How does the Customer Referral Program Module work exactly?

[Master One]

Neither the module description in the back office, nor the page about the included modules in the manual make it clear, there are only some hints in the module translation texts which still could be wrong.

 

Is this correct, that both the canvasser AND the person canvassed actually get the defined referral award voucher?

 

Or does ONLY the canvasser get the referral award voucher?

 

If they both get one, when does the person canvassed get his voucher? Automatically after he has placed the configured number of orders?

 

To be honest the Customer Referral Program Module that comes with PS is not very good and even less clear, I think the most common case is that the referral award is not a voucher but a non-monetary bonus.

 

My first understanding was, that only the canvasser gets a voucher after the person canvassed has placed the configured number of orders, but what I found in the module translations suggests otherwise:

 

Get a discount of %1$s for you and your friends by recommending this Website.

 

When one of them makes at least %d order(s)

 

he or she will receive a %1$s voucher and you will receive your own voucher worth %1$s.

 

 

So this only reveals itself in the module's translation, nowhere else.

 

So how does this really work?

[Master One]

Oh, and another uncertainty I forgot to mention, as it's phrased differently in the manual and module back-office page:

 

Minimum number of orders a sponsored friend must place to get their voucher. Fill in the field with the value of your choice. Until this number is reached, your clients cannot take advantage of the discount.

 

versus

 

Minimum number of orders a customer must place to become a sponsor

 

What is meant exactly with "sponsor"? Is it the canvasser or the person canvassed?

 

Is this about the number of orders the canvasser has to place before he can become a canvasser, or is it the number of orders the person canvassed has to place before the canvasser gets his voucher?

Edited October 14, 2014 by Master One (see edit history)

[finlanderid]

The way this module works must have changed a long time ago (or never worked as described to begin with), and the verbage was not updated, both in the back office and the referral area of the front-office user account. I am using the referral module from PS 1.4.11.0, and here is how it works.

 

"Minimum number of orders" means two things:

 

1) the number of orders anyone must place in order to become a sponsor, i.e., to be able to send invitations to friends (the sponsees).

2) the number of orders that a sponsee must make in order for the sponsor to receive a voucher.

 

"Minimum number of orders" does not mean the following:

 

1) the number of orders the sponsee must make, for the sponsee to receive a voucher. 

 

And here's why: As long as the value is not increased -- in between the time an invitation gets sent and the sponsee creates an account -- then the sponsee will receive a voucher at the time of account creation. An equivalency assignment is made in referralprogram.php at hookCreateAccount, that sets the sponsee's "number of orders" equal to the sponsor's "number of orders." An IF statement (comparing to the back-office setting for "Minimum number of orders") is then applied to the sponsee's "number of orders" to determine if the sponsee should receive the voucher at the time of account creation. Since the sponsee's number of order's has been set equal to the sponsor's number of historical orders, and since the sponser had to have a minimum number of orders in order to send out invitations, what happens is the sponsee's number of orders passes the IF statement, and the sponsee receives his voucher at the time of account creation.

 

Yeah, weird, huh? However, it is better than making the sponsee wait -- until after ordering X number of times -- to get his hands on a voucher. Sponsees would not be happy with that. They want their voucher to apply to their first order and -- since they get the voucher at account creation -- they are able to have that.

 

The only thing that remains is for the sponsor to receive his voucher. This will happen when the sponsee makes the required number of sponsee orders, which actually is the back-office setting for "Minimum number of orders." This happens in hookUpdateOrderStatus > registerDiscountForSponsor.

Edited March 15, 2015 by finlanderid (see edit history)

[trevorgilligan]

how does a sponsor go about getting a sponsee? does a box show up somewhere (on product page perhaps) that says enter a sponsee email address? or do they just go out and get them manually. i have a box at checkout that has : "E-mail address of your sponsor" but nothing else... so where does the sponsor find a friend such as [email protected] to go in and become a sponsee?? thank you