CSV imports

[jontobey]

Importing my customers' addresses as state abbreviations (WA) instead of the full name (Washington) was crashing my shopping cart.

Likewise, bringing in human readable phone numbers (NNN.NNN.NNNN; NNNNNNNNNN; (NNN)-NNN-NNN) are read as errors. Only NNN-NNN-NNNN seem to be acceptable. I can't even imagine why this would be checked as you would never computer process them.
These two things cost me two days of trial and error to debug.

Wouldn't you think that would be documented somewhere? Actually, I consider these bugs that PS should fix.

[cjrhoads]

Thanks for pointing this out - you just saved me a lot of time and effort, as I was about to start uploading my customers. 

 

I've found a lot of issues with the CSV import, but considering that most systems don't let you do CSV import at all, the minor issues are not that big a deal. 

 

For example, one issue I found is that when you get to the part where you are uploading images into products and/or categories, you can't put the source files for the images in a subsubdirectory.  They must be stored in a folder only one level down on the root of the server.  If you put them anywhere else, I found, even just in a subsubdirectory on the root, you get an error message that the image cannot be found.

(Now this may be related to permissioning in some way, but since I spent about 2 days tracking down the problem and the solution, I was just happy that I found a way to get those images uploaded.)

 

In term of your statement about bigs that PS should fix, I was under the impression that Prestashop is open source.  Am I wrong?  When people download and use an open source software, I thought it kinda went without saying that bug fixes are always appreciated and very nice, but since no one is getting paid to publish the software, I personally wouldn't use the word "should" when talking about bug fixes.  I figure - you get what you pay for.  Since I downloaded Prestashop for free, I expect to take my chances, and I expect bugs.  When I come across a bug, I think it should be reported so that SOMEONE knows about it (which is why they have that lovely bug reporting link in the footer of the backoffice).  

 

Same issue with documentation.  Whenever I use open source software, I assume that there is limited documentation for everything, and that there are lots of things that are "wrong".  For example, the product import sample file has three columns that are missing headings so you don't know what they are.  It isn't until you get into the importer that you see they are height, width, and depth - dimensions of the product for shipping.  When I get full complete and accuract documentation, I'm always appreciative because I know how much programmers love to program, and hate to document.  When I pay for development, I always pay extra for documentation - but when I use free software, I feel lucky to get anything at all.

 

One thing I noticed about Prestashop bugs - many of them are related to the fact that it is pretty world-centric, not US centric.  The bug you came across, for example, may be because many of the people using the software don't even use states and zips.  (I think that's why those are the fields that disappear from my system when my theme gets corrupted by an update, too.)  I could be wrong - but that's what it seems to me.

 

 

Just my opinion

CJ

Edited June 22, 2014 by cjrhoads (see edit history)

[jontobey]

Prestashop is hardly free when you consider that to really do anything with it, you need to buy stuff. I finally had to pay them to "help" me, but the help was so cryptic and useless I just had to figure it out myself. I'd've paid thousands to get back the months I've spent trying to figure this stuff out.

[cjrhoads]

What you say, jontobey, is true.  But depending upon your point of view - you are paying for knowledge, not software.  Prestashop, the software,  is free.  The knowledge of how to make it work - well, if you don't already know, that will cost you money.  I had to hire someone to show me how it all works.  It was a great investment because it saved me hundreds of hours of wasted time.

 

Of course, you can also pay for additional themes, extensions, and added capabilities.  Then you are paying for the software.  But that's not basic Prestashop.  I've reviewed hundreds of possible additional modules, but I haven't found any that meet my needs, so I have to do the development myself (with the paid-for expertise of the consultants I hired).

 

(If anyone knows of a module that handles EVENTS [i.e. selling tickets or workshop seats], then please let me know - but I haven't found anything already available for that.)

Thanks

CJ

[jontobey]

I was "sold" prestashop as a solution to my problems, and it is not. I cannot believe there is not a simple, inexpensive POS solution or QB integration for it. On bad advice I bought both Store Manager and the QB integration module. The latter is so poorly named as to be false advertising. How can you build software you can't use to check out in a brick and mortar store or do your bookkeeping? I'd dump it in a minute for and actual E2E business solution.

[cjrhoads]

I'm sorry you were misled, though that is a common problem in choosing technology.  (I wrote a book on this topic: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Managing Information Technology, and teach a graduate course on the subject, not to mention my 25+ years of experience in the field on both sides of the table) so I know of what I speak.) The problem isn't that someone was trying to lie to you, it's that their knowledge and experience may have been so drastically different than yours that you heard something different than what they were saying. I call it "mutual mystification". You thought you understood what they said. They thought you understood what they said. But in reality neither of you had, in your mind, the same thing.

 

Here's the truth; there is NO technology, ever, that is a solution to a problem. Solutions are always combinations of networking, hardware, software, process, and people. Open source software can be a wonderful resource for a technical person who is looking to utilize the work of others, but it is rarely a solution for non-technical people who don't know how to go in and fix their own bugs - because there are always bugs.

 

You will also never find an integration with Quickbooks (anymore). Years ago Quickbooks made it possible to integrate with their software, but in the last few years they've made it impossible. Any system that advertises integration is almost always referring to older versions of the software. Quickbooks now changes their datastructures pretty much every year and it is almost impossible to keep up.

 

The other thing that you will find (again, I stated this in my book written years ago, and it remains true today) integration between a web site and a "real" store remains one of the most difficult tasks in business. The number of issues are many. So your expectations appear, to me, to be out of whack with reality. Because you may not understand the technical complexities involved, you assume something should be easy that is actually technically difficult. (Similarly, you may think something is difficult when, in reality, that task might be technically easy.)

 

(oops - sorry, getting off lectern now.)

 

Just my opinion.

CJ