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Magento World Newsletter (March 16, 2010)

The Portuguese say: "A good year is determined by its spring". If what is said is true, this year bids fair to be extension-rich for aheadWorks!

 

We can happily admit that we have entered this spring with a budget of fantabulous news – a bulk of new extensions, a set of new Advanced Reports Units, a deal of user guides and a number of software updates – and today we are in a hurry to share all this information with you.

 

New Extensions

 

Previous/Next

 

Enhance your store navigation and avoid additional pages loading with the Previous/Next extension from aheadWorks! Now your customers can shift from one Product page to another with 1 click of the Next or Previous link!

 

The Previous/Next extension features allow you to greatly improve your online store usability:



    • Adding 3 controls on Product page: Previous / Back / Next

 

    • Ability to use product and category names in your links

 

    • Ability to set images instead of links

 

    • Customers can use keyboard navigation (ctrl+left, ctrl+up, ctrl+right)

 

    • Ability to loop previous / next product name in product page

 

    • Product and category names can be truncated to any length you want. You can also use any ending you like after the truncated name

 

    • Customizable links position



Please find more information about Previous/Next on the extension page.

 

Home Tabs Pro

 

The Home Tabs Pro extension by aheadWorks is a perfect solution for those who have ever thought of broadening standard Magento Main page possibilities. The extension allows you to display most popular products at the Home page of your store in a comfortable and neat way.

 

At the Home page of your online store, customizable tabs display automatically generated list of top items: Top Sellers, Top Rated, Most Reviewed, Just Added and Wishlist Top.

 

Some other Home Tabs Pro advantages are the software’s:



    • Flexible tabs positioning

 

    • Configurable tabs

 

    • AJAX loader customization



Please find more detailed information about this aheadWorks extension on the Home Tabs Pro page.

 

Automatic Products Callouts

 

The Automatic Product Callouts extension introduces top product sets organized in blocks in any place of your site. The most common usage is having completely automatic category landing page with top products from this category, but you can use the extension in any other place of your site as well.

 

With Automatic Product Callouts you gain a set of the following features:



    • Best Selling, Top Rated, Top Searched and Top Viewed automatically retrieved product sets are supported

 

    • Ability to insert blocks via CMS static block

 

    • Full configuration control from admin panel

 

    • Any configuration parameter can be changed by defining CMS block variables

 

    • Own extension cache to reduce page load time

 

    • Store or category level product selection restrictions



If you need more information, you can find it on the Automatic Product Callouts page.

 

Delivery Date and Notice

 

The Delivery Date and Notice extension from aheadWorks adds new value for physical goods stores - now your customers can specify preferable delivery time and leave notice for a postman when purchasing in your store!

 

Delivery Date and Notice offers you a number of essential features including:



    • Orders can be sorted/filtered by delivery date at backend

 

    • Customer can define delivery date. If no delivery date is specified – the nearest available date is used

 

    • Customer can specify delivery/postman notice

 

    • Customizable time after which same-day delivery is unavailable

 

    • Easy-to-tune and flexible unavailable dates/days configuration tool

 

    • Minimal interval between the order and delivery date



View screenshots and demo on the Delivery Date and Notice page.

 

Custom SMTP

 

Custom SMTP is a must-have extension both for store administrators and developers. It makes you no longer dependent on your local server mailing software. Now YOU define whether to send emails from custom SMTP server, localhost or don’t send them at all.

 

The main Custom SMTP features are the following:



    • Custom SMTP server usage

 

    • Custom port, authorization type, secure protocols support

 

    • Log of all outgoing emails

 

    • Possibility to view any outgoing email



To view the complete list of features please visit the extension page.

 

Advanced Reports Units

 

Users Wishlists

 

The Users Wishlists report allows you to observe which products have been added to customers’ wishlists. Moreover, you can find out when the product has been added and how many days this item is in the wishlist.

 

Sales by Coupon Code

 

With the Sales by Coupon Code report type you can get the complete information about orders made with coupons usage. This is a perfect way to analyze promotions results.

 

Sales by ZIP Code

 

The Sales by ZIP Code report displays sales data grouped by ZIP code. This is a kind of geographical report which allows you to analyze the sales in different parts of your city, state or the whole country.

 

New vs. Returning Customers

 

The New vs. Returning Customers report allows you to make a comparative analysis of new customers who made the 1st order during the selected period with returning customers who made the 2nd and more orders within the same time.

 

Sales by Payment Type

 

The Sales by Payment Type report displays sales data grouped by payment methods. This report type allows you to analyze how customers prefer to pay for their purchases in your store.

 

New User Guides

 

Advanced Menu User Guide

 

The Advanced Menu User Guide is designed to help you get the most out of the wide functionality available to you in the Advanced Menu extension. The Guide introduces you the essential features of this aheadWorks module and provides instructions on Advanced Menu configuration. Being at the same time step-by-step software manual and the illustration of menu types’ appliance, the Advanced Menu User Guide will definitely become your partner in setting up Advanced Menu for your online store.

 

You can download Advanced Menu User Guide from the extension page.

 

Help Desk Ultimate User Guide

 

The Help Desk Ultimate User Guide will help you to set up this aheadWorks extension maximally efficiently for you online store. In the Guide you will find out how to manage departments and tickets, learn how to integrate the Product Questions extension and standard Magento Contact Form, get the illustrated description of gateways and cron configuration, and much more.

