VirtueMart User Manual Soeren Eberhardt(www.virtuemart.net [http://virtuemart.net]), Russell Walker (www.netshinesoftware.com [http://www.netshinesoftware.com/]) Copyright © 2005 Soeren Eberhardt This document is published under the Open Content License available from http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml [http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml] Revision History Revision 0.91 November, 23 2005 soeren_nb VirtueMart conversion Revision 0.9 May 31, 2005 soeren_nb Updated for Version 1.2 stable Revision 0.81 March 09, 2005 soeren_nb Initial Release Table of Contents Preambel...................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction.................................................................................................................. 2 Whatdoesitdo? ....................................................................................................2 Whatdoesitnotdo? ...............................................................................................3 Screenshots........................................................................................................... 4 Installation.................................................................................................................... 6 InstallationandUpgrade..........................................................................................6 AutomaticInstallation.............................................................................................7 ManualInstallation.................................................................................................11 InstallationFAQ ....................................................................................................12 FirstSteps ....................................................................................................................13 Joomla/MamboConfiguration.................................................................................14 AdministratorTutorial ....................................................................................................15 ShopConfiguration ................................................................................................15 GettingStarted ......................................................................................................21 StoreSetup ...........................................................................................................22 Countries,Currencies,Modules ................................................................................24 ManufacturerAdministration....................................................................................24 ProductAdministration ...........................................................................................26 UserManagement ..................................................................................................38 OrderAdministration..............................................................................................39 VendorAdministration............................................................................................42 TaxRates .............................................................................................................48 ShippingModules ..................................................................................................49 PaymentMethods...................................................................................................51 Reports ................................................................................................................ 54 KnownProblems ...........................................................................................................54 To-DoList....................................................................................................................54 Wishlist/NotimplementedFeatures..........................................................................54 NotimplementedPaymentGateways .........................................................................55 General................................................................................................................ 55 About .......................................................................................................................... 55 1 Theproject ...........................................................................................................55 TheCommunity.....................................................................................................56 TheDocumentation ................................................................................................56 Preambel The content of this document is related to VirtueMart. VirtueMart is free Software, licensed under GNU/GPL; VirtueMart [ http://www.VirtueMart.net ] Conversion to Mambo and much more: © 2005 Sören Eberhardt The Software 'VirtueMart' is intended for use in Joomla or Mambo (version 4.5.1 and 4.5.2.x). (Joomla and Mambo is free Software, licensed under GNU/GPL; Joomla! is available from www.joomla.org [http://www.joomla.org]) Introduction What does it do? About VirtueMart is a Shopping Cart Application for the eCommerce. It's a Component (= plugin) for a Con- tent Management System called Joomla (and Mambo) and can't be used without Joomla. It installs fairly easy using the automatic Component and Module installer. It's intended for use in small / mid-sized On- line businesses / Online-Shops. So every user who wants to build up a Online Store can use this compo- nent for selling something to customers. Features ? manage an unlimited Number of Products and Categories, ? use it as a Shop or just as an Online-Catalog (you can even turn off Price Display) ? sell downloadable Products, ? powerful Web-Administration Tool (integrated into Mambo!), ? Product Import & Export using CSV Files ? add Images and Files (like Spec Sheets and Flyers) to a Product, ? add Attributes (like Size or Color) to your Products, ? manage your Customers in Shopper Groups, VirtueMart User Manual 2 ? assign more than one Price to a Product: each Shopper Group has its own! ? display Prices either including or excluding tax (manageable for each Shopper Group) ? Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders.... ? manage the Stock Level for Products and Items ? notify Shoppers when a Product is back in Stock ? use Zone based Tax Calculation (city/state & country/region) OR ? Store Owner based Tax Calculation (e.g. in european countries) ? manage your own Shipping Carriers and Rates ? use InterShipper, UPS, USPS or Canada Post Shipping Rate API. ? complete Order Management with Order History & IP address storing ? basic Reporting feature ? manage Order statuses ? Shoppers can add their own Shipping Addresses ? let your Customers easily search for Products through a Search Form ? feature specific products by setting them on special ? let your shoppers know when a product is available again ? Shoppers can see, in what time a product will usually ship, on product-details page (with nice im- ages!) ? Shoppers can manage their User Accounts (registration required) ? Shopper can view all their Orders (and Order Details) ? Order Confirmation Mail (customizable!) is sent to Shopper and Store Owner ? manage different Currencies, Countries & States ? use safe SSL encryption (128-bit) ? capable of live Credit Card Processing ? use payment gateways like authorize.net® [http://www.authorize.net], eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex.... ? use PayPal [http://www.paypal.com] or the 2Checkout [???] IPN gateway, ? extend your Shop with other Payment & Shipping Modules or just write your own! ? ... many more! Just browse to VirtueMart.net [http://VirtueMart.net] for more Features & Extensions What does it not do? VirtueMart User Manual 3 VirtueMart is a simple Online-Shop application. But it is surely no "out-of-the-box" killer application for professional companies. It's not tested in 100% secure environments. It's not meant to be 100% per- formant. You will need some time to customize this application to fit your needs. Be prepared to be confronted with bugs, which have currently not been found yet. VirtueMart has an ac- tive community and a forum where problems and questions can be discussed. (http://virtuemart.net [http://VirtueMart.net]) Screenshots Frontend Screenshots (thanks to Arthur Konze [http://www.konze.de] for the Template Design!) Product Details Page VirtueMart User Manual 4 Product Details Page with Review Feature Administrator Screenshots Administration: Product List VirtueMart User Manual 5 Administration: Product List Installation Installation and Upgrade New Installation When having met all the requirements and when you are running Joomla or Mambo you have to choices: 1. The automatic installation with Joomla's / Mambo's Element (Component-, Module-, Mambot-) In- staller. 2. The manual installation. Some users can't use the automatic Installer because of some 'safe_mode=On' issues or smething like that. In case you're running into troubles with the automatic Installer try the manual installation instead. Upgrade from mambo-phpShop You want to upgrade to VirtueMart from mambo-phpShop? This is easy. All you need to do is install VirtueMart! It will convert your installation of mambo-phpShop, rename the tables and copy all customer information into its own table #__vm_user_info. So just follow the instructions for the automatic installation (or if you have difficulties with it: the man- ual installation). Note VirtueMart User Manual 6 It is recommended to uninstall the old mambo-phpShop modules after you have installed the VirtueMart component and then install the new VirtueMart modules. Caution It is absolutely necessary to make a backup of your whole site before you upgrade your shop! An upgrade failure can always happen! So please: BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! Upgrade from VirtueMart 1.0.0 / 1.0.1 / 1.0.2 We have fixed a lot of bugs! An upgrade is highly recommended. Just get the "Patch Package" for your current VirtueMart vewrsion and overwrite your exising files with the ones from that package. The are two small changes to the database, so you must run two SQL queries on your database to update it. Just open phpMyAdmin and run those queries: ############################################# # SQL update script for upgrading # from VirtueMart 1.0.x to VirtueMart 1.0.3 # ############################################# ALTER TABLE `jos_vm_product_mf_xref` CHANGE `product_id` `product_id` INT( 11 ) NUL ALTER TABLE `jos_vm_orders` ADD `order_tax_details` TEXT NOT NULL AFTER `order_tax` If you have another database prefix than "jos_" you must change the "jos_" to your prefix. The queries can be found in the file / sql/UPDATE-SCRIPT_VirtueMart_1.0.x-to-VirtueMart_1.0.3.sql. Automatic Installation VirtueMart is a complex script. It's not component-only, but also requires a Module. So it comes to you in a file called 'VirtueMart_x.x_COMPLETE_PACKAGE.zip'. This file contains various Elements for VirtueMart. Important This file is not installable! Its contents are, but they must be unpacked first. Package Contents: ? 