Introduction
The second version of the calculator contains some new features. They are the followings:
- Multiple order items can be collected into an order/inquiry
- The order/inquiry can be sent by the system to the company in email
The details can found below.
Feature descriptions
Multiple order items
The first version of the software was working in the following way:
- The user is choosing some properties of products based on different configurations.
- After this the quantity is given by the user the result row appears that contains the calculated data.
In the second version it is possible to add these order items (or positions) to an order/inquiry list. So the order/inquiry list can contain more items.
This is achieved in the following way: When the order item is shown to the user an two buttons are created. The "add as order" and "add as inquire" button appear beside the result row. If the result row contains real prices then both buttons can be clicked, if it is "on request" then only "add as inquire" is active. The default button is the "add as order".
The list of orders/inquires can be found below the result row.
Each item in the list contains data of the calculation:
- item number
- description
- quantity
- unit price
- line amount
- order checkbox
- inquire checkbox
- delete button
The delete button can be used to remove the item from the list. It is not possible to edit the items and it is not possible to change the order of items in the list. If the list is long then it is shown in multiple pages. So below list the next, previous buttons appear. Also the list can be sorted. The default sorting is by item number. The default place of adding new item to the list is at the end. If the list spans through multiple pages then it is possible that we need to show the last page.
At the bottom of the order list the total price can be seen (counted for orders). Each time we add or remove items from the list the total price is changing.
Sending Orders
Below the order/inquiry list a "send order/inquire" list button can be found, that can be used to send the order/inquiry list to the company. If the "send order/inquire" button is pressed, a dialog window appears that contains the order items. This dialog is used to show the final content of the order. The user needs to give the following fields:
- company name of the user, it is read-only, generated by the system
- name of the user
- the user's email address
- the user's phone number (optional)
- an id of the order that is generated by the user (optional)
- a message that will be included with the order (optional)
At the bottom of the dialog a "send" button can be found. If the user clicks on this button two emails are sent. The emails are sent to the following addresses:
- It is sent to the megadyne's email address. This email address comes from the excel. Each partner has a responsible person and the email is sent to her/him. So for each partner different email address can be given within the Megadyne.
- The email is also sent to a common email address of the company as cc.
- The email is also sent to the user for the specified email address as cc. The default email address for the partner can also come from the excel.
The email contains the following information:
- the subject contains:
- an order or inquiry ID generated by the system. This will be the following "order"/"inquire" + partner_id + "" + YYYMMddhhss. Where YYYYMMddhhss is the minute when the sending was done.
- user's order id.
- The body of the email is a html document that contains:
- the order or inquire list as attachment in a file that can be read by Excel. The items will have gaps if the original list has contained order and inquires as well, because two emails are sent.
- the time when the order or inquiry was created
- contact information of the company
- instructions about the following steps after order has been sent
- it can contain deadline information
- it contains the system generated order id
- the user generated order id
- the users phone number specified.
If the order has been sent, then the dialog disappears and we can see the original order creation page. The "send order" button is disabled now. The item list that has been sent is still there, but the "send order" button is activated only if the list is changing.
Beside the list a print button can be found (maybe).
Requirements
- The partner must be able to continue the work where it has stopped after closing the browser window. We need to save the state of the ordering process to cookies if that's possible.
- We should add a special config to the Excel. When this config is choosen then the program asks for a description and quantity only, so the partner can add a non-standard product to the list.
After choosing the item, qty etc., the system will check if the item chosen is on request or has a price. If the price is given, then the item can be added to a list, if not (on request) then the item can be added to another list. In this way the client can send an order and an inquiry as well in the same time. The two lists will have two different "order/inquiry numbers".