 

To download free User Guide in PDF please visit the Help Desk Ultimate page.

 

Updated Extensions

 

Product Questions

 

Want to make your customer communication interactive? If you like to communicate about your product with your customer, rather than to your customer, then the "Product Questions" extension is the solution for you! Let your potential customers ask you product-related questions on the product page itself. Answer them right there - and resolve their doubts. Benefit from the 2-way contact: engage with the website visitors and use that dialogue to attract and convert more prospects.

 

Current version: 1.3

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new (main changes):
   + Multistore support
   + Question sorting by date and helpfulness
   + An ability to get subscribed to newsletter from the "Ask a question" form (integration with aheadWorks Advanced Newsletter extension)
   + Show last X questions when displaying Product Questions block on Product page
   + Ability to send auto-responding notifications to customers
   + Ability to disable asking questions and helpfulness rating for guests
   * Short tags in templates
   * 'aw_' prefix added to table name
   * Module disabling from backend fix
   * Minor changes

 

View the complete list of features on the Product Questions page.



Help Desk Ultimate

 

Help Desk Magento extension by aheadWorks is a perfect customer care and support solution for ecommerce sites based on Magento.

 

Current version: 2.6

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new (main changes):
   + Advanced multistore support
   + Multiple email gateways support
   + Advanced Product Questions extension integration
   + Tickets priority
   + Offensive ticket ID filtering
   + Status changes history
   + New log format - database instead of files, with ability to see the logs in admin grid
   * Minor bug fixes

 

Please find the complete changelog on the Help Desk Ultimate page.



Follow Up Email

 

Never loose a customer after a sale, stay in contact with people who are most likely to be interested in another purchase. Use follow up emails to get opinion about the products a customer has purchased, request a feedback, offer related items, send attractive discounts and promotions, and anything else you could imagine.

 

Current version: 3.1.3

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new:
   * Sale amount condition reset when editing rule in IE
   * Customers details messed in the queue
   * Unquoted expressions in back quotes in template filter
   * Incorrect work of 'View Rule' action in the Link Tracking grid
   * Impossible to configure Email chain of the rule in IE
   * Unexpected redirecting when clicking the 'Send now' or 'Cancel' button in the Email preview window in IE 7/8
   * 'Send only to newsletter subscribers' rule option for unsubscribed customers
   * Link tracking page crash when applying filter in grid
   * Minor changes

 

Find more information on the Follow Up Email page.



Advanced Reports

 

Improve the functionality of native Magento reports and create a complete picture of your business situation with Advanced Reports!

 

Current version: 2.0.5

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new:
   + Enhanced Sales report in Advanced Reports
   + Pre-defined ranges are not available in Magento Reports anymore
   * Calendar.setup error for Sales Report
   * Filtering doesn't work in Opera
   * Filtering doesn't work for "store", "datetime" and "select" column types
   * Sorting for report without data error
   * Standard php "strptime" function is not used anymore
   * Varien_Object() error for Magento v.1.2.0.2

 

Please find the complete list of Advanced Reports features on the extension page.



Automatic Related Products

 

Automatic Related Products is extremely flexible extension which allows you to forget about outdated way of adding related products. Define the rules for products selection and let this software populate the block automatically! You can specify the following fetching options - random, last added or lexically similar products; their location - from the current store or current category only, or restrict in-stock only items to be retrieved. You can even specify a certain price range!

 

Current version: 1.0.2

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new:
   + Ability to specify the price for which will be applied price condition
   * URL rewrite doesn`t work
   * No related products on direct product page
   * Product in several directories

 

If you need more information about this extension, visit the Automatic Related Products page.



Blog

 

If you are you looking to integrate a blog into your Magento-based online store, the Blog extension by aheadWorks is the exact software you are looking for.

 

Current version: 1.0.15

Upgrade: recommended from any previous versions

Upgrade cost: free for all versions

What’s new:
   + Switchable categories ID in blog post URL
   + Switchable menu categories
   * SQL error while retrieving posts for store on frontend fixed
   * Post is accessible from inaccessible store fixed
   * Hardcoded labels
   * Generating sitemaps that don't respect the multi website structure of Magento installation



Promotion of the Month!

 

This month you gain an exceptional opportunity to get for incredibly low price a powerful combination of Advanced Reports & Units attachments and save 30% for a purchase!

 

Everything you should do is to:



    1. Click here to add Advanced Reports and all Units to the shopping cart

 

    1. Enter the following coupon code: MARCHREP30OFF

 

    1. Get a $108.30 discount!



Don’t miss a chance to create the overall picture of your business situation and get a discount in addition! Just imagine – you get a complete set of reports covering all possible aspects of your current activities and pay only $252.70 instead of $361.00! Whenever else you can save $108.30 and get the best reporting partner as not now?

 

Hurry up! The offer expires 30 March 2010!



Please don't forget to visit aheadWorks Forum where you can discuss any topic of interest and find useful information shared by the same aheadWorks extensions' users as you.



That was a brief review of our new Advanced Reports units, user guides, new and updated extensions. We are always happy to get all kinds of feedback. If you need a new feature in our product or some extension - just let us know - it has good chances to be implemented.

 

Thank you for being with us and good luck to your business,

Sincerely yours,

aheadWorks Magento department