1 Component (com_virtuemart_x.x.tar.gz) ? 1 Main VirtueMart module (mod_virtuemart_x.x.tar.gz) ? 10 additional Modules ? 2 Mambots (1 Search, 1 Content Mambot) 1. Unpack the file 'VirtueMart_x.x_COMPLETE_PACKAGE.zip' to a local directory. VirtueMart User Manual 7 2. Log in into Mambo's Backend (using the URL ' http://joomla_url/administrator') to access the administrative interface. Backend Login Screen You need to have the priviliges of an Administrator / Superadministrator to install Elements. 3. Click 'Components' -> 'Install/Uninstall' in the Top Menu. List of installed components Caution You must check if th directories listed above the component list are writable! When they are not, you can't install the component. Browse to these directories then usiong ftp or joolaXplorer and change the permissions! In the part 'Upload new component' select the file 'com_virtuemart_x.x.tar.gz'. This is the package file which contains all files for the VirtueMart Component, located on your computer VirtueMart User Manual 8 (see Step 1). Now click on 'Upload File & Install'. Since the tar.gz file is about 1 MB in size, you will have to wait a moment while the file is being uploaded to your server and unpacked. If the upload takes too long, try Step 4 or do the Manual Installation. 4. Alternative: You can unpack the contents of 'com_virtuemart_x.x.tar.gz' and upload those files to a remote directory using a ftp connection. Now specify the directory on the server from where you want to install the files and click 'Install'. Note Package Files are mostly a ZIP or tar.gz compressed file directory, which includes all informa- tion for the installation. The main file is an XML document which describes the installation process. In order to use this function for your installation, your web server must support the zlib extension. You can check this in the Admin Section Menu item, System > System Info > System Information. 5. The VirtueMart Component should be installed now. You'll see the Welcome Message Screen with some options how to go on: Installation Welcome Screen You can now choose wether you want to install some Sample Data (18 products, with attributes, in 5 categories) to see how things have to be set up. Or you can 'go directly to the Shop >>' without installing Sample Data. Caution This step again takes some time & the VirtueMart installer is running a lot of Database Queries now. So please be patient! 6. Click 'Modules' -> 'Install/Uninstall' in the Top Menu to proceed to the installation of the Virtue- Mart Main module. VirtueMart User Manual 9 Choose the file 'mod_virtuemart_x.x.tar.gz' in the File Dialog and click 'Upload File & Install'. Repeating this step you can install the additional modules for VirtueMart. Publishing the Module: Click 'Modules' -> 'Site Modules' in the Top Menu. Now browse through the list of installed mod- ules and find the one with the name 'VirtueMart Module'. Select it (click on the name) and modify its settings/details. You can now choose where to put the Module on your Mambo site. For more in- formation about modules please refer to the Mambo documentation (http://mamboserver.com [http://mamboserver.com/]). Important Anywhere you place the module on your site, IT MUST BE PUBLISHED. This is because all category navigation is done via this module. So using the VirtueMart Component without the module is somehow 'difficult'. Additional modules mod_product_categories "Product Categories Module" It can display the product categories you have set up. mod_productscroller "Product Scroller Module" It can scroll certain products somewhere on your site using a marquee tag. mod_virtuemart_allinone "All-in-one module" Can display the latest, featured, top-ten or random products in one module using tabs. mod_virtuemart_cart "Mini-Cart Module" Displays the mini-cart for the customer with a link to the cart page. mod_virtuemart_featuredprod "Featured Products Module" Can display featured products in your store. Featured products are those which are "on special". mod_virtuemart_latestprod "Latest Products Module" Displays the newest products in your store. mod_virtuemart_manufacturers VirtueMart User Manual 10 "Manufacturer Module" Shows all manufacturers from your store with a link to find all products of the selected manufacturer. mod_virtuemart_randomprod "Random Products Module" Does what the name says: displays random products from your store or a certain category. mod_virtuemart_search "Searchbox Module" Displays the VirtueMart searchbox (which lets the customer search for products). mod_virtuemart_topten "Top Ten Products Module" Displays the bestsellers from your store. 7. Recommended: Mambot Installation Click on 'Mambots' -> 'Install/Uninstall' in the Top Menu. SearchBot: Performs a search on the product table and delivers search results for Joomla's / Mambo's site search. Select the file 'virtuemart.searchbot_x.x.tar.gz' and click 'Upload File & Install'. Mambot ProductSnapshot: Displays product figure/price/add-to-cart link in Mambo Content. Select the file 'mosproductsnap_x.x.tar.gz' and click 'Upload File & Install'. Publishing the Mambots: Mambots need to be published before they do ANYTHING. Click on 'Mambots' -> 'Site Mambots' in the Top Menu. Now browse through the list of installed Mambots and find 'virtuemart.searchbot' and 'mosproductsnap'. Select one (click on the name) and modify its settings/details. Remember to publish it. For more information about Mambots please refer to the Mambo documentation ( http://mamboserver.com [http://mamboserver.com/]). You're now done with the Installation of VirtueMart and its elements. Manual Installation The installation has failed? You have safe_mode = On ? You don't need to pull out your hair! You can still use the manual installation. Manual Installation is a little bit harder than the automatic installation. It will need some file copying. 1. Download the Manual Installation Package. This is just another Package Form of VirtueMart. VirtueMart User Manual 11 2. Unpack the archive file VirtueMart_x.x_Manual-Installation-Package.tar.gz your have downloaded in Step 1 to a local directory. You should now see at least four directories. The directory structure in those directories is the same as in your Joomla / Mambo site: /administrator /components /mambots /modules 3. Open up an FTP Connection to your site (you should use an FTP Program like SmartFTP...) and upload the directories to the root of your Mambo site. /site-root/administrator /site-root/components /site-root/mambots /site-root/modules 4. Login in to the Administration of your site (http://www.your_site.com/administrator/). 5. When having logged in, you see this URL in the address bar: http://www.your_site.com/administrator/index2.php 6. Now just add "?option=com_virtuemart" after index2.php, so it looks like this in your browser's address bar: http://www.your_site.com/administrator/index2.php?option=com_virtu emart and submit (press Enter). 7. You should now see the "Installation was successful..." Screen. There you can click on "GO TO THE SHOP >>" or "INSTALL SAMPLE DATA >>" (when you want to have some sample Products and Categories in your Shop). 8. That's it. 9. To install the Modules and Mambots for VirtueMart, follow the instructions of the Automatic In- stallation, Steps 6 and 7. If this doesn't help you, because NO automatic installations are possible, you can manually upload the files (you have probably already done this in step 3). Modules and Mambots require an entry in the table jos_mambots / jos_modules. You can add these entries by uploading an SQL file (using phpMyAdmin) that contains all neces- sary queries: /administra- tor/compo- nents/com_virtuemart/sql/virtuemart_modules.installation.sql Now you should have installed VirtueMart correctly. Installation FAQ VirtueMart User Manual 12 Q: The Installer tells me "ERROR: Could not find an XML setup file in the package". What's wrong? A: Mostly this problem arises because you don't have unpacked the file Virtue- Mart_x.x_COMPLETE_PACKAGE.zip before and tried uploading / installing this file. Q: The Installer tells me "Another component is already using the directory com_virtuemart" A: Please delete the directories /site_root/components/com_virtuemart and / site_root/administrator/components/com_virtuemart. Q: When using the automatic installation nothing happens after clicking on "Upload & Install" What's the cause? A: VirtueMart is a big component, its installer file archive has a size of more than 1.1 MB. When up- loading this file to your server you can wait a long time until the file is completely transferred to your server. You can use the Remote Installer for VirtueMart instead! http://developer.joomla.org [http://mamboforge.net/frs/?group_id=38] Q: On an upgrade from mambo-phpShop, the VirtueMart installer won't recognise my existing tables! What to do now? A: Sometimes the tables beginning with jos_pshop_ or mos_pshop_ are not found. Before you click on "Install sample data" or "Go directly to the shop" you can just type in this URL in the addess bar of your browser: index2.php?option=com_virtuemart&install_type=update12pl3 After that the upgrade procedure begins! Q: After having installed the component, I add a Main Menu Link to the VirtueMart component. But clicking on that link only displays the text "Welcome to Washupito's....." What's wrong? A: VirtueMart is no component-only script. It's programmed to be used together with the corresponding VirtueMart Main Module. Without the module you'll always get the shop.index page. That's the cause. First Steps Do you have installed the VirtueMart Main Module? If not, do so now. Don't forget to publish it somehere on your site. This module is meant to display all categories and to control the component. Note All following procedures mean that you use the horizontal Main Menu of the VirtueMart ad- ministration! Tip VirtueMart provides FULL ACCESS to its administration panel from the Frontend! That means that you don't have to login at the backend of your Mambo site to make all your changes, but just click on "Administration" in the phpShop Main Module. (requires admin or storeadmin permissions) VirtueMart User Manual 13 1. Go to "Store" -> "Edit Store" and make all important settings that fit to your details. Don't forget to set currency, currency display style and your email address! 