New customer management UI

[pippinsplugins]

With the introduction of the new customer API in #2256, we need to now look at dramatically improving our customer management UI.

A few things I can think of that we need:

1. a better list table for customers that is not buried in the Reports page
2. a new Customer Details screen
3. a visible link between the View Order Details screen and the Customer Details screen
4. the ability to more easily change the customer a purchase belongs to
5. reporting on customers

[pippinsplugins]

@cklosowski @sumobi I'd love both of your thoughts on this. Anything and everything you've got.

[amdrew]

Absolutely, do you see #1 as a top level section similar to downloads/payment history?

What kind of reporting do we need in additional to what's already available from reports -> customers?

For #4 WooCommerce seems to have a select field to choose a customer and it also allows searching. This seems like the most logical way to assign the order to a new customer.

[pippinsplugins]

1. That was my initial thought, though I'm not really loving how many menu items we're getting. It's awful crowded.
2. Yep! We can make a new HTML Element for customer_dropdown()

[spencerfinnell]

I like the WooCommerce split of menu items related to actual downloads/products and the other menu items related to store administration.

Without putting it as a submenu item in the menu I can't think of a place that wouldn't be as hidden as it is now. But that makes 11 submenu items under one.

[pippinsplugins]

I'm not opposed to having two top level menu items. What about:

Store

• Payment History
• Discount Codes
• Reports
• Settings
• Tools
• Add Ons

Downloads

• Add New
• Categories
• Tags

[chriscct7]

That would work for me, but what it would mean is extensions who've added submenu pages under download, and those items really would be for store administration, like for example the one in Discounts Pro, would appear under "downloads" when they should be under "store"

[pippinsplugins]

@chriscct7 That's kind of annoying but may need to be a necessary evil. The good news is that the menu items would still be where users are used to them being: under Downloads.

[chriscct7]

Yep that's true. Just wanted to point that out, so there's a record that this is the cause of it appearing under the wrong place for developers if we move forward and they miss our announcement on the topic, and then search github for answers

[pippinsplugins]

:+1:

[spencerfinnell]

Store was just what I was thinking as well. And I don't think having a misplaced link for a version is horrible either; it was the same when the Extensions tab was introduced and settings were in two places for a little while as well.

[pippinsplugins]

Nothing breaks, just a few items aren't 100% logically organized for a bit. :+1:

[chriscct7]

Right

[amdrew]

That works and feels like a nice split. So Customers would be included under Store right?

[pippinsplugins]

Yes

On Tuesday, September 16, 2014, Andrew Munro notifications@github.com wrote:

That works and feels like a nice split. So Customers would be included under Store right?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/easydigitaldownloads/Easy-Digital-Downloads/issues/2548#issuecomment-55844299 .

[cklosowski]

Agree. 2 menus seem to be the best course of action. We're getting a bit cluttered on one. Also could allow better role access to things.

Will think about this some more

[cklosowski]

@pippinsplugins @sumobi We need to be careful with the customer dropdown. I know for a fact, getting a list of users to put there, at about 100k users will bomb out. We will need to look at using the ajax that you see in the Core Network add user approach.

[amdrew]

@cklosowski good point

[pippinsplugins]

My plan to make it an ajax-search drop down, similar to the product drop down.

[pippinsplugins]

Notes from meeting:

• Use transaction / customer view from iThemes Exchange as base.
• Way to store customer notes
• Auto add note when customer is banned
• Auto add note when customer IP is banned
• Show payments belonging to customer
• Allow customer to be edited

[pippinsplugins]

Let's flesh out the main customer management UI before we touch the View Order Details.

[cklosowski]

How is this looking for a 'view/edit' format. Currently it's just a view, no edit just yet. Thoughts?

....look below for updated view.

[pippinsplugins]

This is looking great!

[chriscct7]

Do we want to have per-user reporting, like graphs + exports?

[pippinsplugins]

Not for the first iteration.

On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 3:48 PM, Chris Christoff notifications@github.com wrote:

Do we want to have per-user reporting, like graphs + exports?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/easydigitaldownloads/Easy-Digital-Downloads/issues/2548#issuecomment-70168539 .

[cklosowski]

What elements of a customer should be allowed to be edited? And also, if there is a user tied to a customer, should editing the user edit the customer as well (name, email)?

[cklosowski]

Here's the concept I have for the customer notes:

[cklosowski]

[pippinsplugins]

To be editable:

Email Name Known ip addresses (maybe) Connected user ID Stored billing address

I'd vote that changing name / email also changes it on the connected user account.

On Thursday, January 15, 2015, Chris Klosowski notifications@github.com wrote:

[image: image] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1390124/5770656/a4097d60-9cfb-11e4-91a5-7db11eedd08b.png

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/easydigitaldownloads/Easy-Digital-Downloads/issues/2548#issuecomment-70198599 .

[cklosowski]

Sounds good. I'll start the editing tomorrow.

