Sent Invoice to Vendors

[ZLA]

I just received the 7.0.3 release notice. According to the change log, the only vendor changes seem to be associated with search, list, assign of products and their vendors. I agree this should be a basic feature. On the other hand I just spent time customizing this myself so I don't feel like I wasted my effort.

[mazhar]

This issue is in our logs and hopefully will be available in future release
http://bugs.ablecommerce.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7695

[Logan Rhodehamel]

Vendor emails with content specific to the vendor has always been supported. What we don't support is sending an email to only one specific vendor at the time of order. I think somehow this information was misunderstood or miscommunicated.

We DO suffer from a bug. The bug is the vendor notification email template is referring to the wrong variables. For emails that are sent to vendors, we offer four variables:

$Vendor
$VendorItems
$VendorShipments
$VendorNonShippingItems

These variables are not used by our default vendor notification email. Instead it refers to the variables that contain all items for the order. That's not the intent. I have made a quick modification to the default email template that makes the shipments and items vendor specific. It is attached.

I apologize this was not all linked up ealier. I am going to register a bug and create an updated default vendor notification email. Even this corrected one is missing some key points, such as support for non-shippable vendor items.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

Also based on recent feedback, I am going to provide additional documentation on the email templating system, nvelocity syntax, and variables available.

[ZLA]

Vendor emails with content specific to the vendor has always been supported. What we don't support is sending an email to only one specific vendor at the time of order. I think somehow this information was misunderstood or miscommunicated.

Logan, can you please explain what you mean by it has always been supported? When I investigated this a month ago the answer was you had to do manual emails to send a vendor just their information. And you had modify the templates to restrict them to that single vendor. It's nice to know there was a better way to modify the templates to do vendor specific templates but I've already built the required code. Also, is your fix for 7.0.3 (which physical template files) or for 7.0.2 (with database entries), which I am using?

Lastly, can you please explain where in the system it sends vendor emails with vendor specific content. For my client, we would want to take an order (possibly with items for multiple vendors) and resend the email to one specific vendor. Clicking on the customer's email address to send an email doesn't provide any way to resend an order email to a single vendor. Can you elaborate?

Thanks.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

When I investigated this a month ago the answer was you had to do manual emails to send a vendor just their information.

If you are saying what I think, then no this is incorrect. Somehow it's a misunderstanding that we did not support this feature. Based on what I see in code, we have supported sending vendor notifications with vendor specific content as far back as the original 7.0.0. It's not specific to 7.0.3 with the file based system.

The whole of the problem was our default vendor notification email referenced the wrong variable. I don't know how we went this long without noticing it.

Lastly, can you please explain where in the system it sends vendor emails with vendor specific content.

Order notifications are triggered by various events - like a new order placed, an order that changes to paid in full, etc. These events call our email template engine. If you create an email template with the word "vendor" for the to address, we process it like a vendor specific email. In this event, we construct some special variables that contain information specific to the vendor being processed.

For my client, we would want to take an order (possibly with items for multiple vendors) and resend the email to one specific vendor.

This is the thing we don't support. Vendor notifications are all or nothing. We can handle sending notifications to multiple vendors for a single order. But what we can't do is have an order with 3 vendors, and have you say you want to send this message only to this one particular vendor.

For this, I can imagine some ways we might support it... maybe with a special to address of "Vendor:vendor name" and then we could know you only wanted to include one particular vendor for the message. But this vendor specific emailing is not available in any AC7x version and has to be registered as a feature enhancement request.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't make sense please ask questions. I want to make sure we dispel the myth that vendors have to see all items in the order.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

Also, is your fix for 7.0.3 (which physical template files) or for 7.0.2 (with database entries), which I am using?

I want to expand on this. The file I posted is a zipped text file. The forum software won't let me attach text files and I didn't want to post the content inline.

The intent with the posted file is to open the text, then paste into the content of the email template from the admin UI.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I have made some additional refinements to the default vendor notification email template, including a cleaned up source with some comments. This version of the email shows the shipping method.

EDIT 9/21/2009: The prior email content had a typo that included all items in the email. For this email to work on AC7.0.0 versions, replace order.OrderNumber with order.OrderId.

[draneb]

Hello,

I recently launched a website in which I have two vendors.

Today a customer ordered two items, one item from each vendor.

I have implemented the latest template posted in this thread but both vendors told me they received an email containing
the item that was not theirs.

I am a little unclear. Is that supposed to be happening or should the email sent to the vendors only contain their products?

Thank you.

[mazhar]

Yes its supposed to send vendors information about only their own products.

[draneb]

Hello,

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I am using the latest html from the Vendor Notification.zip file posted above and my vendors are receiving emails containing all items in the order - even items that are not theirs.

I believe the html posted in an earlier post above does work correctly, but it looks entirely different and is missing the Shipping Method.

Thank you.

[igavemybest]

Is there any more info on this? I need an email, one for each vendor, containing only their items.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

There was a typo in the message content. I have updated the attachment, this is tested in AC7.0.0 build 9879 (our "final" release of 7.0.0) and will work on all versions. The email will filter products by vendor. For 7.0.0 releases, replace order.OrderNumber with order.OrderId.

