shipEasy Advanced Setup

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Aims & Preparation

Most of this is included in the Installation & Pro Setup Service

We're going to activate some of shipEasy's more advanced features.

Follow the Easy Install Guide and the shipEasy: Quickstart to get shipEasy up and running.

 

We're going to be mainly focused on SystemConfiguration > Moogento / shipEasy and SalesOrders

Customise Column Display

Date Column

We have auto-selected a shortened date format, as part of the plan to reduce horizontal space (less scrolling) and reduce visual clutter. We figure most people don't need to see long-form month, the exact second an order was placed, etc. If you're not one of those people, you can change it back to the default date format, or use your own custom format.

1. In Grid Columns Setup find the 'Date' column.

   

2. You'll see a dropdown menu of choices : make your pick!
3. If you want a custom date format, check php.net/date for details of the options available.

   Eg. this is the format to mimic the default Magento date format:

   M j, Y g:i A

Show Persian & Thai Calendars

With shipEasy you can now see the date of an order in your local Calendar format!

1. Just choose which format you want and it will be displayed in the Date Column

   

   • Gregorian = Default!

Set Row 'Order Status' Color

One great feature of shipEasy is the ability to set the color of each row based on the Order Status. This allows you to quickly visually scan orders for issues and see which need processing. We've set the defaults to basically be like traffic lights:

• Clear (White) for Processing
• Red for a hold or problem
• Orange for Pending Payment
• Green for Complete/Shipped

You can customise these colors to suit your process.

1. Click in the color you want to change

   

2. A color picker will appear, you can either choose a color in the picker, or type/paste in the color code.

You can also set the Hover Highlight Percent to adjust how each row highlights when hovering over the grid.

Show Product Images

Depending on your packing process you may find it useful to see product images in the Order Grid.

• Just turn these on in the 'Grid Columns Setup' in SystemConfiguration > Moogento / shipEasy

Fold after x images : This sets at what number of images we collapse into a 'click-to-open' link (to not use the entire vertical height of the screen with multiple product orders).

Set this to 0, to keep the images always collapsed, to 1 to show the first one, etc.

Group Order Statuses

shipEasy enables you to quickly filter by order status groups.

How could this be useful? Eg. group 'all paid orders', 'all problem orders', 'all current orders'.

The groups just show up at the bottom of the Grid Status column dropdown.

To set this up:

1. Go to the shipEasy Grid Columns Setup config section.
2. Find the 'Order Status' line, and make sure it's enabled (green slider showing).
3. Add a new group:

   

4. Click in the 'Order Statuses' field, you'll see the available Order Statuses.
5. Click each status, to add to the group.
6. Finally add a name for the group (this will be the label in the Orders Page dropdown).
7. Save the config.
8. You'll now see an option to select that group in the Orders Grid -> Status column.

   

9. Selecting that group will filter to only show orders with a status that matches.

Group Shipping Methods

shipEasy enables you to quickly filter by shipping method groups.

How could this be useful? Eg. group all Express methods together, and process those at the beginning of the day, and again just before the courier cutoff time.

To set this up:

1. Go to the shipEasy Grid Columns Setup config section.
2. Add a new group:

   

3. Click in the 'Shipping Method' field, you'll see the available Shipping Methods.

   

4. Click each shipping method, to add to the group.

   If you want to enter a (single) custom method to match, choose 'Custom value' and then enter the match text in the 'Custom value' column field.

   

5. Finally add a name for the group.

   

6. Save the config.
7. You'll now see an option to select that group in the Orders Grid -> Shipping Method column.

   

8. Selecting that group will filter to only show orders with a shipping method that matches.

Group courierRules Methods

If you have courierRules and shipEasy installed, you can filter by grouped courierRules methods as well.

You could use this, for example, to print all domestic orders; all local orders; all express orders; all high-value orders, etc.

To set this up, look for the 'courierRules Method' option in the shipEasy 'Grid Columns Setup'. Create groups in the same way as described above (for Shipping Method groups).