What do you think of a custom post type for the customer notes.

[pippinsplugins]

No custom post type. If they go in a default WP table, they should be in comments or user meta.

On Thursday, January 15, 2015, Chris Klosowski notifications@github.com wrote:

Sounds good. I'll start the editing tomorrow.

What do you think of a custom post type for the customer notes.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/easydigitaldownloads/Easy-Digital-Downloads/issues/2548#issuecomment-70200437 .

[cklosowski]

Ok. I'm can live with those options. Will probably use comments.

[cklosowski]

Ok Just pushed some changes that I think should be reviewed. Note that this DOES NOT include EDITING a customer just yet. Want to get the interface down first: Viewing and searching for customers:

Viewing a single customer:

Viewing the customer notes (via the tabs on the right of the 'Customer Card'):

• note the timestamps got messed up a bit when I changed my site Timezone...oops. Nothing to do with EDD or this commit.

Some notes, customer notes are a custom comment type with a restricted view. I envision the 'edit' will be enabled by clicking on the 'Pencil' icon next to the name, and all editable attributes will be converted to inputs.

I'd love some UI/UX feedback from everyone before we go too much further.

[SeanTOSCD]

I definitely like the direction here. Menu link, customer table, and structure/layout for each customer page is great. My initial feedback would all be style related.

• I'd style the subtle details more like WP core dashboard widgets. Maybe not the shape and layout of them but the fine details.
• Definitely needs to be responsive to a degree.

I can help with the front-end stuff for sure. I like the initial direction, though. Super excited to see this completed.

[pippinsplugins]

This is looking great. Here's a few more thoughts on top of what @sdavis2702 said:

• Notes should be stored via ajax with non-ajax fallback (just like payment notes)
• Let's link Purchases # to a filtered Payment History page and do away with the View All Payments button, or link the two together somehow.
• Instead of &view=view for the main details page, let's call it overview, so it'd be &view=overview.
• To better match WP, let's make the icons for lifetime value and total purchases gray, like the dashboard icons: https://cloudup.com/cO5w3xIPesk
• The payments list table should match standard WP list tables, such as Users: https://cloudup.com/cxAZ0BNZ8H0 - It may look a bit funny on the white so we may need to tweak it a bit.

[cklosowski]

@sdavis2702 Agree on both sides there.

@pippinsplugins

• Yes on the ajax. Wanted to finalize the view before I started too much JS
• View Details links to the detail page for that payment. The View all payments only shows when it's more than 10.
• Agree on the &view=view thing. Legacy thing left from making the notes view
• Agree on icons.
• I'm not sure I agree there. Seems overkill to kick up an entire list table class for 10 items, and it's style is REALLY bloated for the smaller area.

[pippinsplugins]

Let's link Purchases # to a filtered Payment History page and do away with the View All Payments button, or link the two together somehow.

I was referring to the one that shows next to lifetime value. That is begging to be a link :)

I'm not sure I agree there. Seems overkill to kick up an entire list table class for 10 items, and it's style is REALLY bloated for the smaller area.

It does seem overkill. How about just bringing the styling a bit closer?

[cklosowski]

I was referring to the one that shows next to lifetime value. That is begging to be a link :)

Ah, yes that makes sense

It does seem overkill. How about just bringing the styling a bit closer?

Can do.

[cklosowski]

Here's some updates. More like core, and most of the changes above are done. Still needed are ajaxing in comments, and responsive, and the edit view:

[evertiro]

That, sir, is beautiful

[chriscct7]

@cklosowski I like that alot. Can we let extensions register custom tabs?

[pippinsplugins]

Yes, extensions will be able to register tabs.

[cklosowski]

@chriscct7 yes, custom tabs and views can be registered.

In fact, core uses the filters in order to register those two tabs and views.

[JustinSainton]

i just wanted to stop by and say i love all of you dearly and this looks amazing and the chances of us stealing, i mean, becoming very inspired by it for WP eCommerce are very high and oh my gosh I love you all.

[pippinsplugins]

:)

[evertiro]

And that's how you know you're doing something right.

[chriscct7]

lol @JustinSainton :-)

[cklosowski]

@pippinsplugins Would you object to the introduction of an EDD_Customer class? It would make dealing with individual customers a much cleaner experience and I think could really benefit future development.

[evertiro]

:+1: from me

[pippinsplugins]

Definitely not opposed.

On Tuesday, January 27, 2015, Ghost1227 notifications@github.com wrote:

[image: :+1:] from me

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/easydigitaldownloads/Easy-Digital-Downloads/issues/2548#issuecomment-71766528 .

[cklosowski]

Ok, that's 2 votes for...going to build one in for this. It will allow easy access to info for the customer as well as easy access to stats, queries, etc.

Will also include a way to update the customer information. It will use parts of the EDD_DB_Customers class as that's more of a database abstraction class...not an actual Customer object.