High volume order processing ideas

[AbleMods]

Introduction
After 6 straight days of what I consider "high volume", here are my thoughts and concerns. I'm new to this stuff, so I don't know what high-volume really is. But I do know what it takes to handle the following volume in AC7.

Statistics
Daily hit counts were 250,000 - 300,000.
Order volume ranged from 25 - 35 orders per day.
Failed authorizations averaged 4 per day. Almost always a bad billing address.

Order Receipt Processing
The orders screen is fine for one-by-one management. But I need to know what I'm supposed to order by distributor. I could cut 20% of all my workload just by having the orders list group by distributor so I'm not bouncing back and forth between them all.
A huge help would be a treeview control - expand the order to see the billing/shipping/method info on level 2. Expand to level 3 to see SKU's, quantities and descriptions (for item confirmation). Level 3 should have a configurable hot-button to set the order status to another value i.e. "Ordered", "Warehouse" whatever.
Without changing the order status, the merchant has no way of marking which orders are processed i.e. placed with the distributor versus unprocessed.

Payment handling
The payment status on the main Orders screen is far too confusing. Void's are red. I don't care about voids - I'm the one who voided the stupid thing. Set the payment status back to "Unpaid" when it's voided. I need to know if it's authorized, paid or unpaid. I just don't really care about anything other possibilities because they don't impact my decision to place the order with the distributor or not.

Refunds
Refunded orders that are cancelled shouldn't even BE on the Orders screen. Who cares? They're refunded AND they're cancelled...product won't ship and I have to keep filtering through them to see what orders that matter.

Cancelled Orders
The default should always be to filter out cancelled orders on the Orders screen. Once an order is cancelled, this isn't a single thing I will ever want to do with that order on THAT screen. If a customer wants his order "uncancelled", I can find it under his User Profile. Get it out of my way.

Problem Orders
Problem orders should have the ENTIRE row colored in red. It's a problem. I want to know it requires more attention. Right now, voids and refunds catch my eye FAR more than a problem order ever will.
In fact, I want problem orders always at the top. The first orders listed on any orders page should be problem orders; then everything else by order number.
That way they're always there, in my face and reminding me so I know what I have left to deal with so far as problem orders go. Right now, I'm filtering back and forth and back and forth and it sucks on a large scale.

Deleting Orders
You have GOT to give us a delete order option in the "Updated Selected Orders" dropdown. I'm going to code my own whether you do or not.
Until payment processing, PayPal and the rest of the ECommerce world works flawlessly, crap happens. And on a large scale, crap orders keep mudding up my Orders list and I constantly have to fish through the list to see what REAL orders I have to address.
The other side of this coin is the customer side - when an order screws up on my side, their order history melts down with it. Customers have to wade through the messed up ones to find the valid ones and it's confusing the heck out of them. I don't blame em, it's confusing me on the admin side.

Page state
The design of the Orders main screen is such that anything significant has to be done on a separate screen within the order itself. If you're going to make me screen-flip all day, you've got to save ALL the Basic Search or Advanced Search settings on the main Orders screen.
I'm constantly re-adjusting Page Size back to 50 because 20 is all it ever stays at, and with all the failed payments, bad orders and processed orders the 20 just ain't cutting it.

Quick Order Jump
I desperately need a field on the basic search Orders screen that lets me just type in the order number. I already know the order number on many of my communications with customers. I don't want to click Advanced Search and have to type the order number twice. I need a field that takes an order number and OPENS the order. Not list it; Open the main order screen so I can start working. Make it so typing the order number and pressing <enter> pulls up the order straight away, no more clicking. Too much typing and too many clicks to do that now.

Basic and Advanced Search dropdowns
The order filter features you have given me have been my saving grace. But it's a hassle to use the drop down and still hit search. I don't care about screen refreshs, I care about how quickly I can get to the information I need to make a decision. Make 'em all postbacks.
One click may seem trivial, but on a larger scale it feels incredibly inefficient. I'm hop-ing all over the place all the time dealing with orders.

Update Selected Orders
Best damn feature in the order admin screen. Period. But on anything other than 20 on the page size and it's way down at the bottom. Can it be a sidebar, duplicated at the top or something more readily accessible? Not a major deal.

Also, an option to "send order message to customer" would be AMAZING! I could select several orders and have the same order message sent to all of them AND it's going to be in the History and Notes section. That would be huge for me.

Order Details
I need ModelNumber and SKU listed on the order details screen. There's room. Wrap the name if you have to. Not all distributors work with SKU alone - some also work with manufacturer numbers.

Quantity value needs to be centered - right now it's left-aligned and on a tight screen almost looks like a third decimal place to the price.

Color code the Payment: Paid text at the top and the stuff under the Payment section. If I'm viewing an order, I want some eye candy to remind me the order is or is not paid.

Put something, in yellow, above the billing/shipping addresses when the bill to is NOT the same as the ship to addresses. That's the first and single most important information when the merchant is addressing fraud concerns. In fact, color the whole ship-to address yellow if it's not the same as the billing - that would be awesome! Or that little yellow triangle thingy next to the ship-to would be a second idea.

History and Notes
I've posted this before but it's crucial to me even more now so I'll post it again. I need templates for order messages to customers. I'm saying the same thing 90% of the time.

I live off History and Notes. Seriously. It's my only way to keep track of what's going on with each order. There's just no other way to do it. Make the notes box MUCH larger and (if it's not a biggie) HTML-enable it.

Payment Failure Trigger
You have got to give me a payment failed trigger with email template. If there is one, I'll die because I need it so badly. The customer MUST know if their payment failed - there's no reason for it not to be automatic.
An email template could explain the steps and dramatically cut down on my failed-payment workload.

[bobr2k]

Introduction
You have got to give me a payment failed trigger with email template. If there is one, I'll die because I need it so badly. The customer MUST know if their payment failed - there's no reason for it not to be automatic.
An email template could explain the steps and dramatically cut down on my failed-payment workload.

If I had a way to test this I would but since I don't I'll ask the question:
When I look at "Customer Order Notification" in RC2 I see check boxes for Payment Authorization Failed, Payment Capture Failed and many others. Are these events covered/posted by AC7? If I'm understanding Joe they might not be but if I see them listed on the email templates provided by ac it seems like they should be. What am I missing?

multi-part question: is all the code/colors for these html email messages hidden on the database or are they in css files. I've not been able to find them other than by editing the html on the template pages. Come to think of it, I may be able to test that but if you know the answer (and tell me) I'll appreciate it.

[AbleMods]

The failed payment trigger works just fine in RC3. When an authorization fails, the customer is immediately sent the email template assigned to the failed authorization trigger. Works nicely.

I don't know about the colors, I assumed they were stored in the HTML itself.

[bobr2k]

thx Joe ... yes the colors are in the html which is stored on the database. your colors are basic blue so you're in business ... it does seem that it would be a huge selling point for ac to provide a store configuration setting for basic colors and have them accessed behind the scenes for this type of item and perhaps even for css files. That, however, may be way down the road or never.

[AbleMods]

I knew I liked blue for a reason