Advanced Grid Sorting

shipEasy now has extra options to sort:

1. (First pageload) Sort orders by - this is how the Orders Grid will load when you log in. If you find it easier to sort by order number instead of date, set that here.
2. This group top of sort - eg. if you have express shipments coming in, you can set this to show those first, to make sure that recent express-ship orders don't get lost in the days orders. Keep those vip customers happy!
   1. Set up Shipping Method Groups in the Column Config section first. (These groups are what we can show first)

      Bonus! If you have courierRules installed, you can group & use courierRules Shipping Methods as well.

   2. Select the group here that you want to show first.
   3. That group will now show at the top of filtered results.

   

3. Clicking on an order - what to do when you click an order. You can set this now:
   1. Do Nothing : Magento default makes it difficult to copy/paste info as it goes to the order on a click. This option will let you easily copy/paste infor from each order. Make sure you're showing the 'Action' column so you can still see the Order Detail pages.
   2. Select The Order : This makes it super easy to select multiple orders (no need to keep going back to the checkbox for each order).
   3. Go To The Order : The Magento default action, clicking on an order will take you to the Order Detail page. Personally I find this annoying, I'm always clicking about in orders and have to race to the escape key if this is on.

Advanced Order-Cancelation Actions

Return Items To Stock On Cancel

Depending on how you have your store setup, and the way that your order processing happens, it can be useful to return items to stock when canceling the order.

shipEasy has a smart system, we assume that Orders that have been Shipped are not eligible to be returned to stock, but any other status can be.

(The theory here is that if you've sent an item off, it's a) not going to be in stock right away, and b) will need checking on return for any blemishes, defects, etc.)

To do this, is really easy:

1. Go to the SystemConfiguration > Moogento, and in the left column you'll see Status Ringfencing
2. Click into that, and set the 'Order processing: Status ringfence' to 'Custom'. This means that we will override the default way that Magento deals with orders and statuses.
3. Now you can set Return items to stock when cancelling orders? to Yes.

   

Country Groups

We can create up to 4 groups based on countries. This can be used for:

1. Grouping orders in Magento based on order status, for the 'Weights/Orders Bar', to have a quick overview of where your orders are heading.

   

   Turn it on here, and choose which order statuses will be counted:

2. To group by and filter by country group in the SalesOrders page.

   

3. In conjunction with pickPack to show specific return addresses / company addresses (per store) based on the country group.

   

4. In conjunction with pickPack to show specific shipping labels based on the country group.

   

Ok, let's set these up. Head to the Country Groups section.

• We've pre-filled some standard options, and listed some common groups to make it easy to copy/paste.
• Here I've made a group 'North America' and added in Canada and the USA.

• Common groups are usually based on shipping rate or carrier, or to help with marketing info:
  1. Home country
  2. Home country group
  3. Specific other country group
  4. Rest of World

Order Barcode Scanning

Ok, are you ready to save yet more hours every single day, reduce mistakes when shipping and processing orders, and generally feel like a bit of a rebel with a gun in your hand?! Ok, it's a laser (barcode-reading) gun, and the bonus is that this makes order processing so easy, so pain-free, that you can easily train someone else in minutes to do this, so you can focus on running your business. Even if you're left holding the gun, you're going to save so much time that you'll be a happy gunner.

• Use in conjunction with pickPack, so the order IDs are printed as barcodes on the Packing Sheets / Picklists / address labels / zebra labels.

1. Turn this feature on in the SystemConfigMoogento > shipEasy > Order Barcode Scanning section.
2. Back in the SystemOrders page you'll see a new button top right:
3. Click it.
4. A new section will slide open:
5. Now, setup the action(s) that you want to happen when you scan an order.
   • You can set two actions (from a dropdown choice), which will be applied for each scan.
   • See an easy-to-read history below the scan box, to check you're not missing anything.
6. When you've set the actions, just make sure the cursor is in the big text field, and scan your first order ID barcodes in Magento!

   Most barcode scanners will send an Enter signal after each scan. If you'd like to copy/paste an Order ID into the barcode field (or use a scanner which doesn't send an Enter signal, you can use the 'Manual Submit' button to complete the order.

