change below simply changes the default for sending notifications when a comment is made to false (unchecked). If you have a status comment you wish to send to the customer, simply recheck the box "Notify Customer".

In admin/orders.php around line 518:
**find: **
```

<td><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_STATUS; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_pull_down_menu('status', $orders_statuses, $order->info['orders_status']); ?></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_CUSTOMER; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify', '', true); ?></td> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_COMMENTS; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify_comments', '', true); ?></td> </tr> </table></td> ``` **change to :** ``` <td><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_STATUS; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_pull_down_menu('status', $orders_statuses, $order->info['orders_status']); ?></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_CUSTOMER; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify', '', false); ?></td> <td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_COMMENTS; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify_comments', '', true); ?></td> </tr> </table></td> ```

YES! Genius, ronlee67! Exactly what we were looking for. And thanks for stating our preferences to not send out the notification e-mails much more eloquently than I did :yes:

Thanks!
Jeff

The code above is for ZenCart v.1.3.0.2 and possibly other versions.

I upgraded to v.1.3.7 and the fix occurs around line 566:

<td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_CUSTOMER; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify', '', true); ?></td>

CHANGE FROM TRUE TO FALSE AS SHOWN:

<td class="main"><strong><?php echo ENTRY_NOTIFY_CUSTOMER; ?></strong> <?php echo zen_draw_checkbox_field('notify', '', false); ?></td>

How did you change your Order Status fields?

Thanks for the info! This worked great! Exactly what I needed to do.

Why we wanted the nitofication set to default off:
We update the orders when the CC gets charged, then when they go to fulfillment, if there is a back order, if there is a problem with the CC etc... and then we updae it when it ships, but it helps because instead of unchecking it 3-4 times while we get the order ready we can instead just check it once on the final ship notifications.

I love these forums
thanks for posting!

Thanks for this advise.
I just would like to share that all my customers became crazy, when I updated status to shipped and they started to receive second e-mail from Zen cart after they already receive shipping confirmation from PayPal when we print shipping label. 90% replied that that made only one order beign afraid that we charge them twice.

If developers read these post, than it would be a good idea to have control of On Off feature for Notify Customers.