2. Go to "Tax" -> "Add tax rate" and add a tax rate accoring to the local settings of your Shop (important for european shops!). 3. Go to "Components" -> "VirtueMart" -> "Admin" -> Configuration and change all details to fit your needs. 4. Go to "Components" -> "VirtueMart" -> "Products" -> "Categories" -> "Add category" and set up your categories and category structure. Be sure that all of them are published. 5. Go to "Components" -> "VirtueMart" -> "Products" -> "Products" -> "Add Product" and add as many products as you need repeating this step. Joomla / Mambo Configuration [VirtueMart makes use of the global Configuration values which can be set in the Global Configuration for your Joomla/Mambo site.] Allow User Registration YES A user/customer must be registered to your site before being able to checkout. VirtueMart provides an enhanced Registration Form where customers can leave their account and shipping data. When register using this form, they are automatically added to the Mambo user list. Use New Account Activation NO So new customers have a streamlined checkout process and don't have to activate their new account and re-begin checkout! Mail Configuration varies VirtueMart sends Mail using Mambo's Mail configuration. So be sure to modify the values according to your server. Caution If you don't change your Store Information and the email-Address, VirtueMart sends Order Confirmation Mails to demo_order@virtuemart.net. Localization / Language Whatever language you set in Mambo's Configuration: Virtue- Mart tries to pick it from its own language directory: / mambo/administra- tor/components/com_virtuemart/languages If the selected language isn't found (e.g. german_neutral or ara- bic....), the english language file is loaded by default Search Engine Friendly URLs Recommended: Off VirtueMart User Manual 14 VirtueMart is fully SEF compatible, but please note that some the SEF links for VirtueMart, which are generated by Mambo's SEF module or others, sometimes lead to "URL redirection limit ex- ceeded..." errors. Administrator Tutorial (ROUGH DRAFT) This tutorial will walk you through the setup of your site, ongoing management, and advanced adminis- tration accessed via the VirtueMart administrative interface. It assumes that you have already installed and configured your site (VirtueMart version 1.2 with Mambo 4.5.1). Shop Configuration The Configuration Panel is the most important part of VirtueMart. It can be accessed via "Admin" -> "Configuration". The Configuration Header Note that the configuration panel can be accessed by users with permissions "admin" only (by default). You can access the different parts of the Panel by clicking on the Tab Headings. VirtueMart User Manual 15 Global Global I Shop is offline? Here you can switch the shop from Online to Offline mode. In of- fline mode, the offline message is displayed instead of the product pages. This means the whole shop section isnt usable for cus- tomers. Administrators won't see the shop too. Use only as catalogue Hides all "Add to Cart" buttons. Show Prices When enabled, product prices are displayed. (useful when using "catalog-only" functionality. Note that you can't hide prices from unregistered users to show prices only to registered users. Either ON or OFF! Membergroup to show prices to default:"Public Frontend" Here you can decide which membergroups of your site are al- lowed to see product prices. Show "(including XX% tax)" when applicable? When checked, users will see the text "(including xx% tax)" when prices are shown incl. tax. Show the price label for packaging? Use "price per packaging" label? Show Prices including tax? Sets the flag whether the shoppers sees prices including tax or ex- cluding tax. When enabled prices are displayed like "X.XX (including XX% Tax)" Use silent (hidden) user registration? When enabled, users don't need to fill in a username and pass- word for a new account. Instead the email address is used for the new account and a random password is generated. The registra- tion details are mailed to the customer. Virtual Tax This determines whether items with zero weight are taxed or not. Tax mode This determines which tax rate is taken for calculating taxes. Ei- ther Ship-To-Address based or store/vendor address based. Enable multiple tax rates? Check this, if you have products with different tax rates (e.g. 7% for books and food, 16% for other stuff). Discount before tax/shipping? Sets the flag whether to subtract the Discount for the selected pay- ment BEFORE (checked) or AFTER tax and shipping. Enable Coupon Usage If you enable the Coupon Usage, you allow customers to fill in Coupon Numbers to gain discounts on their purchase. Customer Review/Rating System If enabled, you allow customers to rate products and write re- views about them. So customers can write down their experiences with the product for other customers. Ask for Bank Account data? Check if your customers shall have the ability to provide their bank account data when registering to the shop. This is useful if VirtueMart User Manual 16 you have set up Payment Methods like Bank Account Transfer. Customers can select a state/region? When enabled, your customers are presented a drop-down list with states where they can select one. Must agree to Terms of Service? Check if you want a shopper to agree to your Terms of Service before registering to the shop. Agree to T.o.S. on EVERY ORDER? Check if you want a shopper to agree to your terms of service on EVERY ORDER (before placing the order). Check Stock? Sets whether to check the stock level when a user adds an item to the shopping cart. If set, this will not allow user to add more items to the cart than are available in stock. Show Products that are out of Stock? Let's you decide wether Products that are out of Stock are dis- played or hidden (only available when Check Stock is enabled). Enable Affiliate Program? This enables the affiliate tracking in the shop-frontend. Enable if you have added affiliates in the backend. Caution The Affiliate Program doesn't fully work. It must be completed in future versions. Order-mail format: This determines how your order confirmation emails are set up: ? as a simple text email ? or as a html email with images. ENCODE KEY The secret key for encrypting payment account data like credit card numbers and storing them encrypted in the database. Allow Frontend-Administration... ...for non-Backend Users? With this setting you can enable the Frontend Administration for users who are storeadmins, but can't access the Mambo Backend (e.g. Registered / Editor). Path and URL The Path and URL settings use the Mambo settings only before the Configuration is saved the first time. After that, these settings are hardcoded in the configuration file. Caution Remember to change these settings before moving to a new site / domain! SECUREURL Example: https://www.mydomain.com The secure URL to your site. (https - with trailing slash at the end!) VirtueMart User Manual 17 Caution Be careful what you fill in here - Mambo has problems with Shared SSL Domains. When switching to another domain during Checkout, the session gets lost and the customer would have to login again! HOMEPAGE Example: shop.index This is the page which will be loaded in the frontend by default. ERRORPAGE Default: shop.error This is the default page for displaying VirtueMart Error Messages. DEBUG ? Turns on the debug output. This causes the DEBUGPAGE to be displayed at the bottom of each VirtueMart page. Very helpful during shop development since it shows the carts contents, form field values, etc. Site (Display & Layout) VirtueMart makes use of the Joomla/Mambo Templates' CSS. It uses the Standard-CSS Classes defined for Mambo like sectiontableheader, sectiontableentry1, sectiontableentry2 and so on. You'll find some rows that are not CSS colored. These ones can be changed by Search Color 1 and 2. Display PDF - Button Show or Hide the PDF - Button in the Shop Frontend. FLYPAGE default: shop.flypage This is the page used for displaying product details when no spe- cial flypage is set. Note You can change the Flypage for each category in its category form! Category Template default: browse_1 This defines the category template for displaying products in a category when no special template is set. You can create new templates by customizing existing template files (which reside in the directory COMPONENTPATH/html/templates/ and be- gin with browse_). Note You can change the Category Template for each category in its category form! Show Page Navigation at the Top of the Product Listing? default: checked VirtueMart User Manual 18 Switches On or Off the Display of Page Navigation at the Top of the Product Listings in the Frontend. Show the Number of Products? default: checked Switches On or Off the Display of Products in a Category right behind the Category Name like "Power Tools (3)". Default number of products in a row This defines the number of products in a row. Example: If you set it to 4, the default category template will display 4 products per row. Note You can change the Category's Number of products per row for each category in its category form! "no image" image default: /ps_image/noimage.gif This image will be shown when no product image is available. Show footer "powered by..." ? Displays a powered-by-VirtueMart footer image. Give credits back to the author! Design Add-to-Cart Button Style Here you can