Anyone using Prestashop Manager by eMagicOne

[Randaal]

I am currently testing it and it seems pretty OK to me but I have a question for those who already use it for some time - is there something that you are missing that is commonly used in the browser-based back office of your store? Or something really different?

 

Thanks for any good tips or suggestions on what to be aware of because I am planning to purchase a few licences and I would like to avoid future regrets that I haven't noticed something or so

[Iryna]

Hello! 

 

Store Manager for PrestaShop might be really convenient for you and help you with store running. 

This is a desktop application, actually simple in installation and usage. 

In order to work with your store database you can use bridge or direct connection. Bridge connection allows you to work with data locally and after some modifications are implemented, synchronize data.

There is a possibility to enhance bulk product management using Mass Changers - Mass Product, Combination and Feature Changers and respectively update numerous products, combinations and features at once.  

Moreover, Store Manager possesses convenient product import wizard, using which you can upload lots of products, and if needed combinations, features. The application supports various file formats for product import 

 

Anyway, you can check its functionality using fully-functional trial version free for 30 days. Check how it works and whether it suits your needs - http://www.prestashopmanager.com/free%20download/

Edited July 24, 2014 by Iryna (see edit history)

[Randaal]

Thanks for the info but all that I already know :-) I am already using the trial version.

What I was asking about was whether is anything that is different in possibilities between those two solutions. Meaning whether the web based administration offers anything that the manager does not etc.

 

What I found today is that when I created a product via manager it didn't show up in products in web based back office. Not sure why this happened, will do a little research later today

[Iryna]

Hello! 

Looks like Store Manager does the same things as PrestaShop admin and more, although web based administration copes with order processing.

 

Maybe you are using bridge connection and products are not displayed because you did not post changes.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Iryna (see edit history)

[Randaal]

I am using bridge connection. I synced changes and I see the product in backoffice but not frontoffice - any suggestions?

[Iryna]

Hello! 

If products are not displayed at the front-end, you need to check a couple of things:

1. Make sure products are assigned to categories

2. Product status must be set to "Enabled"

3. Try to clear cache

[Randaal]

OK, I see the product both in FO and BO.

 

1) Now I have a problem with combinations - I've set wrong prices for both combinations and then changed them but the change does not appear in FO even though in BO they are already correct.

2) When I make various changes to the product (supplier price, warehouse assigning (I use advanced stock management) the changes sometimes do not apply and I can't figure out when or why.

[Iryna]

Ok, I understand

 

Please, confirm that you post changes to web, first of all

Secondly, clear shopping cart cache

 

Let me know whether changes are displayed

[Randaal]

1) Posting changes to web - always the first thing I check when I see no changes.
2) shopping cart cache is found where?

[Iryna]

Check the screenshot, please 

http://screencast.com/t/jNENr45cW

[Randaal]

Cache cleared. Prices haven't changed

[Iryna]

Just one more thing to clarify.

Tell, please, you changed price for combinations and it now is displayed correctly in BO, but the front-end it did not change? 

[Randaal]

Exactly.

1) web-based BO - default price 0, combinations with price impact - all correct
2) manager - default price 0, combinations with price impact - all correct

3) FO - prices of combinations are exactly the way they were incorrectly set before

[Iryna]

This is very specific issue. We could not reproduce it.

I will ask you to let our support team investigate it for you.

Could you please provide us with store configuration file and ID or reference of the product, you modified price for. Send it via e-mail [email protected], please

Edited July 30, 2014 by Iryna (see edit history)

[Randaal]

Is there a way to correct a few translations? It looks kinda funny and misleading sometimes how it is translated to Czech language.

 

 

PS: Just for the information to everyone else reading this topic - the prices have solved themselves so maybe there was something not updated right away but during a little time it purgued.

[Maria Kvasnytska]

Hi Randaal,

We really appreciate when the clients help us with translations of program into other languages. For the mentioned reason, we have translation projects created - http://www.prestashopmanager.com/useful-articles/prestashop-translation/prestashop-translations/

Czech is done on 86%, you can help us with the rest of phrases left as well as correct out existing translation. For the help we are willing to give you some bonuses, like discount or we can prolong your update period.

[vekia]

how i can help to translate last 7% of Polish ?