[igavemybest]

Will this also work in 7.0.3?

[Logan Rhodehamel]

and will work on all versions.

[kwikstand]

I need to do this also. As expected, it isn't as easy as it seems. It doesn't work for me. It doesn't separate the shipments on the Purchase Order. It only strips out the products so that it only shows shipping and tax, if applicable. Can someone please post the entire, clean code to make this work. Please don't keep adding changes and corrections to the previous post. All I need to do is have ONE separate Purchase Order sent to each vendor for all the appropriate products that they supply. I am using VERSION: 7.0 BUILD: 9879

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[amgym-jt]

Here's one quirky thing I found regarding this code ... not sure if it's just the way mine is implemented or not. FYI ... I am setup to Authorize cards first and then I process the credit cards afterwards.

From the Manage --> Orders menu, check the orders you want to process. Then click to Process Payment at the bottom of the screen. When I process orders (single or multiple) this way, the Vendor Notification emails work just fine. If i click on an individual order, then click the Payments button, and process the payment from there ... the Vendor Notification emails only show shipping and tax as you state above.

Also, one other quirky thing ... if I put my email address in as the Vendors email address and process the payment according to the first way above, I get the Vendor notification emails just fine ... and then I can easily forward them to the appropriate vendors. However, if I change the Vendor email address to the actual vendors address and then put my email address in the BCC or CC field of the email template (so I can monitor what the vendor sees), the Vendor actually gets the correct email, but I receive only shipping and tax like you state above. So, I'm actually stuck with having all the Vendor emails being sent to me and then I forward them to the appropriate Vendor, because I really want to be able to see exactly what the Vendor is seeing on each email.

It makes absolutely no sense to me, but I hope that helps some.

Jay
http://www.American-Gymnast.com

[kwikstand]

I tried using the solution in the last Zip file and it works the same way for me now. The Email sent to "vendor" seems to be fine, while the copy sent to my Email address doesn't contain any info below the dotted line; no ship to or ship from info and no item info. See below:

[igavemybest]

I have been having problems with this code also. It should be integrated in the backend code, not something done in the email code itself. A template should be able to be made for a vendor notification, and we should be able to select the vendors to send it to. It, in my humble opinion, seems very very backwards the way it is now.

[ozlighting]

Hi Kwikstand

The way this solution is created is by using the variable "vendor" in the "to" field to dynamically determine the content of the email. Therefore, the email template won't generate any relevant content when sent to your email address (because you are not a vendor of any of the products in the order).

I agree completely with igavemybest that this would be better handled in the backend. My personal preference would be the creation of an actual transaction (in the same way that Orders are created) so that we are able to manage the entire purchasing process through ablecommerce. It could potentially be an "optional extra" given that many customers might not have a need for it - we definitely would use it though.

Cheers,

Lance

[amgym-jt]

Ah ... that makes sense to me now why no content shows up when CC'd to my email address. Yes, I would much rather see this handled just like the order process too.

[kwikstand]

Actually, I don't have it CC'd to myself. In the To Address(es): I have "vendor,me@myemail.com" I tested with products from my own warehouse (inventory items). I receive two Emails. The one to "vendor" and the one to my stated Email address. The latter contains no info. The one to "vendor" seems fine.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I have been having problems with this code also. It should be integrated in the backend code, not something done in the email code itself. A template should be able to be made for a vendor notification, and we should be able to select the vendors to send it to. It, in my humble opinion, seems very very backwards the way it is now.

I have studied it a few ways, maybe a problem is we are not presenting it in a simple enough manner. Support for vendor emails is built into the backend code (if by this you mean the compiled DLL). The to address is what indicates an email template is specific to vendors. The template itself supports nVelocity scripting language so that you can include dynamic information in the email. And the event list lets you indicate at what stages you want the email to be sent.

One of my concerns with the email system is we have not done a good job of documenting and explaining how to use it. It is very complex and powerful, but without the explanation our merchants are not able to take advantage.

I wanted to note that if you put your email address on the CC or BCC (rather than the To address), you'll be able to receive the vendor notification with data.

[ozlighting]

I wanted to note that if you put your email address on the CC or BCC (rather than the To address), you'll be able to receive the vendor notification with data.

Hi Logan,

this definitely does not work for us. The email arrives but there is no product data. Additionally, we have an nVelocity variable in our template with the Vendor ID called {venId} and in the email that arrives at the CC or BCC address (not the vendor address), this field is just rendered as the variable name i.e. "{venId}" instead of "2". This is the primary reason why we have stopped using ablecommerce to send purchase orders to our suppliers, because we have no way of confirming the content of the purchase order or reviewing historical orders at some point in the future.

Cheers,

Lance

[Logan Rhodehamel]

this definitely does not work for us.

I am corrected. Bug 8177 was logged for the issue of CC addresses on vendor emails and has been corrected for the next release. I did not realize this had been changed.