Getting Started
Customer Design Checklist We recommend getting the following information from the customer before beginning the project. ****** Goals of the site ****** -What is the objective of the site? -Who is the audience? -What is the primary message you're trying to convey to customers and how? -How will the site support (or integrate with) your business mission statement? -How do you primarily want visitors to contact you? contact form, call, email? -What marketing strategy will you use to promote the site? ****** Site Design ****** -What is the 'mood' of the site (fun, classy, business-like, etc.)? -Are there primary colors you want to use (or specifically don't want to use)? -What images/graphics, other than your product images need to be included? -What elements/products/services do you want to emphasize on the home page? -What parts of the site, other than the shopping cart, will need regular updating (newsletters, articles, announcements, specials)? ****** Other Questions ****** -Will credit cards be accepted online? If so, do you have a merchant account? -Will there be order forms, special forms, a tour, a shopping cart? - Will you need quantity prices breaks or options related to individual products that affect the price? -Will there be multimedia, mouse-overs, animated graphics? -What is the best way for us to keep in contact? -What is the time frame for completion? ****** Site Content List ****** We would like to get the following items from you once we start the site. You can keep this list for future reference: Your official contact information that will appear on the site Product images Product/pricing information (We can help you set up a spread sheet) Any printed marketing materials/catalogs/logos that you currently use to advertise your business. Text describing your company (if it is not included in the marketing materials) Purchase policies, returns, etc. Shipping rates and shipping policies
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Going Live
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Introduction Welcome to MightyMerchant. As a designer you need to keep several balls in the air while you develop a website: - Creating a great-looking visual design - Understanding the customer's business and implementing a website that will meet the customers' needs. - Knowing the tools that you have to work with in the MightyMerchant system so you can produce the results you are striving for. In order to get started designing sites with MightyMerchant we are assuming you already have experience creating websites. You should have knowledge of basic design principles, ability to code html, and an understanding of how the basic functionality of websites (like links, image references, and forms) are constructed. With that grounding you are set to go to the next level of building dynamic, database-driven, full-featured websites with MightyMerchant. The key concept to understand when working with MightyMerchant is this: Each MightyMerchant website has three main components that all work together to produce the page that the site visitors sees each time they click a link on your site. 1. The data, or information, that makes up the site. This can be the text that goes on your web pages, or the product and pricing information, or the order information that is stored after each order is placed on the site. 2. The template files that you, as the designer, create in order to control the look and presentation of the data that is stored in the database. 3. The MightyMerchant software, which runs on the server and when every page request is made on the webserver it starts working its magic and combining the templates along with the data stored in the database in order to generate the finished web pages that the site visitor will see. Your main task as a designer using the MightyMerchant system is to understand how to use MightyMerchant templating system, special tags, and urls in connection with the data in the site database to generate web pages. Once you get the hang of a few simple concepts, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.
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New Feature List
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Organizing Your Site Before you begin creating a MightyMerchant site, there are a number of questions you should ask yourself. Finding the answers to these questions will give you a better idea of which direction you should start out in and what you need to keep in mind during the entire development process. Ask yourself these questions before starting on the site: 1. Which pages/sections are going to be database-driven and which will include the content inside of html files? Simply put, if all of the page information can be entered by using the Site Manager, the page can be purely database driven. We call these pages Dynamic pages. It is likely that most of the pages on the site will be Dynamic pages. This includes product and category pages as well as pages of FAQs, testimonials, and links. In some cases, you will not be able to enter all of the page data by using the Site Manager or will decide against doing so. The likely reasons would be that thep page contains forms, scripting, extensive HTML, or any other data that is difficult to manage inside the constraints of a web browser. In these cases, you will typically use what we call Hybrid pages. A Hybrid page uses the main template for the site but the content that is merged with the main template is usually straight html and does not involve other templates from the templating system. The name of the file needs to be followed by an underscore and the name of the template you want the page to use. Example: index_main.html. Static pages are just conventional HTML files. Your site can always include static pages and there might be some oddball situations where you want pages on your site that are completely independent of the templating system. 