choose out of different images for displaying the Button "Add to Cart". Tip You can customize this list by creating your own template images, renaming them to something beginning with add-to-cart_ and putting them into the directory /compo- nents/com_virtuemart/shop_image/ps_image/. Dynamic Thumbnail Resizing? If checked, you enable dynamic Image Resizing. This means that all Thumbnail Images are resized to fit the Sizes you provide be- low, using PHP's GD2 functions. Tip You can check if you have GD2 support by browsing to "System" -> "System Info" -> "PHP Info" -> gd. The Thumbnail Image quality is much better than Images which were "resized" by the browser. The newly generated Images are put into the directory /shop_image/prduct/resized. If the Image has already been resized, this copy will be send to the browser, so no image is resized again and again. Thumbnail Image Width The target width of the resized Thumbnail Image. Thumbnail Image Height The target height of the resized Thumbnail Image. SEARCH COLOR 1 default: #f9f9f9 VirtueMart User Manual 19 Specifies the color of the odd numbered rows in a result list. SEARCH COLOR 2 default: #f0f0f0 Specifies the color of the even numbered rows in a result list. Shipping In the Shipping section you can select one or more of the provided Shipping Modules. Tip You can configure Online Services (like UPS® or Intershipper®) in "Store" => "List Shipping Modules" => Service Name. Other Shipping methods like Standard Shipping or Zone Shipping must be configured through their own administrative interface: "Shipping" => Shipping Rates / Shippers or "Zone Shipping" => "Zone List". The Free Shipping module can be configured by amount only in the Store Form. The selected Shipping Module will list all available Shipping Rates on Checkout. Note If you want no Shipping Rate Selection, you must select "Disable Shipping method selection" AND a checkout process (next Tab) which doesn't include Shipping Method selection. Checkout Enable the Checkout Bar default: Enabled Check this, if you want the 'checkout-bar' to be displayed to the customer during checkout process ( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 with graphics). The selected process will be the unique Checkout Process for your whole Store. Downloads Enable Downloads Check to enable the Download Feature. Only If you want sell downloadable goods. "Enable download" Status value: can be some Order Status (not cancelled ;-)). Select the order status at which the customer is notified about the download via e-mail. "Disable download" Order Status Sets the order status at which the download is disabled for the customer. DOWNLOADROOT The physical path to the files for the custumer download. (trailing slash at the end!) Important VirtueMart User Manual 20 Must be a physical path, no URL. Caution For your own shop's security: If you can, please use a directory ANYWHERE OUTSIDE OF THE WEBROOT Download Maximum Sets the number of downloads which can be made with one Download-ID for one order. Download Expire Sets the time range in seconds in which the download is enabled for the customer. This range begins with the first download! When the time range has expired, the download-ID is disabled. Tip 86400s=24h Getting Started To access the configuration of VirtueMart, select "Components | VirtueMart" in the mambo administra- tion interface. Component Drop-Down List If you see the VirtueMart "Welcome" page when you log into your mambo site admnistration interface, VirtueMart User Manual 21 click "Go Directly to Shop". Navigating to the VirtueMart admin interface will bring up the "Store: Summary" page. Shop Start- / Homepage You may also access this page from within the VirtueMart interface under "Store | Summary" Store Drop-Down Menu Store Setup VirtueMart User Manual 22 To begin setting up your store, select "Store | Edit Store" from the VirtueMart admin interface. Go to the Store From The information from the Store Information form is displayed in various locations on the shopping site. This is your store's primary identity - essentially a specialized "master" vendor. Store Information Form Fields Full Image Required Displays the currently configured store logo. Upload Image Optional Browse to your company logo. This will be uploaded when you click on the "Save" icon. Currency The Store's global / default Currency Minimum Purchase Order Value This is the amount which is the minimum Order Value for Check- out. Minimum Amount for Free Shipping This is the amount, from which on Shipping is free. Currency symbol This is the currency symbol which will be used when displaying prices. Decimals Number of decimals. Decimal symbol Can be somethin like . , or empty. Thousands separator Positive format Display Order / Style for positive numbers. Negative format Display Order / Style for negative numbers. Description This is your Store's Description which is shown on the page shop.index. VirtueMart User Manual 23 Terms of Service This is the complete text for your Terms of Service that is dis- played to the customer. Store Name Required The name of the Store. Store Company Name Required The name of your company. URL The Store's Internet Address. Address 1 Address Line 1 Address 2 Address Line 2 City The City where your Store is located. State/Province/Region The State / Region where your Store is located. Country The Country where your Store is located. Zip/Postal Code The ZIP of your Store's location. Phone Your Store's Phone Number Last, First & Middle Name The Name of your Contact Person. Title The title of the Contact Person. Phone 1 & 2 Your contact's Phone number. Fax The Fax number for the Contact. Email Address Primary store contact email address Click on the "Save" icon. Now you're ready to begin adding Categories, Products and Manufacturers. Countries, Currencies, Modules Managing Countries >> to be written << Managing Currencies >> to be written << VirtueMart Modules >> to be written << Manufacturer Administration VirtueMart User Manual 24 Manufacturers are associated with products, providing web site, contact, and descriptive information. Each product that is created is associated with a Manufacturer. For stores where manufacturer information is not necessarily relevant, a default manufacturer is created upon installation. It is not necessary to create manufacturers prior to creating your catalog. Products can be re-associated to manufacturers after all the product records have been created. However, creating the manufacturers first can save a lot of extra work if you already know that you will be using this information. Manufacturer Categories Manufacturer Categories are used to group Manufacturers into different categories. Adding Manufacturer Categories VirtueMart creates the manufacturer category name "-default-" upon installation. It is not necessary to change this. To create a new manufacturer category, select "Manufacturer | Add Manufacturer Category". Manufacturer Category Form Fields: Category Name The name of the Manufacturer category. Category Description A description of the Manufacturer category (optional). Click on the "Save" icon. You will be redirected to the "Manufacturer Category List" page, showing the "-default-" category, and the new category you just entered. Editing Manufacturer Categories To edit an existing manufacturer category, select "Manufacturer | List Manufacturer Categories" in the VirtueMart admin menu. This will return a list of existing manufacturer categories. Click on the name of the manufacturer category you want to edit, make any necessary changes to the fields (listed above), and click on the "Save" icon. You will be returned to the Manufacturer Category List. Deleting Manufacturer Categories Before deleting an existing manufacturer category, all manufacturers associated to that category must be removed through either deletion or re-association to a different manufacturer category. VirtueMart will not allow the deletion of a manufacturer category while manufacturers still exist for that manufacturer category. See below under "Manufacturers" for information on re-association and deletion of a manufac- turer. Once the manufacturers have been removed, select "Manufacturers | List Manufacturer Categories" from the VirtueMart admin menu. Click on the name of the manufacturer category you want to delete. In the Manufacturer Category Form, click on the "Remove" icon. Click "OK" to confirm that you are sure you want to delete this category. You will be returned to the Manufacturer Category List. Note that the manufacturer category you deleted is no longer listed. To recover this record, you must create a new manufacturer category, and re-associate any manufacturers that belong in that manufacturer VirtueMart User Manual 25 category. Manufacturers Adding Manufacturers To create a new manufacturers, select "Manufacturer | Add Manufacturer" in the VirtueMart admin menu. Edit the following fields in the Manufacturer Information Form: Manufacturer Name The manufacturer's name or company name. URL http://www.example.com The manufacturer's fully qualified web address. Manufacturer Category The manufacturer category this manufacturer will be associated with. Email The manufacturer contact's email address. Description Information promoting or about the manufacturer. Click the "Save" icon to create your new manufacturer. Editing Manufacturers To edit an existing manufacturer, select "Manufacturer | List Manufacturers" to see a list of all manufac- turers. You may also get to this screen by clicking on the linked text, "Manufacturer List", in the Manu- facturers column on the Manufacturer Category List screen. Click on the name of the manufacturer you would like to edit, or click on the linked text "update" in the Admin column - either will take you to the same Manufacturer Add Information form. Make your changes in the Manufacturer "Add Information" form (described above), and click on the "Save" icon. You will be returned to the Manufacturer List screen. Deleting Manufacturers Before deleting an existing manufacturer, all products associated to that manufacturer must be removed through either deletion or re-association to another manufacturer. VirtueMart will not allow the deletion of a manufacturerwhile these child records still exist for that manufacturer. Once these child records