[ic] Manager Approval

Ethan Rowe ethan at endpoint.com
Sat Jul 9 13:19:07 EDT 2005


Denis Heinrichs wrote:

> I need a way to require managerial approval on an order before it is 
> complete.
> The process I would like to see is:
> 1) user clicks checkout
> 2) manager gets an e-mail with order details asking for approval
> 3) manager clicks on "approve" button
> 4) user gets normal receipt, etc...order is processed.
>
> Has anyone done this?  I have looked through the various 
> documentation, mailing lists,etc. but cannot find anything similar to 
> this (although maybe my searching skills lack womewhat).  Can anyone 
> point me in the right direction?

Are you dealing with credit card processing at any point in this 
scheme?  If you need credit card processing, you'll have an easier time 
if you do it as part of step 1; otherwise, you need to have a secure 
means to store the card information encrypted somewhere, and have the 
means to decrypt the information on a different machine for submission 
to the gateway.  That's not a particularly nice situation, so you may 
want to have an AUTH occur against the card at step 1, and delay capture 
until after step 3, or connect that to shipping time, etc..

There are a number of ways you could do this kind of thing.  It depends 
on what your platform offers you, how rugged you want the system to be, 
etc.  I'm not an expert on what the Standard demo offers in the 
administrative area, because I basically don't use it.  However, I know 
it already gives you various order status values.  I would take a look 
at the order status page in the admin, to start.  There are tools in 
place there for handling status changes, shipping various lines of an 
order, etc.  Perhaps some tweaking in this area would be of help.

Outside the context of the standard demo, I'd be inclined to make two 
independent master order routes.  The first order route would take place 
when the user checks out, and would place the order into the database, 
send out the approval email, etc.  The order would go into the database 
with some kind of 'pending approval' flag.  The second order route would 
occur when the manage approves the order, marking the order as approved 
in the database, delivering the full receipt to the customer, etc.

Hope this helps.
- Ethan

-- 
Ethan Rowe
End Point Corporation
ethan at endpoint.com



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