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OrderFlow Magento Integration Guide

Realtime Despatch Software Ltd

Document Version: 4.0.6

Document Built: 2020-10-12

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Support Arrangements

Support Arrangements

The OrderFlow Magento extension is designed to be easy to install and configure.

However, Magento is a complex environment, and each installation typically includes a number of other third party modules that need to work alongside the OrderFlow extension and may interact with it. Merchants manage their Magento installations either through the use of an in house support and development team, or by contracting a Magento Agency.

In these kinds of environments, additional support effort is often required to install and configure the module to work successfully.

This chapter explains the support arrangements available for the OrderFlow Magento module.

Key Parties

For the avoidance of confusion, it is worth pointing out who may be involved, and what their responsibilities are likely to be in the process of installing, configuring and supporting the OrderFlow extension.

The Merchant

The Merchant is the 'owner' of the overall process. Typically, the Merchant is also a Realtime Despatch customer.

Extension Developer

The Extension Developer is SixBySix , also a Magento Developer. They do not have any direct responsiblity for administering the Merchant's environment.

Their efforts may be required to support specific issues relating to the functioning of the module, to develop additional module features, etc.

Any chargeable work incurred by the Extension Developer is covered by Realtime Despatch. In some cases, depending on the issue concerned, the costs incurred are passed on to the Realtime Despatch customer (normally, the Merchant).

If any conflict occurs between the OrderFlow extension and any other third party extension, the Extension Developer may be brought in on a chargeable basis to address this.

Note that if the Extension Developer is required to provide rapid response support for the module to coincide with a new launch, then advance notice will need to be given for this in order to ensure their availability.

The Extension Developer should typically not have direct access to the live Magento server. They will however require direct access to the test Magento server (including SSH access) to perform support tasks.

Primary Magento Agency

The Primary Magento Agency is responsible maintaining the Merchant's Magento environment, administering their live and test servers, etc, and for developing custom Magento features for the Merchant.

The Primary Magento Agency will be responsible for all deployments, including those to both test and live environments.

The Primary Magento Agency will be responsible for maintaining a test environment that closely represents the features present in the live environment. If necessary, the Primary Magento Agency may be asked to replicate the aspects of the live environment in test, in order to reproduce live issues and to allow the Extension Developer to access to a technical environment in which these issues can be debugged.

Support Process

All support for the module is coordinated through the Realtime Despatch ticketing system. For each Realtime Despatch customer, a Magento module-specific project will be set up, to which each of the above-named parties will have access.

Realtime Despatch plays a coordination role in this process, providing the following services:

  • leading the initial induction process to ensure that the module is installed correctly
  • ensuring that the relevant parties have access to the shared Merchant-specific project on the Realtime Despatch support ticketing system
  • ensuring that the necessary system access is available to the relevant parties
  • if an issue has been raised, doing the the initial triage to verify that the issue is valid, and to identify a possible cause
  • if additional chargeable work is likely to be incurred, or if further investigation is required by the Extension Developer, to arrange for this to happen

Realtime Despatch will charge for support work undertaken on the same basis as support work for OrderFlow itself. Typically, this means that work is chargeable unless it is the result of a bug which has not been introduced by a specific change made to the Magento environment by the Merchant or the Primary Magento Agency.

Note that neither Realtime Despatch nor the Extension Developer (SixBySix) will take any responsibility for configuring or maintaining any Magento environment, or for deploying changes to this environment, apart from configuration changes made through the Magento Administration Console.

Required Access

The table below indicates the level of access that will be required to support the Magento module.

Access Required Primary Agency Realtime Despatch Extension Developer
Test Admin Panel Yes Yes Yes
Test SSH Yes Yes Yes
Test Database Yes Yes Yes
Live Admin Panel Yes No No
Live SSH Yes No No
Live Database Yes No No

Note that where access to the live system is required for either Realtime Despatch or the Extension Developer, this will need to take place via a TeamViewer session with the help of the Primary Agency, arranged between the parties concerned.

Induction Process

Merchants using the OrderFlow Magento extension will be required to go through an induction process.

The purpose of an induction process is to ensure that problems that might arise with the extension can be dealt with in a cost effective and timely manner.

Having an induction process helps to ensure that the Merchant's and Primary Magento Agency's first experience of using the module is a positive one.

The induction process will involve the following:

  • clarification on who the main parties are as described in the previous section.
  • ensuring that system access as described above is already available.
  • clarification the support process, and ensure that all parties are aware of their responsibilities.
  • help in verifying the installation of the module in the test environment, with the assistance of this documents.
  • any further training in the use of the Magento extension.

A recommended first step for any Magento agency that is new to the module is to install the module on a clean Magento environment before attempting to install the module in the customer's test environment.

An example of how this can be done is covered in the Clean Magento Install section.

Customisation

The Primary Magento Agency should be able to take care of any additional advanced configuration that is required to customise data mappings for products and orders exported from Magento to OrderFlow. Additional support of this effort can be provided, if required, by the Extension Developer.