have been removed, select "Manufacturer | List Manufacturers" to see a list of all manufacturer. Then click on the name of the manufacturer you would like to delete. In the Manufac- turer Add Information form, click on the "Remove" icon. You will be returned to the Manufacturer List screen. Once this manufacturer has been deleted, it is removed from the system. To recover this manufacturer, you must re-create the manufacturer information, and re-associate all appropriate products. Product Administration VirtueMart offers the ability to categorize products not only by vendor, but also by product category. Product categories may also contain subcategories enabling storekeepers manage their products in as much detail as possible. Because products and product categories are associated to a particular vendor, it VirtueMart User Manual 26 is important to create your vendor records before creating the product and product category records. When creating your product records, it is important to make a distinction as to whether the product that is being created can be uniquely identified by its nature or name (e.g. Compact Disks, Video Cassettes, Books, etc.), or is one of many similar items that are uniquely identified by their attributes (e.g. Apparel, Furniture, Automobiles, etc.). The reason this distinction needs to be made, is because the methods for creating, editing and deleting differ for each. Items require the creation of Item Attributes, but products do not. Product Categories Adding Product Categories VirtueMart includes the ability to associate products to product categories and subcategories to enable better site management. To create a new product category, open the Product Category Form: "Products" => "Add Category". List Categories Product Category Fields Publish? Used to specify whether the category will be published on the site. Category Name The name that will be used to identify the category. Category Description The description that will be displayed for the category. ListOrder The Place of this category in a list with other categories. Parent The parent category with which this category will be associated. If the category is to be a top level category, leave the Parent drop down list with the Default Top Level selected.If the category is to be a sub category of an existing category, choose the appropriate parent category from the Parent drop down list. VirtueMart User Manual 27 Category Browse Page Example: browse_1 The template file for displaying the products of this category in a list. Show x products per row The number of products per row when displaying products of this category. Note The Browse Page usually has to be adjusted when the number of products per row has been changed. You can use browse_2 for 2 products per row, browse_3 for 3 products per row and so on (maximum per default: 5). Category Flypage Syntax: shop.flypage This is the template file for displaying the Product Details of a product in this category. You can create your own templates by modifiying existing templates (in the directory / html/templates). The file for preparing the display of the Flypage is / html/shop.product_details.php. Some of the details that you can't find in the Flypage template can be found there. Note You should leave this field empty when you're not sure what to fill in. Editing Product Categories To edit an existing product category, you have to access the Category Tree: "Products" => "List Cate- gories". Now click on the name of the product category you want to edit to display the product category entry form for that product category. Make your changes and click the Save button at the top of the form to update the product category. Deleting Product Categories Before deleting an existing product category, all sub categories associated to the product category must be removed through either deletion or re-association. VirtueMart will not allow the deletion of a product category while subcategories still exist for that product category. Once all subcategories have been re- moved, access the Category List via "Product" => "List Categories". Either you click on the Trash Bin icon in the last column of the category you want to delete OR you click on the name of the product cate- gory that you want to delete to display the product category entry form for that product category. Then click on the Delete button at the top of the form to delete the product category. Warning This will delete all Product Entries for this Category. When the Products is assigned to this Cat- egory only, it will be deleted completely. Products Adding/Updating Products VirtueMart User Manual 28 To create a new product, click on "Products" => "Add Product" to display the product form. Complete the product entry form and click the Save button in the top right corner to save the new product. When Updating a product, just click on the Product Name in the Product List to display to Product Form of that product. Product Form Publish? Used to specify whether the product will be published on the site. SKU Means Article Number. Stock keeping unit ( SKU) is an identification, usually alphanumeric, of a particular product that allows it to be tracked for inventory purposes. Name The name that will be used to identify the product. URL A URL that can be displayed with a product. Usually used as a link to the VirtueMart User Manual 29 product vendor or manufacturer. Category The product categories with which this product will be associated. Vendor The vendor with which the product will be associated. Manufacturer The manufacturer with which the product will be associated. Retail Price The price for the default Shopper Group. Just fill in a decimal number. Select the Product Currency from the drop-down list at the right. VAT ID The ID of the tax rate that will be applied to this product. Here you can select a specific tax rate for this product. If you don't want that this prod- uct is taxed, fill in a zero weight at "product weight" and Disable "Virtual Tax". Short Description The short description that will be displayed on the browse (overview) page for a category or search result. Flypage Description This is the details description that will be displayed on the Flypage (=details page) of this specific product. Quantity in Stock The current quantity in stock for the item. Used for shipping and inventory purposes. Availability Date When the current quantity in stock is available for distribution. Used for shipping and inventory purposes. Availability Text / Image This is used to display it on the product details page. E.g.: "48 hrs." or "On Order". Alternatively you can select an availability image from the drop-down list below. VirtueMart User Manual 30 Tip You can use your own images here! Just copy them to the direcory /shop_image/availability and then you can select them here. On Special? (Featured?) Used to indicate whether there are any specials running for the product. When checked, this product will be displayed on the "Fea- tured Products Module". Discount Type The type of special being run on the product. Select a discount from the discount list. When there are no discounts, create one us- ing the Product Discont Form. Advanced Attribute List Syntax: Size,XL[+1.99],M,S[-2.99];Colour,Red,Green,Yellow,Expensi veColor[=24.00];AndSoOn,..,.. Adds easy attributes to the product. These are attributes which can be selected by a customer. This does not create items for each at- tribute value! If you want to check the stock on each item (e.g. green, red and black T-Shirts...use the Attribute Form to add At- tributes and after that Items for each Attribute Value using the Item Form. Custom Attribute List Syntax: Attribute1;Attribute2;Attribute3 Adds custom attributes to the product. These are attributes which can be selected by a customer. This does not create items for each attribute value! If you want to check the stock on each item (e.g. green, red and black T-Shirts...use the Attribute Form to add At- tributes and after that Items for each Attribute Value using the Item Form. VirtueMart User Manual 31 Length The length of the product. Used for shipping purposes. Width The width of the product. Used for shipping purposes. Height The height of the product. Used for shipping purposes Unit of Measure - Dimensions The unit of measure used in determining the LWH of a product. Used for shipping purposes. Weight The weight of the product. For shipping purposes. Unit of Measure -Weight The unit of measure used in determining the weight of a product. Used for shipping purposes. Important Allowed UOM are po / pound(s) kg /kilogram(m)(s) ou / ounces lb / LB Downloadable Product? When this is a downloadable Product (a file...), just check the box and fill in the File Name (without path!) OR Upload a File. Filename Here you can specify a Filename for this product. The file has to be uploaded manually via ftp! Upload a file Here you can upload a file. Important The Filename (previous Field) overrides this Field! VirtueMart User Manual 32 Thumbnail A thumbnail image that can be displayed along with the product. Full Image A larger image that can be displayed along with the product. Note If you have enabled Dynamic Thumbnail Resizing, the Thumbnail here won't be automatically created from the Full Image! Now you're done. Just click on "Save" and you're Product Add / Update Results are shown on the next page: Deleting Products To delete an existing product, click on "Products" -> "List Producs" at the top of the VirtueMart Admin- istration pages to display a list of product categories. Now click on the Trash Icon in the row of the product you want to delete and confirm that you "want to delete this record". Product Attributes Adding Product Attributes To create a new product attribute, click on "Products" => "List Products" to display a list of all products. Then click on the name of the product for which the attribute is being created to display the product en- try form for that parent item. Then click on the "Add Attribute" button on the top of the screen. A new window will open displaying the attribute entry form. Complete the attribute entry form and click the Save button at the top of the form to save the new item attribute. Next, you need to define the new at- tribute for the items. Click on the name of an item to display the product entry