Overview

The shipping rules in Shipping Override are configured via a comma separated (csv) spreadsheet.  The extension comes with many examples for you to use, found in the docs directory. Its recommended you take one of these or the template csv to begin the rule creation.

Deciding your Rules

By now you should know the following:

1. Your shipping zones
2. Shipping Groups (sets of products)
3. The weight, price and quantity filters you wish to change shipping rates based on
4. Customer group conditions if any
5. The shipping method names you wish to display
6. The shipping rates and actions based on the criteria (items, destination) given

Do I wish to restrict shipping based on:

1. Product type
2. Destination
3. Shipping Group Price
4. Shipping Group Weight
5. #Items

How do I want to modify the rates:

1. Surcharge by flat value
2. Surcharge by percentage of shipping price
3. Surcharge by percentage of cart price
4. Replace by flat value
5. Replace by percentage of shipping price
6. Replace by percentage of cart price
7. Remove the rate from list of options

You should also be thinking about how you wish to handle scenarios such as multiple shipping groups in the cart.

Before you write your csv file it’s really important you understand your requirements and what you are going to achieve.

Write your rules in a bulleted one page document and try to break them down to the simplest form.

In ProductMatrix we split the csv file into conditions and actions.  When the conditions are met the actions are undertook.

Once you have all your requirements broken down you can then start building the csv file. We recommend you firstly tackle a simple scenario, and then expand the csv file to meet the more complex needs. Test as you go along, there is no point constructing a large CSV file without testing progressively, we can almost guarantee it just wont work.

If you have a set of business requirements and are struggling to translate these into logical rules that can be implemented in an extension why not let us do it at WebShopApps? We will provide a full configuration for you, and provide details on how the configuration works, so that hopefully you can then modify going forwards. Email us for details or see our support packages at www.webshopapps.com/support.html

The rest of this section looks at configuring your conditions and setting your actions via the csv file.  Bear in mind that any actions specified in the csv spreadsheet are also influenced by the store wide configuration of Shipping Override in System->Configuration->Shipping Settings.

CSV Tips & Tricks

You need to use a template to work your rates into. We recommend using a spreadsheet program such as Open Office or Excel to manipulate the rules.

Some key notes on using CSV files:

• Do not change the order of the columns
• A CSV must be delimited by commas
• If on a Mac using Excel save as Windows file type
• Destinations use ‘best-match’ logic to match the appropriate rule
• Any value left empty should be an asterisk ‘*’ which can mean anything, or anything else (on destinations)
• There are specific formats for entering of countries and states/regions
• The option to upload a CSV is not shown until you modify the configuration scope
• Upload the csv file by changing website scope under the shipping method configuration

If you are having issues with configuring your CSV file please see the CSV Configuration and Troubleshooting Guide to diagnose.

CSV Definition