2. How many different template sets are you going to need? The number of template sets needed will vary from site to site. Very simple websites might only need to use the main template or might not need to use any custom templates at all. Large and/or complicated sites could use one or more main templates as well as a range of custom template sets. MightMerchant allows you to do quite a bit of customization on your site, and the more customization you do, the more template sets you will likely use. We suggest that you get familiar with the MightyMerchant template setup and determine how the pages of the website will fit in to this setup. It is to your advantage to minimize the use of extra template sets, but the flexibility is there to use as many as you need. 3. What kind of navigation are you going to use? It is very important to plan out how site visitors are going to get from one page to the next. Whether you are using MightyMerchant or not, good navigation is a key to a successful site. Besides using simple individual text links, you can also set up next and previous buttons, drop-down menus, pop-up windows, lists of links, and you are here navigation. MightyMerchant has many built in widgets that ease the process of setting up navigation and tie your navigational links into the structure of the database. You can use the MightyMerchant variables and insert lists to set up a range of navigational elements on your sites. You will need to figure out which of these options will be the most appropriate for any given page. For example, drop-down menus or lists of links are often used on the Main Template so that the shopper can get to the main sections of the site at any time. Next/Previous buttons are often used for cycling through products or categories. 4. How many categories and subcategories will the site have? And, how much is this number likely to change over time? The primary reason for finding the answer to this question has to do with website usability. Usability has to do with how easy it is for the shopper to use the site to find what they are looking for. Too many categories could make the shopping experience very tedious and confusing. The shopper would have to go through several levels, each time having to make a decision about whether the product they are looking for would be in this category. This could very easily discourage the shopper. Too few categories could be equally tedious and confusing. This might force the shopper to have to look through several pages of unrelated products before finding what they want. This could be equally discouraging to the shopper. You will have to determine what the ideal number of categories and subcategories are based on the type and number of products the merchant is selling. The frequency that the number of categories and subcategories changes also relates with usability. Shoppers who come back to a site will want to see a similar category structure as they did when they first used the site. If the number of categories and subcategories is going to change frequently, you will at least want to have a main category structure of several levels that will remain consistent, even when the actual products are changing. 5. What dynamic sections will be required on the home page? The dynamic content on the home page will need to be connected to categories in your Site Manager. So if you have a section on the home page, for announcements, random images, testimonials, or promotional text, you will want to set up categories in the Site Manager so the site owner can easily manage the content. Once you have answered these questions and have considered the organizational structure of the site, you can start setting up your categories and templates.
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Requesting the Site Communicate with MightyMerchant tech support personnel to make sure they have the necessary information to set up the site. The new site request form is at datahost.com/clientzone/dp_newsite_main.html Please provide this information: Customer billing information (if MightyMerchant will be billing them for hosting) Domain name Date needed for the setup Type of Site Email addresses needed Will we need a temporary domain name? Special features needed beyond a basic site. (Note: certain features like accounts, gift certificates, and groups require that the correct module is added to the config.php file.)
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Site Creation List Here is a comprehensive list of the steps involved with putting a site together with MightyMerchant. Building the siteUnderstand the objective of the site/review the job spec and sales correspondence. Using the customer checklist, develop an initial email to send to the customer and start a list of all the items you will need and questions you will need to have answered to complete the site. Send initial correspondence and questions to MM Point Person. MM Point Person will correspond with the customer. Based on feedback, create the mockup. Send mockup to MM for approval. Create initial category structure in the Site Manager. If the customer is entering data in a spreadsheet, review an initial subset of the data to make sure it will work correctly. Set up Site Manager and shipping settings as best you can. Add sample products and categories. Once the mockup is approved, create html for the home page (if different from the main template) and create the main template. Develop stylesheets. If the data has not already been imported or entered by the customer, enter some dummy data. Initiate communication with the programmer to develop any special features or javascript. Develop the product_list/category_list pages. Develop the product_detail pages. Develop other content areas/separate template sets. Develop the view cart/checkout/https://mimosa.secure-datahost.com/support.mightymerchant/home/mm4/confirmorder/emails. Place initial test orders. Format all the content and incorporate images as they are delivered by the customer or work with the customer to enter that data. Before Going LivePayment Processing Are payment methods set up? If using only one, non-credit card payment, remove the hidden required tag on the confirm order page (at least for now). Must be added back in if additional methods are added. If using authorizenet, is the transaction key set? If using checks or money orders, is there an address entered where these should be sent? If auto-payment processing, make sure it is set to live mode and place test order. PGP Encryption Is the secure email set up? Is the secure email address listed in the Secure Orders to field? Is the Secure Orders link added in the config file? $admin_links[0] = array('Secure Orders', 'https://bonsai.secure-datahost.com/secure-mail/src/login.php'); Get user name and password from Mike and send to client (test