form for that item. Popu- VirtueMart User Manual 33 late the new item attribute field in the product entry form and click on the Save button at the end of the form to save the new item attribute definition. Product Attributes Form Fields Name The name used to identify the attribute. Number in List The order in which the attribute is listed. Editing product Attributes To edit an existing product attribute, click on "Products" => "List Products" to display the list of prod- ucts. Then click on the name of the parent product for which the attribute is being edited to display the product entry form for that parent product. Then click on "Products" => "Current Product" => "List At- tributes" in the top menu. A new window will open displaying a list of product attributes assigned to the product selected. Click on the name of the attribute you want to edit to display the attribute entry form for that attribute. Complete the attribute entry form and click the Save button at the top of the form to update the item attribute. Deleting Product Attributes To edit an existing product attribute, click on "Products" => "List Products" to display the list of prod- ucts. Then click on the name of the parent product for which the attribute is being edited to display the product entry form for that parent product. Then click on "Products" => "Current Product" => "List At- tributes" in the top menu. A new window will open displaying a list of product attributes assigned to the product selected. To delete an attribute, click on the Trash Bin icon in the last column of the row of the attribute you want to delete. Items (create Child Products for Parent Products) Going back now to offering variations on a product: If you want to offer a fixed list of variations for your customer to choose from, rather than allowing them to pick and mix attributes as they please, you need to create some ?items?. Note: These are different from the content ?items? in Mambo itself. An item in VirtueMart is a pre-defined variation on the main product. In order to create an item, you have to set up at least one attribute first. Hence, it is only after you have added an attribute that the ?New Item? tool- bar button and its related menu option appear. Adding Items To create a new item, a parent product must exist / be created first. When completing the form, keep in mind that the product information, product dimensions, and product images entered here are the ones that will be displayed initially for all items. Once a specific item is selected by the customer, the product information, product dimensions, and product images for that item will be displayed. Next, the attributes that will be used to identify the items need to be created. Open the Product Form of the Parent Item you create in the first step. VirtueMart User Manual 34 Click on "Add Attribute" and a new window will open displaying the attribute entry form. Complete the attribute entry form and click the Save button at the end of the form to save the new item attribute. Once all item attributes have been defined, it is time to create the individual items (=child products!). Click on the Add Items button on the left side of the screen to display the product entry form for the spe- cific item. This form is the same as previous product entry forms only the vendor and category fields have been populated for you, and item attribute fields for the attributes you have defined are now avail- able. Complete the product entry form and click the Save button at the end of the form to save the new item. Editing Items VirtueMart User Manual 35 To edit an existing item, open the product List and click on the "Item Information" Link behind a Prod- uct. You will be presented a List of all Child Items of that product. If you want to make changes to a specific item, click on the name of the item you want to edit to display the item entry form for that item. Make your changes and click the save button at the end of the form to update the item. Click on the Re- turn to Parent Product link at the top of the page to edit another item. Deleting Items To delete an item, List the Product's Items like in the previous section. Then click on the basket at the end of the row of the item you want to delete. If you want to delete all items, you must delete each item before deleting the parent item.Once all items have been deleted, click on the Delete button at the end of the product entry form of the parent item to delete the parent item. Product Discounts Discounts in VirtueMart must be created in the Product Discount Form before being able to assign a Product to a specific Discount. Caution When updating a discount, your changes apply to all products which are assigned to this dis- count. VirtueMart User Manual 36 Adding / Updating a Discount Go to "Product" -> "Add/Edit Product Discount". Now fill in the details for this Discount Record: Discount Amount (required) This is the amount of discount you want to have subtracted (added) from the product price. Has the syntax: 000.0000 (no comma!) Discount Type (required) The Discount Type specifies how the amoung is handled: either VirtueMart User Manual 37 as a percantage or as a total amount. If you select "Percentage", the amount will mean that you give a Discount of XX % to the Product Price. If "Total" is selected, the amount will be sub- stracted (added) from the Product Price. Start Date (optional) By clicking on "..." you can specify a date from the calendar, which will be the first day, the Discount is calculated and shown to the customer. The Start Date is no must. You can also only have an End Date or leave this field blank when this discount shall begin instantly. End Date (optional) If you have specified a Start Date, you'll surely want an End Date - that would be something like "Sale". So click on "..." and spec- ify the last Day of the Sale from the calendar. You can also only have an Start Date or leave this field blank when this discount is not limited. When you're done, don't forget to "Save" your information. Deleting a Discount You can easily delete a discount. Note that this removes the Discount from all products which are as- signed to it. Just go to the Product Discount List and click on the Trash Icon of the row of the Discount you want to delete at the right side of the List. Confirm that you "want to delete this record" and done. User Management VirtueMart comes with an extended User Management compared to Mambo's User Management Fea- tures. Important Always use the VirtueMart User Manager for Adding / Editing and Deleting Users to / from your Mambo site! If you use Mambo's built-in User Manager you will run into troubles because important database entries are not created for such users. So for the other case: When you delete Users with the Mambo User Manager from the site that have been added with the Virtue- Mart User Manager, you will have a lot of useless database entries. VirtueMart also provides the ability to create any number of addresses for a particular user. Not only can a user have separate bill to and ship to addresses, but addresses for home and business as well. Shopper Groups VirtueMart offers the ability to not only manage users by vendor, but also by shopper group. This en- VirtueMart User Manual 38 ables storekeepers to create shopper groups for whatever need (e.g. site access, customer rating, etc.). These shopper groups can then be used to provide special services, discounts, or access to a specific group of users. Because users and shopper groups are associated to a particular vendor, it is important to create your vendor records before creating the user and shopper group records. Adding a Shopper Group Managing Shopper Groups Deleting Shopper Groups Users Order Administration Your shop is online, your catalogue is bursting at the seams, you?ve run all of your payment processing tests, and you?re ready to go live! Well, maybe not quite. You need to know what to do when those or- ders come flooding in. When someone orders a product through your VirtueMart website, a record is created in the system with the details of the order. The order record has a ?status? to indicate where the order is in the stream of events ? for example, whether it has been paid for, shipped, or cancelled. The actual values you use for status are up to you, but by default you are given status values of Pending, Confirmed, Cancelled, Refunded, and Shipped. If you want to define your own status values, you can do so by selecting ?List Order Status Types? from the ?Order Status? sub-menu of the ?Orders? menu. To view all of the orders in the system, click on ?List Orders? on the ?Orders? menu. This takes you to the Order List which is illustrated in the next figure. The Order Status List VirtueMart User Manual 39 Order List When you click on an order number, you are given the full details of the order as shown in the next fig- ure. You also have the ability to scroll through all of the order details using the ?prev? and ?next? links at the top of the page. The rest is up to you! The Order Details VirtueMart User Manual 40 VirtueMart User Manual 41 Vendor Administration Warning THIS PART OF VirtueMart STILL IS NOT COMPLETE. IT'S NOT RECOMMENDED TO USE THIS FEATURE. Vendors and Vendor Categories represent the top most tier of VirtueMart administration. Through ven- dor administration, the store keeper is able to manage products, users, and orders by vendor or supplier. [TODO - heirarchial drawing] For simple stores where there are only a few products offered, vendor administration is not necessarily needed, but for larger more complex stores, such as an online mall, vendor administration can be essen- tial. Since all products, product categories, users, and orders are associated to the vendor record, establishing the vendor and vendor category structure is the first step to building the online store. Note that it is not necessary to create the vendor categories first. Vendors can be re-associated to vendor categories after all the vendor records have been created. However, creating the vendor category records first can save some extra work if you already know how you want to categorize your vendors. Vendor Categories Vendor categories are a way to classify the types of goods and services that vendors offer on your site. For example, you may have an online