Gift Cards

[Craig Ambrose]

Hello,

I am implementing gift cards for our eCommerce application and I'm not getting a clear picture from what is implemented on the sample eCommerce site. Here is how I am expecting it to work

- Customer purchases gift card from eCommerce site, lets say a $50, pre-specified gift card
- Upon submission of the order some sort of account is created where $50 can be debited on future orders.
- After the order is submitted and approved, the customer will receive an e-mail with the gift card number to be used on subsequent purchases
- When doing a subsequent purchase the customer can input the unique Gift Card identifier to be used as a payment method
- If the gift card does not contain enough value to pay for the entire order, a credit card or additional gift card can be used for the remaining balance

From the eCommerce sample web site I can purchase a gift card and receive the e-mail with my order confirmation. But it doesn't contain any gift card identification. I only see the product ID.

I see GiftCard and GiftCardFulfillment entities, but not sure how to use them.

So, some of my questions are:
- What is the entity that encapsulates the Gift Card account?
- Is there an ECA service that generates the Gift Card account automatically when an order is approved that contains a Gift Card in the order items?
- Is there any special attributes of a product that is a gift card that will trigger the account creation?
- Is there any weirdness in having more than one PAYMENT_METHOD per order? Does ofbiz allow for this easily?

Thanks for any clarity on gift cards

-craig

[Mridul Pathak-2]

Craig,

Please see my comments inline.

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 12:01 AM, Craig Ambrose <[hidden email]>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am implementing gift cards for our eCommerce application and I'm not
> getting a clear picture from what is implemented on the sample eCommerce
> site. Here is how I am expecting it to work
>
> - Customer purchases gift card from eCommerce site, lets say a $50,
> pre-specified gift card
> - Upon submission of the order some sort of account is created where $50
> can be debited on future orders.
> - After the order is submitted and approved, the customer will receive an
> e-mail with the gift card number to be used on subsequent purchases
> - When doing a subsequent purchase the customer can input the unique Gift
> Card identifier to be used as a payment method
> - If the gift card does not contain enough value to pay for the entire
> order, a credit card or additional gift card can be used for the remaining
> balance
>
> From the eCommerce sample web site I can purchase a gift card and receive
> the e-mail with my order confirmation. But it doesn't contain any gift card
> identification. I only see the product ID.
>

OFBiz generates gift card number and pin and they should be sent in the
email.


>
> I see GiftCard and GiftCardFulfillment entities, but not sure how to use
> them.
>
> So, some of my questions are:
> - What is the entity that encapsulates the Gift Card account?
>

It's FinAccount of type "GIFTCERT_ACCOUNT".


> - Is there an ECA service that generates the Gift Card account
> automatically when an order is approved that contains a Gift Card in the
> order items?
>

No, it's a digital fulfillment service associated to gift card product.  See
more details below.



> - Is there any special attributes of a product that is a gift card that
> will trigger the account creation?
>

A gift card product should be a DIGITAL product.  There is OOTB service
"ofbizGcPurchase" which acts as a digital fulfillment service and is
associated to the gift card in form of ProductContent of type
"FULFILLMENT_EXTSYNC" or "FULFILLMENT_EXTASYNC".  A digital product is
fulfilled right away without needing order approval. The digital fulfillment
service is triggered as soon as the digital item (gift card) is fulfilled.


> - Is there any weirdness in having more than one PAYMENT_METHOD per order?
> Does ofbiz allow for this easily?
>

Not at all.  You might not find OOTB UI for setting multiple payment methods
at the time of order checkout but you can set them in your custom app
without any issues.


>
> Thanks for any clarity on gift cards
>
> -craig
>
>


--
Thanks & Regards
Mridul Pathak
Hotwax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
[hidden email]
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direct: +91 - 942.592.6892