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Introduction
What is Free-Gift PromoBot Plus?
Free-Gift PromoBot Plus module provides the ability to create 'Buy X, Get Y Free' or 'Buy X, Get Y Or Z Free' promotions that automatically or give options to add discounted/free item(s) to the shopping cart. This means customers do not need to navigate to and add a free item to take advantage of the promotion.
How it Works
Free-Gift PromoBot Plus uses the current Magento Shopping Cart Price Rules, and provides a few additional options under the 'Actions' tab. The module allows an administrator to designate product(s) to be added to the cart for a defined discount, limit the number of free promotional products provided per transaction, and automatically restores the original price to a promotional product if the Shopping Cart rules are altered after a product has been added to the cart, or in case of choosing the free item, it removes the item if the cart no longer meets the conditions.
Pre-requisites
Code/Conflicts
- NO EDITS OR MODIFICATIONS TO MAGENTO CORE (Typically, this includes all code inside the app/code/core folder)
- No conflicting modules (or conflicting custom code) installed (Typically, if installed component/module affects same functionality as PromoBot Plus--shopping-cart-rule related, you should be wary of conflicts)
Magento Version
- Community Edition 1.4
Installation
Before you Install
As with all our modules (and all modules in general), installing this module directly and solely in a live environment is strongly discouraged. It is recommended that it be installed in a development environment, configured, tested, and then deployed to your live environment through your deployment method of choice (i.e. - git, subversion, etc...). If this is not possible, then the next best thing would be to make a FULL backup before installation.
Installing the Basic Application
Navigate to the root of your application. You should see folders like (app, downloader, skin, etc...). If you have not already used Magento Connect or any other Pear package management for your installation, you will need to run the following:
terminal Setting up Pear
If you receive a permission error, run the following:
terminal Pear Permissions
Then (Replace /path/to... with the path to your PromoBot Plus TarBall.):
terminal Pear Install
If you ever need to UN-install PromoBot Plus, you can run:
terminal Pear UN-Install
These Commands Giving You Grief?
Don't give up yet. If you're not a veteran to command line, it can be just a character or two that makes the difference. If you are on a shared host, you might not be allowed to run pear installs (which is lame, but happens). If that's the case, try asking them if they could run them for you (sometimes they're nice that way). If they really are mean (or just not setup that way), then you might have to do a manual install. However, your best bet is to save it for the last option. It's definitely easier to run one command than try to copy files manually.
General Usage
Once installation is complete, login to your Admin Panel > Promotion Tab > Shopping Cart Price Rules. Click 'Add New Rule,' and fill in general information for your new rule, just as you would for other Shopping Cart Price Rules.
Next, under the Conditions tab, set conditions which identify the product(s) upon which your free item(s) will be based. Choose 'Products Subselection' from the various options. The following will appear:
Set a quantity required to trigger the promotion by adjusting various links in the condition. In this case, we will create a 'buy one, get one free' promotion. Click 'is' and select 'equals or greater than,' then click '...' and enter a value of 1. Your condition should appear as follows:
Next, designate the SKU of an item that will trigger the promotion. Click the green '+' button and select 'SKU' from the drop-down. Then click the '...' link, and enter the SKU, or click the blue button for a list of product SKUs. Once a SKU is entered or selected, your screen appear as follows:
Now, set the rules and select the free promotional item(s) in the 'Actions' tab. Free-Gift PromoBot Plus includes two new options to apply:
- Buy item X get Y(s) (Auto add to cart)
- Buy item X get item Y or Z (Customer Select) This option is if you want your customers to choose between items that they would like to receive. So your promotion could be: buy a t-shirt and get YellowBracelet or GreenBelt for free. And your customer will be presented with a window with option in their cart of what item they would like. These promotional items price depend on the products price.
Feature Specifics
As can with any product, some things don't always function as you think they might. We want to avoid this by being upfront as possible and avoid confusion on what customer select can and can't do (assuming you read this guide before purchasing, which is always a good idea): PromoBot Plus CAN currently: 1. Auto-prompt customers to select a configurable item to add to their cart for free 2. Auto-prompt customers to select a configurable item to add to their cart for the actual price of the product 3. Automatically add items to cart using the Promobot feature-set. PromoBot Plus CANNOT currently: 1. Auto-prompt customers to select a configurable item to add to their cart that has more than one configurable option (size, color, etc...) 2. Auto-prompt customers to select a configurable item to add to their cart for a varying percentage off the real price of the product (like PromoBot standard does - IE. 1-100% off price). However, we do suggest managing price in the product itself as an alternative method of discount. You can even add a product that isn't "viewable" elsewhere in your store. If you'd like us to add any of the "cannots" as features. Please let us know. We listen!
Promobot Plus (customer select) rules will have this interface on the "Action" tab of your rule:
Select the "(Customer Select) Action" and then proceed to the final part of the rule setup--adding the product(s).
To do so, select the product(s) to be added for free. In the bottom portion in the 'Actions' tab, click the green '+' button and select SKU from the drop-down. Click the '...' link for a SKU input box, and enter the desired SKU(s). Save your new settings and test on the front end. If you are either giving away multiple items or having the customer choose their item, this list can be a comma separated list of either simple or configurable. Configurable items should not have more than one custom option (shirt size, shoe size, etc), and only apply to the customer choosing their product.
Configuring Your Modal (Customer Select)
One last little detail before testing your promotion. You'll need to configure the title and sub-title of your modal to display whatever text you'd like to prompt your customers with. In our example, we used the text "Pick Your Item".
To configure this, you'll need to navigate to:
System->Config->Sales(Sales)->Promotions
Testing The Promotion
Buy item X get Y(s) (Auto add to cart)
Buy item X get item Y or Z (Customer Select)
Add qualifying conditions and navigate to your cart. You will be presented with a window like the following:
You then choose then item you would like and it will be added to your cart. If cart qualifications are no longer met, it will remove the promotional item from your cart.
There you go! You've now successfully added a promotion that will automatically prompt your customer to choose a promotional item.