[Maria Kvasnytska]

You just need to sign up for our translation project -
https://crowdin.com/project/prestashop-store-manager/invite
and select the language of translation

Thank you so much for your initiative to help.

[Dolke]

I'm using the Store Manager for Prestashop for over a year now. 

If I can help you with some specifics please let me know...

[Randaal]

Right now I have a problem to find out what to with "shop association". For example when I want to update stock coverage in advanced stock management I first need to create a warehouse (even though I already have one created a long time ago in web-based back office) but for that I need to associate it with a shop and I can't figure out what is wrong or what to do because I haven't found any option to create a shop in the manager.

 

I am pretty confused right now because along with an existing warehouse in the administration but not in the manager I cannot see existing CMS pages. I expect these functions should be linked not separately existing in two parts of the system, right?

[Maria Kvasnytska]

Hi Randaal!

Via Store Manager for PrestaShop it is not possible to create shops (there are created via admin panel). If you are using Multi-Store functionality of PrestaShop, Store Manager only "reads" PrestaShop structure you have and allows to view and manage data in shops. So if you you have multiple shops and create new warehouse in Store Manager, you are offered to associate it to one or multiple shops you might have - http://screencast.com/t/ULs3fyC43y

As for CMS pages they serve for different purposes, namely, creating custom pages. So they are placed at the separate section of application: http://screencast.com/t/2nrMd1BIF
These sections are separated in PrestaShop back-office either - http://screencast.com/t/nKkBbtgB
If you have meant something else, please, clarify.

@Dolke
Hi Dean! If I'm not mistaken you have helped us with translation into Serbian and now it is done on 88%. Also we have recently released Beta ver. 2.13.0.900 of new Store Manager, so you can download it and test. Your opinion and suggestions will help us make the software better.

[Randaal]

The warehouse I already had has finally appeared in the manager (I've created a second warehouse and it somehow purgued the way for warehouses to appear). So that is fine already.

 

The issue still is that I see no shops to associate it with. I am clueless what needs to be changed to purgue this as well

[Maria Kvasnytska]

Are your shops showing at products section here?
http://screencast.com/t/0a2DyKskgG7

Also, please let me know your PrestaShop shopping cart version and Store Manager version and also if you can, send me screen-shot of window where you cannot associate warehouse to appropriate shop.

[Randaal]

Progress - the shop appeared in the manager but when I want to associate a warehouse to the shop it still gives me the error that I need to associate a shop even though I selected it before clicking OK

[Randaal]

Shopping cart v 1.5.1 (default Prestashop module)

Store manager 2.12.0 Build 800

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uerh1dyshlbjty/Screenshot%202014-08-13%2012.06.31.png

 

And yes, I now see the shop on tho Categories & Products window as indicated on your screenshot. The only difference is that mine is striked through font

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ouqfrt6gkqi9s5z/Screenshot%202014-08-13%2012.26.08.png

Edited August 13, 2014 by Randaal (see edit history)

[Maria Kvasnytska]

Hmm... Shop Groups are crossed. Most likely this is something specific. We need our techs to have a look at this. Please send us your store configuration file (it can be saved at Preferences (F12) - Actions - Save current configuration) using this form -
http://support.emagicone.com/submit_ticket 

Also please indicate in the ticket that you are from this forum (provide the link to this post), so we could recognize you faster.


 

[Randaal]

OK, support contacted, thanks for your help

[Maria Kvasnytska]

I will also post solution here, after out techs have a look at the problem.

[Aardvark1971]

eMagic Store Manager is what Prestaship SHOULD be (imo). We could not run our store without it.

 

I've found Store Manager extremely useful, even essential. Export functions are very good, but what shines is the ability to create multiple categories, subcategories, assigning mass categories or subcategories to multiple products at once, manage individual products, prices, meta, and mass product changes.

 

We use expandable category lists on our site, with subcategories. I could NOT do this with Back Office csv import and finally gave up. Now, with Store Manager, I can assign 1 or 1000 products to multiple categories at once (recommend only doing 50 or so at a time). This feature alone made Store Manager absolutely "essential" for us.

 

As far as I know, you can only work with 1 product at a time in Back Office for assigning categories(s), pricing or anything else, a real pain for large sites - far to cumbersome and slow.