log in first). Emails Give a list of emails that need to be set up to Mike, including forwarding info and username/passwords as appropriate. Review Statement of Work Are all sections set up? Anything extra? Cost? SEO At minimum, do basic SEO at main category level. Make sure default SEO fields and page title in 'settings' make sense. Site Settings and Shipping Are site settings filled out appropriately? (Remove any default instructions.) Are listed email address valid (or will be)? Is shipping set up? If shipping is based on weight, are product weights entered? If customer is not using Order Manager, remove the modules links for 'orders' and 'lists'. Forms Testing Are the emails going through? Are thank-you pages coming up correctly and is the text appropriate? Testing Order Process Is shipping calculating correctly on the site? Are error messages showing if required fields are not filled in? If auto-payment processing is set up and you put in a bogus cc number (not the 111120001), Is the error message coming up? Are emails going through? Miscellaneous Spelling/grammar correct? Test site work in multiple browsers, platforms. All sites should have: copyright notice, site by Datahost link (as appropriate), MightyMerchant link, privacy policy, terms of use Do we have the information from customer to make DNS switch (if domain is not in our account)? If the site has a search feature, is the results page working? Remove the default blurb text from Links and Testimonials category pages. Is sales tax set? Site Manager Are labels set appropriately for any new categories? Hide any confusing fields in the Store Labels (like store_custom1 and global blurbs if they're not being used). Provide written site-specific Site Manager instructions. Do Site Manager training when appropriate (possibly after site goes live and first changes need to be done Request Site Review from Customer Let Jeanie know a few days before going live so she can send a final bill. Email customer to do a review of the entire site and to report any changes needed. Let customer know the site will go live AFTER they give final approval and final payment is received. Going Live Coordinate with Mike and Jeanie on DNS switch. Ask Mike to check for any .datahost instances in database and templates. Ask Mike to set up Urchin and send login info to customer. Remove style helps from the style sheet. After the Site Goes LiveSet up urchin stats (Tech Support) Set up Error redirections (Tech Support) Test order process. Make sure customer receives order confirmations. If the site is using a payment gateway, place an order with a bogus credit card number and make sure you are getting the proper error code. If you have access to the gateway, you can place an order with a valid number and confirm that it is going through correctly and then void the charge. Test all forms, including the mailing list submission. Make sure emails are going through. Test all emails. Email customer to test orders and all forms. Tell customer to send support requests to webhelp. If auto-payment processing, have them verify the orders are going through to gateway. If the site has Gift Certificates, make sure that all links are using a secure url and the gift certificates are going through correctly. Once the site gets a few orders, look in the order manager and evaluate for these conditions: Are the payments going through correctly or are there a lot of orders showing trouble with processing Do the shipping totals seem to add up. Add site to Datahost and MightyMerchant sites in the Portfolio/Gallery sections, on sites_main.html (mm) and hostedsites_main.html (DH) Add site to Datahost and MightyMerchant sites in the Portfolio/Gallery sections, on sites_main.html (mm) and hostedsites_main.html (DH)
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Suggested Workflow MightyMerchant allows you quite a bit of flexibility in how you do your website production. We offer you the following steps as a suggestion; you are welcome to work in the manner you find most efficient. The Site Creation List provides a comprehensive list of the steps involved in completing a website with MightyMerchant. 1. Develop an outline of the site and consider what custom sections/template sets you will need to use. 2. Create a mockup for the customer. 3. Put in basic shop settings for the customer. Fill in as much of the information as possible. Add at least a few categories and products. Enter a default shipping method. You should now have enough information entered in the database to start working on your templates. 4. Adjust the settings in the config.php file as necessary. 5. If you will need to create custom templates, copy the appropriate templates and files from /datahostshop/shop_templates/ into the site directory and modify them as necessary. 6. Once you get customer approval of your design, create your main_template.html. 7. Build your web pages and adjust any templates, as necessary. 8. Adjust the styles in stylesheet.css. 9. Enter the customer data or instruct the customer how to do so. 10. Adjust the Site Manager labels to match the needs of the site and the categories. Ideally you will only display the fields in each category that are necessary for the customer to edit and the labels for each field will properly describe the data the customer should be entering. 11. Work with the customer to test all features on the site. 12. Make the site live and celebrate!
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The Site Configuration file
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What's in Your Directory The MightyMerchant system includes the following files and directories. You add as many files and subdirectories as you wish, but you do not want to delete or rename any of these files or directories. config.php - the main configuration file for the site. home - a small script that filters the pages through the MightyMerchant script. myadmin.php - the access script for the Site Manager shop directory - contains the templates and other adminstratives files related to the site. shop/tpl directory - contains the templates for the site. images directory - typically contains the main images for the site that are used for the visual design. shop/images directory - contains all the images that are loaded by the designer or customer through the site manager.
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