[screenimages]

Client is interested in setting up a corporate gifting selection within our MVE, but wants to curate the gifts on offer, rather than having every vendor adding all their products randomly.

 

Is there was way to hide product categories from Vendors, but still allow store admin to apply to products so they can be displayed on a special category page?

 

Changing a category status to "Hidden" doesn't seem to hide it from vendor admins.

 

 

 

MVE 4.03 (4.5.2SP in another week or two)

[tbirnseth]

Let me paraphrase back in my own words to see if I understand your question.

You have vendor products that you want to show to customers but do not want to be editable by vendors but you want normal vendor functions like commission, etc. to still apply?

 

The easiest way would be to add them as a separate vendor (you) and then probably manage commission separately.  But then you get into the whole shipping mess.

 

It MIGHT be possible to use the Suppliers module with you as the Vendor but the actual vendor as the supplier....

[screenimages]

Is there no way to remove editing permissions for some categories from Vendors? Perhaps they could be hidden from the vendor admin somehow? (I guess we would need a class or ID for the full line items)

 

If not, how best for store admin to choose unique sets of vendor products to present to customers?

 

We have used product tagging in the past, but they have recently been effectively removed from the application.

 

Surely the need for product curation is not unique just to our shop?

[tbirnseth]

I don't believe that categories can be managed by vendor. There may be an addon to enable this.  Depending on your requirements, this could be fairly easy or require development of a new admin area related to category permissions.  

 

I'm not a user of MVE (though we've done a lot of development for it).  So it's possible there is some administrative interface to manage categories by vendor.  But I'm not aware of it.

[eComLabs]

Actually there was such a feature in the past

 

https://prnt.sc/e51ob9

 

For some reason CS-Cart developers removed it

[screenimages]

How hard would it be to simple add a matching classname to the category controls?

 

Then we could just hide all the individual category controls we want from vendors using just css.

[tbirnseth]

How hard would it be to simple add a matching classname to the category controls?

 

Then we could just hide all the individual category controls we want from vendors using just css.

Using that approach, you'd obliterate the boundaries between business logic and presentation.  Not a good way.

 

Proper way would be to add a property to categories in MVE thatindicates the vendor permissions.  I.e. hidden from, read-only, read/write (default read/write).  then utilize the get_category/update_category type hooks to honor that flag appropriately.

[Angeltown]

If not, how best for store admin to choose unique sets of vendor products to present to customers?

 

We have used product tagging in the past, but they have recently been effectively removed from the application.

 

Surely the need for product curation is not unique just to our shop?

 

 

We created our own massive set of product categories that we call "collections". We use it to curate coordinating products created by a single or multiple vendors. We maintain it completely manually though. 

 

How hard would it be to simple add a matching classname to the category controls?

 

Then we could just hide all the individual category controls we want from vendors using just css.

 

What I did was add a bit of code to the template that notes the category ID in the class, then used css to hide the ones I want hidden. Not ideal but it definitely worked. 

 

Using that approach, you'd obliterate the boundaries between business logic and presentation.  Not a good way.

 

Proper way would be to add a property to categories in MVE thatindicates the vendor permissions.  I.e. hidden from, read-only, read/write (default read/write).  then utilize the get_category/update_category type hooks to honor that flag appropriately.

 

We'd love to do it that way, for both vendors & admin, but do not know how. There is a SIGNIFICANT need for a much more comprehensive user group based permissions system. The default permissions options are seriously inadequate for large teams with very specific, limited roles. 

 

The built in inclusive categories restrictions (now in Vendor Plans) is likewise unsustainable even by import / export. We have thousands of categories that change often. The only way it would work for us is if we could only list the categories we'd like to exclude, rather than include. Also we don't allow vendors to put products directly in our parent categories; the ability to block that automatically would be fabulous. 

 

Considering how many people post on this forum asking how to hide specific things in vendor / admin, it really surprises me there isn't a great add-on available to handle all of these permissions issues. We'd certainly buy an affordable add-on, but our budget for custom work goes to more critical functionality issues rather than things like this that are simply highly inconvenient. 

 

 

[tbirnseth]

 We'd certainly buy an affordable add-on, but our budget for custom work goes to more critical functionality issues rather than things like this that are simply highly inconvenient. 

And therein lies the problem.  Someone has to make the investment and to be quite honest, the return on "affordable production addons" lately is dismal.  The demand has fallen off significantly.  Hence any motivation to take on additional risk (I.e. investment) isn't there.  Occasionally we get client requests for custom work that map into a more general model (like our recent EZ Category Discounts) addon.  But those too are becoming fewer and further between.

[Angeltown]

And therein lies the problem.  Someone has to make the investment and to be quite honest, the return on "affordable production addons" lately is dismal.  The demand has fallen off significantly.  Hence any motivation to take on additional risk (I.e. investment) isn't there.  Occasionally we get client requests for custom work that map into a more general model (like our recent EZ Category Discounts) addon.  But those too are becoming fewer and further between.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. There are always things that can be improved, but we love CS-Cart overall. I say we... I'm referring to my MVE client. But I also have 3 smaller clients using using the regular cart.

 

I'll keep your add-on in mind... it could be helpful for my wholesale client as we develop their new marketing strategy.

 

Along those same lines, if you ever do one that will accurately do promotions based on an order subtotal from only selected category/categories, please do let me know. Meaning the qualifying subtotal should only include items ordered from the selected categories. That's our single biggest need in promotions. Right now the system will do order subtotal promos, and "in" category promos, but it won't combine them accurately. Possibly the best thing would be to create a combined condition: Order subtotal greater/less/equal in categories xxx.

[tbirnseth]

You might find that the EZ Category Discounts addon will do what you need.  It is applied AFTER promotions and other quantity discounts.  So for a specific category (and defined usergroup) you can offer additional discounts (like for wholesale customers) based on the number of items purchased that are in that category.  But again, this is AFTER other promotions have been applied.  However, it is based on quantity, not the subtotal of the items.

[amrn]

We created our own massive set of product categories that we call "collections". We use it to curate coordinating products created by a single or multiple vendors. We maintain it completely manually though. 

 

 

 

Hi Angeltown,

 

We did the same. Tags would be ideal for this, but they have their own problems.
What we do now, is to assign permissions per vendor to these categories through 'vendor plans' add-on. The only inconvenience is that we need to assign permissions to all vendors (we have a single vendor plan for all vendors) when adding products to the collection (even admin can't do it when category is not assigned to vendor). When the product is in the category, however, we can remove it - the products remain in the collection, but vendors cannot assign products to these categories anymore.

If you've figured out anything better - please let us now here