Another software upgrade has been released. The changelog lists as many as 59 items and is one of the biggest upgrades in the history of i-systems software. Every changelog consist of new features, bug fixes and refactoring. The most interesting changes in release 3.46 include:

Adding a content preview of the order status change notification for the customer

Sales service is related to sending the target customer information about the current status. Now it is enough to click the magnifying glass icon next to the order information to see the content of all messages directly in the panel. This change allows for a quick check of the correspondence with the customer and control of message correctness.

Adding a class for multivariant distribution to separate filters in the advanced product browser

Some products have many variables by which they can be browsed. Shoes from the newbalance.pl shop are an example here: the footwear from individual collections has two variants – standard size and shoe width (a rarer parameter). Thus, the browsed products previously had to fulfill both conditions to be displayed on the list of browsing results. The new class in the PAS (Product Advanced Search) browser allows for distributing both variants to two independent filters. As in the newbalance.pl shop, the customer can now find the New Balance ML574POG shoe model no matter if he/she uses a “size 42.5” or a “D width” filter.

Adding a task module in the background

Customer teams operating an online shop wish to send information packages comfortably via API to the shipment manager. With several hundred or more orders, such information takes up a lot of space, but API usually requires sending all information via one request. This activity may last longer and thus hinder the work. The task module in the background allows for performing time-consuming operations in the background of the system. No more rotating loaders or white pages while waiting for the target page to open – the operations are now delegated. At the same time, the customer service staff can see the task progress status.

Adding a box module

Personalization of online shopping is currently implemented in many ways. One of them may be offering the target customer the possibility of choosing the packaging. The customer can select a box for the goods in the order basket.
The boxes have a virtual warehouse status, which serves solely informative purposes useful to the shop administrator. The box in the basket is only available for the products which have an appropriate box size ascribed. It has a name, color, size, warehouse status and photo.
The shop staff can see the information about the selected boxes in order details and on generated shipment lists. Box selection is displayed next to every ordered item for which the box has been chosen. There is also a summary at the bottom of the generated document, which includes the number of boxes for the selected configurations of size and color. This minimizes the risk of making a mistake when packing the products.

Adding a shipment plug-in for InPost service

Release 3.46 has also widened the range of courier companies available. InPost courier services are provided in Poland and 18 European countries. Recipients expecting a quick delivery may also choose an option of guaranteed delivery till the noon of the next working day (though one must remember that this service is only available in selected places in Poland). At the beginning, the integration uses the option of payment on collection, but it will be possible to configure other forms of delivery in the future.

Adding the handling of cookies in the affiliate partner module

The affiliate module is aimed at tracking the visits of target customers from the partners with which the shop signed a partnership agreement. Such partners may include blogs, news websites, advertizing networks and other online shops. Each partner is identified individually using a GET parameter. The identification allows for settlement between the partners: if the target customer visits the shop by clicking the partner’s link and makes a purchase, a suitable piece of information will be displayed in the order view in the administrative panel. The added cookie handling function replaces the session-based solution and will measure affiliations better.

Improvement of UX of the purchase process

The release also includes changes immediately visible to the customers. The 3.46 version has improved minor design elements in the order summary. Thus, the content is now displayed better on mobile devices and the phenomenon of abandoning the baskets should decrease.

Adding new authentication methods via REST

The safety of connections is one of the most important issues in eCommerce and the entire IT. The applications are now protected against unauthorized access by REST-handled authentication methods such as SessionCookie, OAuth1 and HTTPAuthBasic.

This is the last series 3 release – the next software upgrade will already be numbered as 4.0. Beside standard updates, it will also refresh the whole administrative panel layout. Stay tuned for the details.