Feature Request: Add Tracking to Order

Alex,
Here is another one. I was wondering if there was a way from the backend where we could let the client know the status of their order. For instance, on their order page, we could select from "Order Processed, order in production, order shipped", etc. Would be awesome if we could create these ourselves so they could be customized. The second part that would be awesome is if you could make a field where we could input the link to whatever tracking we give them through UPS, USPS, etc.

So when a client logins, they can check the status of their order and if it has shipped they would see the link to the tracking information. Most ecommerce sites have this so it would be a nice feature plus would cut down on the number of phone calls and emails asking about orders if they can just check it themselves.

Thinking out loud here.

The sections in admin panel in which you can move orders to are currently these (writing them here just as reference):
New, User Resubmits, Pending Customer, In Production, On Hold, Completed, Deleted, Refunded.

They should be enough, considering they're only for your own internal use.
But if the point is to mark an order as "shipped", and provide custoer a tracking link, wouldn't using email templates be the easiest solution?
In the order management panel, by using the "EMAIL TEMPLATE TO CUSTOMER" command you can send email templates directly to them. And before sending it you are able to eidt the email too.

In my simplified vision, you may want to create an email template dedicated to shipped orders, leaving a placeholder in which you can copy the tracking link by editing the email before sending it.

As basically you're emailing the customer details about the order and shipping, this would solve the problem of letting them know the order is... on its way.
However I agree something better would need to be done also at normal order status pages. We recently made some changes to the user panel into the designer, so "revising the order revise pages" is something I've already put into account.

Probably the easiest thing I could do would be to add a new field in the order management page for the tracking link.
You would need to fill it once you have it, but the main point is to lso let the customer know about this update.
Naturally, what you want is this process to be as fast and natural as possible, for both you and the customer. So, here's how I would see it at a glance, but let me know if you think there may be better ways to handle it.

I would add the new field in the order management page.
When filled and saved, I would immediately pop up a new window to give you the opportunity of emailing customer about the updated status, by using the usual "EMAIL TEMPLATE TO CUSTOMER" feature.
So, I would also add to the templates specialcodes a new one to handle the tracking link.
Also, I would post that link on the very first page of the user revised orders, as well as other order related pages customers can see.

How would you feel a flow like this?

This is a really great idea.

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Again a great idea....give the customer a "order status center" They can log in ...print off the invoice, (needed by most big companies now) ...see status of order, and tracking if possible, and MOST importantly......

They can click on a past order, and RE-ORDER! or change and then RE-ORDER! MORE MONEY YAY!!!!

Any more thoughts on this idea?:

Alex [ PM ]
Re: Feature Request: Add Tracking to Order
November 06, 2011 01:42AM

I like it as proposed. It would really be helpful.

thanks, jack

Not really.
This post was pretty old, nowdays I would solve the issue in a different way by making use of the RTD API.
With that, locally, you could retrieve all order's details (even formatted into a template) and add the tracking number right away.

Concept in general is that RTD is more likely not the place your staff looks into in order to get a tracking number, so I'm moving a lot in the API direction to allow external developement of the tools you may need, rather that trying to do everything into the RTD alone. This allows far more flexibility!

In this specific case, as the point was to keep users updated, I would use the API to create a custom "view your order details" page in which you can embed data from other sources (as the tracking number, but possibly a lot of other things as well)