User Search Data

We've rolled out some new functionality to the internal search system within the onlinesales database.

A new table has been created that will store various aspects of the search, including the search, the date & time, and the amount of results returned for products, galleries and brands.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS searches_tbl;
CREATE TABLE searches_tbl (
id INT unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
search char(255) default NULL,
search_date DATETIME default NULL,
search_ip char(30) default NULL,
product_results INT unsigned default 0,
gallery_results INT unsigned default 0,
brand_results INT unsigned default 0,
PRIMARY KEY(id),
UNIQUE KEY id (id)
);

You'll shortly begin to see a series of new report functions within the admin section. These will report on various aspects including:

• Frequent searches (you can use that data to perhaps improve the navigation to get people to popular items)
• Searches with no results - See for market opportunity and to improve existing text and descriptions within your site

Changing a Gallery Image

By default the gallery will display the latest image to be added to the gallery. You can change it easily via the gallery page in the admin section.

The galleries are listed alphabetically, simply find the gallery you need, select edit, then enter in the name of the file you want to use for the gallery image, which should be uploaded in your site's media folder.

Please see the screencast:
Changing Gallery Images.

Associating Products with Brands

To aide associating a product and a brand (or if you prefer consider the brand as a supplier or manufacturer) you can now edit a product and select the appropriate brand from a drop down menu from the standard "product search" page.

As the product to brand is a one-to-many relationship (a product could be associated with several different brands) we have the following rules for editing here:
1. If no association exists we add the new one..
2. If more than 1 association already exists we just add the new one too.
3. If only one association exists we replace the old one.

I've found that the brands page is a great entry page as it contains many keywords for your site. I strongly recommend using this new facility.

Voucher & Discounts.

v_code	is the code you pass on to your customers.
v_rate	Is a percentage discount from the total price (excluding P&P) (Or use v_amount)
v_amount	a fixed amount discount. (Or use v_rate)
v_usage	1 = individual; 2 = multiple. Indiviual means it can only be used once, such as a one of gift certifacte, 2 means it can be used many times.
country_id	If you want to limit the discount to a particilar country.
postage_zone	" " " postage zone
valid_from	Date in format YYYY-MM-DD
expiry_date	Date in format YYYY-MM-DD
minimum_order	If customer has to sepnd a certain amount (before p&p) to quality enter amount here.
valid	1 is valid, 0 turns the voucher off (in case of fraud)
v_method	1 - Discount. 2 - No discount: perhaps a free gift or to charity.
Comments

database.vouchers_tbl
+---------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field         | Type                  | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+---------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id            | int(10) unsigned      |      | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| v_code        | char(32)              |      |     |         |                |
| v_rate        | decimal(8,2) unsigned | YES  |     | 0.00    |                |
| v_amount      | decimal(8,2) unsigned | YES  |     | 0.00    |                |
| v_usage       | tinyint(3) unsigned   | YES  |     | 0       |                |
| country_id    | int(10) unsigned      | YES  |     | 0       |                |
| postage_zone  | tinyint(3) unsigned   | YES  |     | 0       |                |
| valid_from    | datetime              | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| expiry_date   | datetime              | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| minimum_order | decimal(8,2) unsigned | YES  |     | 0.00    |                |
| valid         | tinyint(3) unsigned   | YES  |     | 1       |                |
| v_method      | tinyint(3) unsigned   | YES  |     | 1       |                |
| comments      | char(255)             | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+---------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+