general help with gift certificates

[newmarket2]

I'm having a lot of trouble setting up gift certificates.

I've done a configuration, and we've tested it and it sort of works but also doesn't in several ways (some details below).

I could use trial and error to try to figure this out, but each test costs us $$ because PayPal takes a %.

I'll start with our current situation:
We set up the configuration and saved it.
We have 4 product pages - two for marketed products and 2 for testing.
We created a gift certificate amount of $1 to keep the costs of testing down.
We were able to purchase the gift; it was receive; but when the link was followed, one of the test pages opened up - not one of the standard product pages.
Now, since the test product was 1 cent and the gift cert was $1 and no other products were that cheap - is it possible that that is why the test page opened. But, if that IS the case, then how does someone with a gift navigate to BOTH of our product pages with real products and not see the test pages?

[Jim]

The link in the gift certificate email goes to the page that is defined as the My Store link on the Preferences > Hosting Services screen. The amount of the gift certificate or the cost of the item purchased has nothing to do with it.

Note: I would temporarily enable the COD payment method when you want to test the purchase a gift certificate, that way paypal would not be envolved at all. Just make sure that you disable COD immediately after the purchase so real customers can't use it. I also believe that PayPal refunds any fees when you refund a purchase (at least it does with PayPal Standard). So just go to your paypal account and refund the test transactions and the fees should be voided.

[newmarket2]

Jim,
The testing info was extremely helpful! That will make things a whole lot easier.

I think I'm down the last hurdle: I think one of our programmers created a template page that is used to generate the email that is sent to the recipient. But, now we want to modify it and am not sure where it's located. You pointed me to Preferences > Hosting Services, but I can't tell while of the url's listed contains the email template.

I would also guess that somewhere there is a pointer to that file. If I knew where that was, I could find it that way.

Thanks!
Michael

[Jim]

The shopper email is in the shopping cart template in the section [-- DEFINE THANKYOU_EMAIL --]. You can see what template is being used under Commerce Setup > Order System > Layout Info. If it is a custom template you can edit it under Merchandising > Custom Templates > Shopping cart. If it a ShopSite provided template you would need to make a copy of the template, modify it, copy it back to the same template name as the ShopSite name.

[newmarket2]

Jim,
I found a ShopSite page that lists Custom Templates under Merchandising Tools.
Scrolling down that page I find a section headed Gift Certificate Templates
In it, there is a menu box which lists the (I assume) custom template that is being used, which is called "jsa_template"

When I click Edit Template, a new window opens and I find the template in a scrollable box.
Within that template, I scroll down to find a section called
# *****************************************
# ***** GIFT_CERTIFICATE_EMAIL DEFINE *****
# *****************************************

which I assume is what I"m looking for.

Now, I personally can do a little html myself by looking for text strings and changing them but I get lost with much more than that.
So, since I can't find any specific phrases or words in this section that I see in the gift certificate email itself I'm pretty lost.

A specific example: at the bottom of the email (to the recipient), it says
"In order to redeem this gift certificate please click on this link -" (where - is a label linked to a URL).
1. If I search for part of that message (eg. "In order to"), I can't find it. So, I assume there is some pointer to where that text is actually located.
2. The link from that line at the bottom of the email, points to a ShopSite Page which we use for testing - not to either of our two shopping cart Pages. At a bare minimum, if I could just find and change that - to the correct URL, I'd be OK

Michael

[Jim]

Sorry about misleading you on the location of the email template. I forgot about the one in the gift certificate template.

There is no setting that I can find for including a different page link than what is set in the My Store url.

The text "In order to redeem this gift certificate please click on this link -" comes from
Preferences > Store Text > Gift Certificate screen.

Check the other fields on that screen and see if the url that appears on the gift certificate is hard coded into one of them.

If that doesn't work post a copy of the template for gift certificate email section and a copy of what is on the actual email for the gift certificate. (0r you can send it to me by PM or email using the buttons to the right of this post)