mall for buying and selling furniture. You may want to create ven- dor categories such as "Antiques", "Office Furniture", and "Patio Furniture". Note that a vendor on your site can only be associated with a single vendor category, so it is important to use categories that are broad enough to represent the shopper's choice of storefronts. For example, "An- tique Furniture" and "Vintage Clothing" would not be broad enough categories if you have a vendor that sells both types of items. In this case, you might want to use "Antiques" as your vendor category. Viewing Vendor Categories [TODO: access the vclist] [TODO: search] Adding Vendor Categories VirtueMart creates the vendor category name "-default-" upon installation. It is not necessary to change this unless you choose to fully utilize the vendor category functionality. To create a new vendor category, select "Vendor | Add Vendor Category" from the VirtueMart admin interface. VirtueMart User Manual 42 Add a Vendor Category This will bring up the Vendor Category Form. Vendor Category Form Vendor Category Form Fields Vendor Category Name The name used to identify the vendor category. Vendor Category Description The description of the vendor category. Click on the "Save" icon. You will be redirected to the "Vendor Category List" page, showing the "-default-" category, and the new category you just entered. VirtueMart User Manual 43 Vendor Category List You may also add a new vendor category with the Vendor Category Form by clicking on the "New" icon from the Vendor Category List Screen. Editing Vendor Categories To edit an existing vendor category, select "Vendor | List Vendor Categories" in the VirtueMart admin menu. List Vendor Categories This will return the Vendor Category List screen (shown above). Click on the linked text showing the name of the vendor category you would like to edit to bring up the Vendor Category Form. Access a Vendor Category VirtueMart User Manual 44 When you have finished making changes, click on the "Save" icon. You will be redirected back to the "Vendor Category List" screen. Deleting Vendor Categories In older versions of VirtueMart, all vendors associated to a vendor category had to be removed or re- associated to a different vendor category before VirtueMart would allow deletion of the vendor cate- gory. This is no longer the case. In VirtueMart 1.2b3, if you remove a vendor category all vendors in that cate- gory will be reassigned to the "-default-" vendor category that was created upon installation. You can then re-associate the affected vendors if needed, as described below under "Vendors". There are two ways to delete a vendor category. The first way is to access the vendor category record by clicking on its name in the "Category Name" column of the Vendor Category List. Vendor Category Deletion This will bring up the Vendor Category Form. Click on the "Remove" icon. You will be redirected back to the "Vendor Category List" screen. The second way to delete a vendor category is from the Vendor Category List screen. Click on the trash can icon in the "Remove" column next to the name of the vendor category you would like to delete. Click 'OK' to confirm deletion of this category. VirtueMart User Manual 45 When you are ready to proceed, you may easily navigate to the vendor list by clicking on the linked text "list" in the "Vendors" column of the Vendor Category List. This will open the Vendor List page. Vendors Vendors are the main organizational factor in VirtueMart. Products and product categories, billing op- tions, etc. are all configured per-vendor. Upon installation, a global, default vendor is created. This special case cannot be deleted, and is man- aged separately via the "Store | Edit Store" menu option. If you are running a shopping site for a single vendor (for example, if you are the only vendor that will be offering products in your store) then there is no need to create additional vendors. If, however, you will be running an online mall site that will be host to several vendors, then create one vendor account for each storefront owner. It may be worth noting here that you should not confuse vendors with manufacturers. A single vendor may have a different manufacturer for each product that they offer. If the person supplying the products on your site will be managing their own shipping, etc., then they are a vendor. If you will be managing these aspects, then the supplier is a manufacturer. (See Manufacturer Administration for more informa- tion on that topic). Adding Vendors To create a new vendor, select "Vendor | Add Vendor" in the VirtueMart admin menu. Edit the following fields in the Vendor Information Form: Full Image Required Displays the currently configured store logo. Upload Image Optional Browse to the vendor's company logo. This will be uploaded when you click on the "Save" icon. VirtueMart User Manual 46 Currency The vendor's global / default Currency Minimum purchase order value This is the amount which is the minimum Order Value for Check- out. Minimum Amount for Free Shipping This is the amount, from which on Shipping is free. Currency symbol This is the currency symbol which will be used when displaying prices. Decimals Number of decimals. Decimal symbol Can be somethin like . , or empty. Thousands separator Positive format Display Order / Style for positive numbers. Negative format Display Order / Style for negative numbers. Description This is the Vendor Store's Description which is shown on the page shop.index. Terms of Service This is the complete text for your Terms of Service that is dis- played to the customer. Store Name Required The name of the Vendor Store. Store Company Name Required The name of the vendor company. URL the vendor's Internet Address. Address 1 Address Line 1 Address 2 Address Line 2 City The City where the vendor is located. State/Province/Region The State / Region where the vendor is located. Country The Country where the vendor is located. Zip/Postal Code The ZIP of the vendor's location. Phone The Vendor's Phone Number Last, First & Middle Name The Name of the Vendor's Contact Person. Title The title of the Contact Person. Phone 1 & 2 Vendor's contact's Phone number. Fax The Fax number for the Contact. Email Address Primary Vendor contact email address VirtueMart User Manual 47 Click the "Save" icon to create your new vendor. Editing Vendors To edit an existing vendor, select "Vendor | List Vendors" to see a list of all vendors. You may also get to this screen by clicking on the linked text, "list", in the Vendors column on the Vendor Category List screen. Click on the name of the vendor you would like to edit, or click on the linked text "update" in the Admin column - either will take you to the same Vendor Add Information form. Make your changes in the Ven- dor "Add Information" form (described above), and click on the "Save" icon. You will be returned to the Vendor List screen. Deleting Vendors Since vendors represent the top most tier of site management, deletion of vendors should be avoided un- less absolutely necessary. Before deleting an existing vendor, all products, product categories, users, and orders associated to that vendor must be removed through either deletion or re-association to another vendor. VirtueMart will not allow the deletion of a vendor while these child records still exist for that vendor. Once these child records have been removed, select "Vendor | List Vendors" to see a list of all vendors. Then click on the name of the vendor you would like to delete. In the Vendor Add Information form, click on the "Remove" icon. You will be returned to the Vendor List screen. Once this vendor has been deleted, it is removed from the system. To recover this vendor, you must re- create the vendor information, and re-associate all appropriate product categories and products. Tax Rates VirtueMart has some tax calculation configuration capabilities. Details on configuring tax calculations on your site can be found above under "Configuration". There are two Tax modes available in VirtueMart: Based on vendor address and Based on shipping ad- dress. Depending on which option you select, you should configure Tax Rates for the locale of each ven- dor as entered in the "Vendor Information Form" (described above), or for each country or state you plan to have customers from (that you wish to calculate taxes for). Adding Tax Rates To add tax rates, select "Tax | Add Tax Rate" from the VirtueMart admin menu. This will bring up the "Add Tax Information" Form. Add Tax Information Form Fields: Tax Country The country this tax rate will be applied to, determined by either the ven- dor or the purchaser's shipping address. Tax State or Region The State or Region this tax rate will be applied to. If there is no region listed for the country you are configuring a tax rate for, select the "Non- USA / Non-Canadian / Not Listed" option. If you don't need a state, but need more than one Tax Rate for a country, just select some "dummy" state for each Tax Rate for that country. VirtueMart User Manual 48 Tax Rate Example: 0.0825 The tax rate, as a decimal value. For example, 8.25% would be entered as 0.0825 Click on the "Save" icon to add your new Tax Rate information. Editing Tax Rates To edit existing Tax Rate information, select "Tax | List Tax Rates" from the VirtueMart admin menu. Click on either the linked text in the "Tax Country" or the "Tax Rate" column (both will take you to the same record). Next make changes to the Tax Country, State or Region, or Rate fields as needed, and click on the "Save" icon to save your changes. Tax Rate changes will be placed into effect for all purchases moving forward. Deleting Tax Rates To delete an existing Tax Rate, select "Tax | List Tax Rates" from the VirtueMart admin menu. Click on the linked text in the "Tax Country" or "Tax Rate" column to edit the record. Click on the "Remove" icon. You will be returned to the Tax Rate List. Alternatively, you may pull up the Tax Rate List by selcting "Tax | List Tax Rates", and click on the trash can icon in the "Remove" column next to the record you would like to delete. Shipping Modules Standard Shipping It is wise first of all to think about how you will charge for postage and packing. The easiest way is to have a fixed shipping price for all of your products, but this is not