[jfilardo]

Did anything ever get resolved or addressed with this glaring oversight in development for 4.1?? I echo exactly what Technicaldata states here and have been waiting, as patiently as possible, for this to be addressed in a future version.

Thanks.

technicaldata wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of people aren't happy with the current "Real Time Shipping" situation in X-Cart and I was wondering if an attempt was going to be made to improve it in the next release? I saw nothing about it in "SHIPPING MANAGEMENT" section of the change doc. Anybody have any info? To be specific, I'm talking about the improvements that CenturyPerf suggested in a previous post:

"1) The X-Cart coding within the UPS, FEDEX, USPS modules needs some minor enhancements to validate dimensions and weights correctly and also a limit needs to be set (max weight and dimensions *Per Box*) on a per shipper basis. See below

2) The database and cart coding in the product section needs to be able to tell UPS (and other shipping agencies) the correct values for each item as listed below:

- 2a) Add (3) data entry boxes for EACH product for "length", "height", and "width" (in inches or centimeters .. "selectable"). (If there is No data entry, dimensions are ignored, otherwise the calculated dimensions are transmitted for real time rates). This would be three new columns in the products table of the database.

- 2b) Add a radio button (or other selection) for EACH product that when active (checked) it tells UPS that this item can only be shipped as a SINGLE box. This would be one new column in the products table of the database.

- 2c) Set a max weight - max dimension rollover point selectable by the admin of the site. This must be set so that if either weight or dimension is exceeded on the ordered items it rolls over and adds another box. I would prefer this to be an editable area with the X-Cart admin area. NOTE: This would be a GLOBAL selection within the "shipping options" section of X-Cart.

- 2d) Upon checkout using "real time" rates X-Cart tells the selected shipping agencies the compiled number of boxes and dimesions/weights of each box to be shipped. This data is then processed and returns the shipping calculation results (for each activated shipping method) to the checkout page.

3) The above items will need to correspond with matching columns in the product table of the database so as to store this data for each product. (length, height, width, single box, in the "xcart_products" table. Plus the added data for rollover dimensions, max weight per carrier, max dimensions "length, height, and width" per carrier possibly in the "xcart_shipping_options" table).

4) When real time rates are selected for your store the cart will now communicate a fairly correct amount of "boxes", "dimensions", and "weights" of each box being shipped as part of the customer's order.

5) We DO NOT need to list the amount of boxes or weights on customer invoice or order information. Our shipping departments' should have the ability to use common sense knows how to ship orders efficiently. This procedure needs only to be transparent to both the customers and vendor.

EXAMPLE:

One item the customer orders is a very large item that must be shipped as an individual item (Box #1). The customer orders other items that will now compile by weight "and" dimension as additional boxes as part of this shipment. This will work very well on wholesale stores that sell in case quantity. You could set a separate "case" part number for particular items if you wish. Once the weight or dimension "max" value is exceeded the cart tells UPS that there is more box(es) as part of the order (Box #2, #3, etc).

Now, with the max dimensions and values (rollover values) are left up to each vendor, you could effectively use this feature to not only be more accurate with your shipping calculations charged to the customer, but you could also come pretty close in matching the sizes to what shipping boxes each company uses. Say that you ship average sized items and your MAX box size is 24" x 16" x 12". You could set that as your max compiled "dimension" size and use default weight values from the shipping carriers as a secondary rollover point. It should be well posted/documented what the max dimensions/weights are for each shipping carrier.

The coding for this is already part of the UPS, USPS, and FEDEX available XML scripts.

For examples see what the above shipping agencies use on their own websites: (http://wwwapps.ups.com/calTimeCost?loc=en_US, http://postcalc.usps.gov/, http://www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home?cc=US&language=en)

The above modification is nothing more than what the above shipping agencies already ask for, either using their online services or offline software. With the size and weight varieties of the products we sell, we MUST have accurate shipping calculations."

Anybody have any ideas or info?