 

Doing any of this in Back Office royally sucks (again, imo). Store Manager makes it 10 times easier.

 

Store Manager is way faster too, saving hours of time, whereas Back Office is slow to navigate, slow to make a change comparitively speaking.

 

I have not yet used the the product combination functions, but poking around in Store Manager, this looks like it will be MUCH easier then doing this in Back Office.

 

It is by far the very best module I've ever purchased. I have zero affiliation with them. Definitely recommend anyone frustrated with the clumsiness of Back Office to give it a try.

 

Anyone with more then a few hundred products would probably benefit with Store Manager. It will also support multiple stores very easily, so if you have another domain, no problem. You can make a few clicks (after it's configured for the additional site) and whala! - you're on the new site.

 

There are some problems with Store Manager. You still need Back Office for some administration functions, such as refresh cache, reindex all products, abandoned shopping carts, etc.  Font sizes on high resolution monitors leaves a lot to be desired (tiny fonts).  Does not export image names, but will export image ID (currently a problem for us). 

 

[Maria Kvasnytska]

@Randaal
Our techs have checked the problem and have discovered that your database is lacking of some important tables responsible for multi-store. For instance, you had no values for shop ID, status, name, shop group ID, shop URL etc. These fields are needed for proper multiple shops maintaining.
After these details on your shops will be added correctly, you will be able to assign warehouse in Store Manager without problems.

@Aardvark1971
Thank you for sharing feedback on the software.

[Dolke]

Hi to all,

 

@Randaal, sorry that I didint replay earlier, I noticed that miss Maria jumped in and she with the eMagicOne so I thought she will give you the best answer. I wanted to give more like a general opinion of the program.

 

 

I will write a detailed report about the eMagicOne Store Manager for Prestashop and my experience with this product so far, their tech support and company in general. 

When writing, I will try to be objective and to give arguments towards both good and bad aspects of this product.

 

I'm using their product for almost 2 years now, practically almost for as long as we are using Prestashop for our online store. 

 

Product is great and it really helps on a daily basis. What is most important it make certain tasks that, store owners are making daily or weekly, automatic and it saves time! For example some of these tasks are updating prices for products, updating quantities, importing new products etc...

For example, Prestashop 1.5.4.1 that we are using has an issue with the CSV import functionality and errors and bugs associated with this PS feature was admitted  by the PS team and I'm guessing it is fixed in some newer versions of the prestashop, but we have managed to overcome this issue by using Store Manager for Prestashop.

 

Also when you have 5000 products and CSV import that doesn't work fine, and you need to update prices every week for like 10% of the products this can be frustrating! Why? Well because we never know what import will do to a DB, will it pass successfully or not so we always needed to backup and pray!

With the Store Manager for Prestashop we are able to update prices in the matter of minutes using CSV file that we generate in our ERP program that we are using for offline business.

 

Having option to work in a desktop environment, change images, add/edit descriptions is great because it is much faster. Then, when all changes are made, you can click a button and SM will move all those changes to a online DB. This can be done over night for example in order to save your server (especially if the store is hosted in shared environment) resources and do the sync when there is little or no activity on the website.

There is a easy way to export anything you want from the store... for example we are exporting weekly orders by customers in order to get products list and make warehouse packing lists etc...

Great thing about SM is that is compatible with all PS versions or at least we didn't have problems with 1.5.4.1 and 1.6.0.6 so far...

This kind of tool is giving you advantage of other competitor websites because you will save time putting content (images, products descriptions, codes etc) on the website so you would have more time to actually find good materials for your website and make it more SE optimized and SE friendly.

I would need at least few hours to just touch the surface writing about this product but in general its worth of time and money invested.

 

Of course as every other software, especially complex as SM for Prestashop, it has quite a lot of bugs and features that might have another logic from end-user point of view. Still these are fixed step by step in every next release of the software so guys from eMagicOne really do their jobs...

 

Btw, I have sent over a 50 support tickets so far and non of them stayed not answered. Also, I become official beta-tester for their PS store manager and I've been translation contributor from the begging.