•  ! Make sure that the last scan finished processing before your start on the next one.

Boom! You could do all this in one barcode scanner pop:

• Set the order status to 'shipped' or 'complete'.
• Email the customer their shipping confirmation email.
• Add a custom tag to the order (eg. tag all orders in a specific batch for each processing later on).

  Why do this?

  1. Maybe you take a day to get all shipments ready, and don't want to get your customers thinking that you have shipped their orders until the end of the day. If you tag all orders processed each day, at the end of the day you can filter by that tag, and process all orders as 'Shipped' as they are on the way out the door.
  2. Accounting - you can now make an easy report by the day using pickPack to show profit/loss.

Barcode Scanner Recommendations

• I'd recommend laser scanners over CCD types.
• Here's a good barcode scanner: this one.
• If you're getting a wired (vs. wireless) one, check the length of the cable will be suitable for your setup. You can usually substitute longer cables.

Using shipEasy with m2Epro

Loads of stores use shiEasy for this exact feature - to make it really easy to mass-ship orders and mass-mark them as shipped inside Amazon/eBay.

What shipEasy does though is not connect to Amazon/eBay, it changes the status of the order (eg. to 'Shipped').

You should setup m2Epro to auto-connect to Amazon/eBay when it reaches the status that you consider shipped.

Pro tips

You can set shipEasy to show columns with the eBay/Amazon user email/user-id, and the order id from that marketplace. Why? Easily find a specific order or customer to help with customer service enquiries.

You can also set it to show product links and order links to go direct to that product or order in the remote marketplace. Why? Eg. check on the actual description of a product in eBay.

You can output specific shipping labels based on M2Epro shipping methods (eg Royal Mail PPIs), with a combination of courierRules to match the inbound shipping methods, and pickPack, to print the labels.

Using shipEasy with other grid editors

1. If you're already using another extension for editing the grid, and want to just use shipEasy for it's mass-processing and 'power columns', or
2. You really like that 'every button is going to be Alert Orange' idea in default Magento (!)

then we have an extra setting for you.

In the General config section for shipEasy, just set the 'Use shipEasy grid styling?' option to No, and you'll be back in Glorious Orange!

Add the shipment tracking link to emails

shipEasy allows for super-simple setting of couriers based on tracking number pattern match.

Adding those links into outbound emails is not built into Magento by default. To show these in your transactional emails is fairly easy.

Try adding this block to shipping transaction emails to show the courier details:

{{block type='core/template' area='frontend' template='email/order/shipment/track.phtml' shipment=$shipment order=$order}}

You may need to also edit a file:

1. Find this file : app/design/frontend/base/default/template/email/order/shipment/track.phtml
2. Change line 41 to this:

<?php $tracking = Mage::helper('moogento_core/carriers')->getTrackLinkData($_item); ?>

<a href="<?php echo $tracking['url']; ?>"><?php echo $this->escapeHtml($_item->getNumber()); ?></a>

if you are using a design package other than the default one (eg. the rwd responsive one from magento), you may need to edit same file in that package.

1. Find this file : app/design/frontend/{package_name}/default/template/email/order/shipment/track.phtml

• Eg. for rwd it would be app/design/frontend/rwd/default/template/email/order/shipment/track.phtml

Now when you enter the tracking number in the transactional email template, it should add in a link to the courier tracking page, keeping your customers happy, and less support hours needed at your end. Win-win!

Hide Un-used Options

You'll probably realise that you just don't use some of the massaction menu options. Turn 'em off and de-clutter your dashboard!

• These are at the bottom of the shipEasy Config > Action Menu Options

...From Specific Users

This is a great one, if you have multiple people accessing your Magento install.

• Reduce the chance of mistakes happening and restrict the shipEasy options to specific users.

eg. you can hide the 'Ship & Invoice' option from the warehouse crew / accountants / etc.

• First edit the specific user role in SystemPermissionsRoles
• Then assign those roles to specific users in SystemPermissionsUsers