Ship items from an order individually

My customers purchase packages from us that include indivual items that ship at different times of the year. I have created a product_type for 'package_deal' and created the tables to track the information.

I was wondering if there is a way to track the shipping for each individual item separately WITHOUT splitting each item into its own order. The multiple orders has become confusing to the customers who are now complaining. It has laways been a little difficult to manage, too.

Any ideas? Once this is working properly, I will provide it as a contribution. It allows for a "package" product that allows the admin to assign certain items as contents of the package. It also allows for contents to be selected by the customer from the specified page and/or category. But it is not complete until the order and shipping control is functional.

I could really use some pointers.

Thanks,
Zane Westover

I am more than willing to share what I have so far, but it is NOT complete enough to offer as a contribution, yet.

Hi there
I have a similar issue where I sometimes need to ship a order in two or three shipments. I have been doing this by raising an invoice in my accounting system with A,B,C after the Zencart order number and the shipping the part delivery with the invoice printed by by accounting system (GnuCash).

However if someone where to release a contributuion for this I would be very interested.