For these past 2 years I have only good experiences. Store Manager for Prestashop by eMagicOne is definitely my recommendation 
for all store owners and if you guys have more then few hundred products this kind of tool is a must have I strongly believe.

If someone needs some help about specific things, features, modules If I can help sure thing, shoot

Cheers
Dean

[Clinton12]

Hi All,

 

Great feedback, the more I read up on SM the more I think I badly need it. But I have one big question if someone could answer it I would appreciate it.

 

We are currently using multi-shop and I don't like it, I think it has too many bugs so I want to ask if I decided to scrap multi-store and have two individual stores (different urls but same product with different currency) is it possible to share stock levels or link them between each store?

 

So I would have 3 stores in total:

1. Online Shop 1

2. Online Shop 2

3. Bricks and Mortar Shop

 

If I have a qty of 1 for product A then product A will be shown as in stock in the 2 online stores but if its sold in any of the 3 stores it will be changed to out of stock? Is this possible without multi-store as I want to run two separate reliable PS stores rather than 1 bugy ps store using multi-store. Is this what advanced stock management does?

 

Thanks in advance for any answers 

[puffdade]

I Have been using this module for a while now and absolutely love it, My experience level is below average with this kind of stuff  and struggle to even set up the ftp properly for it,  but now I have done that I can wiz through editing products  so fast its unreal,

 

 

One of the major thumbs ups  for me is the way in which it handles exporting  its superb and easy, I have many products with lots of combinations and lots of brands  I need to twice weekly  export the current stock lists for each brand including its combinations  and send an xl spread sheet of requirements to my suppliers  with the supplier codes  this module makes easy work of it and I can do all my orders some 10k  products a week in 30 minutes, we all know time is money this module pays for itself very quickly. I spent a small fortune on an all singing all dancing ERP  a while back  30 minutes a week with store manager replicates what I needed from that ERP.

 

I can't wait until the Stock management beta is completed.

 

This is one of those modules that you think I wish it could do x y and z  as well the thing is it probably does it already I just haven't sussed that out yet

[Maria Kvasnytska]

@Clinton12

Thank you for your question. 

If you have 3 separate stores with 3 separate databases and want to synchronize stock between them you will have to run export/import each regular period of time, as quantity and other inventory updates cannot be synchronized between 3 separate stores right after they are made. So you can set up scheduled updates, let's say, each evening for each store by means of automated export/import.

 

Advanced Stock Management allows to manage and view stock and its movement, coverage and the history of any stock changes from the same place where you manage your products. With this helpful feature you can bring a piece of accounting to your shop and see visualized when the stock was changed, who did it and how it was modified (increased/ decreased or transferred). In plain words, there you will see detailed logging showing extra information on how the stock was changed.

 

@puffdade

We're glad read that you like our app. Improvement of Advanced Stock Management is in our to-do-list for upcoming releases. 

[Clinton12]

@Clinton12

Thank you for your question. 

If you have 3 separate stores with 3 separate databases and want to synchronize stock between them you will have to run export/import each regular period of time, as quantity and other inventory updates cannot be synchronized between 3 separate stores right after they are made. So you can set up scheduled updates, let's say, each evening for each store by means of automated export/import.

 

Advanced Stock Management allows to manage and view stock and its movement, coverage and the history of any stock changes from the same place where you manage your products. With this helpful feature you can bring a piece of accounting to your shop and see visualized when the stock was changed, who did it and how it was modified (increased/ decreased or transferred). In plain words, there you will see detailed logging showing extra information on how the stock was changed.

 

@puffdade

We're glad read that you like our app. Improvement of Advanced Stock Management is in our to-do-list for upcoming releases. 

 

Hi Maria,

 

Thank you for your reply, it is actually just 2 online stores, the 3rd one will be used with the POS? Ideally we want 2 separate stores and do not want to use Multi-Store.

The problem with using a cron task is that the stock changes will not be real-time and once a day update would not be feasible ideally we need to link or use the stock levels from one database to the other and update both ways. Would anyone have a solution to this?

 

Thanks 

[Maria Kvasnytska]

Hello. 

Using Store Manager for PrestaShop is not possible for 2 stores having different databases to share one and the same stock and synchronize it in real time, right when in one of them qty is reducing. Using the app it is only possible to update stock of both stores using export/import on schedule.