always practical ? especially if your products vary greatly in size and/or weight. Not only do you need to think about shipping rates, but also shipping methods. Will you offer more than one shipping method ? eg. next day delivery as well as standard? DHL as well as Royal Mail? Even if you decide to only use one company for all of your shipping, you still need to tell VirtueMart about it. To set up a new ?shipper?, select ?Create Shipper? from the ?Shipping? menu. This takes you to shipper editor, shown in figure 17. VirtueMart User Manual 49 The Shipper Editor List order is just a numeric value which is used to sort the shipper names, so enter 1 for the shipper that you want to be listed 1st, 2 for the one you want to be listed 2nd, etc. When you have added the shipping companies you want to use, you need to configure the shipping rates. You can set up different rates for different service levels (eg. next day, two day, first class etc.) or according to the weight of the shipment. You can also select whether to add VAT to the shipping rate or not. All of this takes place in the Shipping Rate Editor ? see next figure. To edit or delete existing shipping rates, select ?Shipping Rates? from the ?Shipping? menu. The Shipping Rate Editor VirtueMart User Manual 50 UPS Shipping Intershipper Shipping Zone Shipping Payment Methods The area of payment processing can get a bit complicated, and it might be best to leave this to your web designer to sort out if possible. If you are able to use one of the payment processing companies that are already supported by VirtueMart, it will make life a lot easier (you will need to sign-up with a payment processor yourself ? the program won?t do that for you!). You can see the options available by clicking on the ?List Payment Methods? icon on the store summary, or by selecting ?List Payment Methods? from the ?Store? menu. Payment Method Overview Payment Method List It is possible to create a new payment method (there is a ?New? toolbar button), but you may to hack the VirtueMart code in order to make use of it (not for the faint-hearted!) The configuration options for each payment method are different ? depending on what is required by that payment service provider. Usually your payment service provider will give you some kind of code, key, or user name which needs to be entered in the Payment Method Editor. The Payment Method Editor consists of 2 tabs ? the first of which you will probably not need to touch. The next Figure shows the 2nd tab (?Configuration?), which varies depending on the payment service VirtueMart User Manual 51 provider, and the example shown here is for WorldPay. Add and Edit Payment Methods Some payment processors will allow you to specify a script to be run on successful completion of a pay- ment. Such a script could be used to automatically update the order status in VirtueMart so that you don?t have to manually tie up all of your online receipts with your product orders. Another advantage of this process is that when you're selling downloadable files, you don't have to set the Order Status that enables the Download (this sends out the Download-ID email) manually. This is done automatically by the script. See the Section "Pre-Configured Payment Methods" for more details on specific payment gateways. Other payment service providers may use different methods of automatically notifying you when a pay- ment is received. Again, it is probably easiest to get your web designer to sort out the requirements for this, but if you need to do it yourself, check with your payment service provider as to what their require- ments are. Often, automatic notification is referred to as ?IPN? or ?Instant Payment Notification?. Pre-Configured Payment Methods VirtueMart already comes with several Payment Modules that allow accepting payments from customers after a short time for setting them up with your Account Details. PayPal www.paypal.com PayPal integration is made using a Webform that transfers the customer to the PayPal site. VirtueMart User Manual 52 This payment method allows automatic Order Status Updates. There's a file in /ad- ministrator/components/com_virtuemart/ which is called notify.php. You will need to enter the appropriate URL (web address) for the script file in PayPal?s control panel. When a cus- tomer finishes the Payment, the PayPal server connects to this script on your server. When the transac- tion AND the payment have been successful, the order status is automatically updated to the status you have set in the PayPal configuration form. Worldpay www.worldpay.com Worldpay integration is made using a Webform that transfers the customer to the Worldpay site. Allows automatic Order Status Updates. There's a file in /administra- tor/components/com_virtuemart/ which is called worldpay_notify.php. You will need to enter the appropriate URL (web address) for the script file in WorldPay?s control panel. When a customer finishes the Payment, Worldpay copnnects to this script on your server and when the transac- tion AND the payment have been successful, updates the order status. authorize.net www.authorize.net This payment module uses the authorize.net AIM method, which means that the customers stay on your site and enter all Credit Card details. When the order is being completed, the Payment Module connects with authorize.net and tries to initiate the Money Transfer using the Payment Details of the buyer and your account details that you have set up in the configuration panel for authorize.net. 2Checkout http://www.2checkout.com This payment module acts very similar to the PayPal Payment Module: It transfers the customer to www.2Checkout.com where all payment details can be entered. After that the customer is directed back to your site. But before you must make the following steps: 1. Fill in your details for 2Checkout in your Shop, "Store" => "Payment List" => "2Checkout". For the field Secret word just choose a secret word (without spaces!! max. 16 characters), fill it in and keep it in mind. 2. Login to your 2Checkout account at www.2checkout.com. 3. Go to the section called "Look and Feel". 4. Fill in "https://YOUR_JOOMLA_URL/2checkout_notify.php" into the fields Ap- proved URL and Pending URL 5. Fill in the secret word from Step 1 into the Field Secret Word. 6. Move the file YOUR_JOOMLA_PATH/administrator/components/com_virtuemart/2checkout _notify.php to YOUR_JOOMLA_PATH/2checkout_notify.php (means into the Mambo root) VirtueMart User Manual 53 When those steps have been completed, you can use 2Checkout with automatic Order Status updates on your site. eWay www.eway.com.au This payment module implements the eWAY XML Payment Solution. The customers stay on your site and enter all Credit Card details. When the order is being completed, the Payment Module connects with the eWay gateway and tries to initiate the Money Transfer using the Payment Details of the buyer. Paymate ... eProcessingNetwork.com www.eProcessingNetwork.com See section "authorize.net". NoChex ... PayMeNow ... Reports VirtueMart comes with a basic and self-explaining Report Module. It allows you to view the product sales of a specific time range. Known Problems ? "problematic" Product Names could mess up Email Generation HTML code ? the Vendor Module causes trouble. Multi-Vendor Feature isn't fully implemented!!! To-Do List Wishlist / Not implemented Features ? Currency Selector in the Frontend [Feature Request #3344] ? Multi-Language Support [Feature Request #1404] ? Product Syndication/Data feed management [Feature Request #3569] VirtueMart User Manual 54 ? DHL / FedEx Shipping module ? Meta Description/Keywords for products ? Quick-Add: Discount on *all* Products ? allow "send as gift" with individual text on order ? streamlined Checkout ? Shipping based on Cart Total Not implemented Payment Gateways ? pppay.com ? Bluepay ? Dtaus Export / bankwithdraw (wired support) ? Ogone ? 4b pasat General ? improve performance ? improve Security ? Clean up code ? XHTML compliance ? Clean up checkout About The project VirtueMart is an Open Source E-Commerce solution for Joomla! and Mambo. VirtueMart is released under the GNU Public License, which means by the end, it free for download and use. There's a small bunch of developers who help in pushing this Shopping Script towards professionality and usability. The author of this documentation is the Lead Developer...and having not much time be- sides Wife, Work & Studies. VirtueMart User Manual 55 History: VirtueMart is the successor of mambo-phpShop. mambo-phpShop was the first port of phpShop to Mambo. phpShop was developed by Edikon Corp. [http://www.edikon.com] and the phpShop com- munity - http://www.phpshop.org. The Community Since VirtueMart is free and Open Source Software, everyone using it can and should contribute to this project. You can send your code snippets, hints and everything else helpful to the Homepage of the project: http://virtuemart.net [http://VirtueMart.net]. There's also an active Forum, where discussion and bug reporting can take place: Forum [http://www.VirtueMart.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=71]. The Documentation This documentation was written using XMLMind XML Editor [http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor] using the DocBook [http://www.docbook.org] XML Format. DocBook defines a set of markup elements useful for marking up text so that the text can then be trans- formed into several different formats. It's possible to create documents in different formats: PDF, HTML, HTML Help (.chm Files for Windows Help), XML, RTF, TeX, WordML (Word 2003) and oth- ers. The author of this document uses eDE [http://docbook.e-novative.de/] for generating the End-User documents. The idea is to write just once and reach the largest possible number of people with the infor- mation. Digital information not stored properly tends to get lost. Due to the fact that not containing un- common characters (such as binary formats) it's possible to index and search directly on the documents written on SGML and consequently on DocBook. The SGML systems use markups to make their de- scription. DocBook holds over 300 markup elements each one with several attributes which can assume several values, these can be fixed or defined by the document / style that the author has used. VirtueMart User Manual 56