Shipping Director

After you download the zip file, and before you unzip it, be sure to "Unblock" it (right click the file, choose Properties, and then click the Unblock button).

For nopCommerce 4.00 and up, you can use the "Upload plugin or theme" button in the Administration > Local Plugins page.  Or if you want to manually unpack the file and upload it, after you unzip the downloaded file, put only the Shipping.Director folder in your \Plugins folder.  

Then, restart your web application.  Go to administration > Configuration > Plugins > Local Plugins, and on the line with Shipping rate computation / Shipping Director, click the Install link.
(If you are upgrading, then rather than 'click the Install link', just click "Reload list of Plugins")

Now, in nopCommerce administration, Configuration > Shipping > Shipping Rate Computation Methods, you will see Shipping Director. 

When using Shipping Director, it should be the only "Is Active" method.  Click its Edit button, and check its Is Active checkbox; then click its Update button.   Be sure to uncheck Is Active for all the other methods.  If you need to call the other methods from Shipping Director, you can still configure them with their Configure link, but be sure that the only active method is Shipping Director.

Click Shipping Director's Configure link to configure Shipping Director.

In the Shipping Director configuration page, click the Import button to import the included 'ShippingDirector (Hello World).txt' file.  Then, go to the public store, add an item to the cart, and then processed through checkout to see the result.  (Or, you can use Estimate Shipping from the cart page.) 

For more detailed installation instructions and troubleshooting information, see the Shipping Director Plugin Installation.pdf at  http://www.noptools.com/Content/files/Shipping%20Director%20Plugin%20Installation%202017.pdf

If you see the message "Sorry, we are unable to calculate your shipping. Please contact the store.", then look in the Admin > System > Log for more details.

For additional debugging information, add the $Debug variable to the rules - e.g. 
0	(active)	$Debug		true

It's easiest to test your shipping rules by using the "Test" button on the configuration page.



At this time, there is no formal user manual.  Refer to the blogs at www.nopTools.com for more information.  You can contact us at support@noptools.com .  If you need help in setting up a shipping scenario, be sure to provide us with a few examples of "what's in the cart", and the expected shipping rate (and why).   

When setting up a complex set of shipping rules, be sure to consider what rate to calculate when there are multiple items in the cart each having their own specific rules and/or combination-specific rule.


Without a License.txt file, Shipping Director runs in evaluation (trial) mode.  In evaluation mode, you can calculate 5 rates in th epublic store, and then it will present a warning message.

When you are satisfied with Shipping Director and wish to purchase a license, note the URL (or Domain) next to the Version information on the configuration page - e.g.  Version 1.40 (Evaluation. Domain=mydomain.com; URL=www.mydomain.com) .  Be sure to copy the URL [Domain] exactly as it is presented; you will need this when you purchase online at www.noptools.com.  If you are using the multiple store option in NopCommerce, then you need to purchase a license for each store (URL).   (Each license file generated is named License.txt;  be sure to name them uniquely when putting them in the plugin folder; the file name must be prefixed with "License" - e.g. License_store1.txt, License_store2.txt, etc.)

To uninstall, after clicking the Uninstall link in the plugin configuration page, be sure to also remove the Shipping.Director folder from your \Plugins folder and restart your web application.




NOTES!!  

In nopCommerce 3.20, a "Use Warehouse Location" setting was added to the Configuration > Settings > Shipping Settings.  If you have set warehouses on your products, this setting will cause nopCommerce to call the active shipping rate calculation method(s) once for each warehouse (with only the products that originate from that warehouse).  Depending on your Shipping Director configuration, this may not be desirable.  Shipping Director has included its own "Use Warehouse Location" setting which may be more appropriate or not depending on if you need to do Packing.  Check the blogs for more info.  If you have a complex shipping scenario, feel free to contact us at support@noptools.com

In nopCommerce 3.50, they introduced a Product field called "Ship Separately".  You must be careful if you use this field, because it will cause the core shipping to call Shipping Director multiple times. The "Items" evaluated by Shipping Director would not be the entire cart, but only the items for a specific request (which in the case of Ship Separately would be only a single item). Please contact our support if you need to get rates where you ship items separately, as Shipping Director's Packing would be needed.   (Similarly, Warehouses added in earlier nopCommerce introduced a Shipping Setting "Use Warehouse Location"; this could also cause multiple calls to Shipping Director.) 


In nopCommerce 3.90, they introduced ACL for roles (as per the release notes "Allow a store owner to manage access to plugins per customer role (ACL)"). So it can block SD, or block one of the other shipping provider plugins that SD is calling in an Option.  If you (your customers) are not getting the expected shipping methods, then be sure to check that you have not blocked them for the role.

In nopCommerce 3.90, they also combined shipping provider plugins FixedRate and ByWeight into a single "FixedOrByWeight".
When shipping rates are calculated, Shipping Director will throw an error if it sees either FixedRate or ByWeight in the configuration
Please check your configuration and make adjustments as needed.  In the Shipping.Director configuration, you should Edit the records to update Shipping.ByWeight to Shipping.FixedOrByWeight.  Similarly if you are using Shipping.FixedRate.  However, you can't now use both.  In general, you should be able to configure fixed rates right in the Shipping Director configuration. Contact us if you need help converting the Fixed Rates from the plugin into a Shipping Director configuration. (Export your configuration and send it to us). Also, if you were previously using Shipping.ByWeight and have adjusted it to Shipping.FixedOrByWeight, you should go to the configuration for the Shipping.FixedOrByWeight plugin and select "By Weight" (button in upper left of page).  Alternately, you can go to All Settings:  fixedorbyweightsettings.shippingbyweightenabled  - defaults to False, meaning use Fixed Rate, so change to True.





Thanks
