If you're familiar with creating a gift certificate (Inventory / Gift Certificates), then I have a basic puzzler. All you need to do is enter an Amount in the Amount box and click on Create -- couldn't be easier, right? Well, it then creates the GC in the form of a Gift Certificate Code. If you look at the help section for Gift Certificates, it says the codes are shown in the order created, so presumably the one you just created is at the end. This is not correct!!! I spoke to tech support and they confirm that it does not work. I asked how you then identify, for purposes of copying and pasting to something so you can give the code to someone, the GC you just created. He actually said "I don't know".

This defies logic. Let's say you have pages of Gift Certificates set up, many with, say, $20. You then go to add a new $20 Gift Certificate. It could end up anywhere on the list, ordered only by the sort of Gift Certificate Code, but these codes are created in a random order, not in an ascending order. So how do you even use the Gift Certificate creation capability? Does anybody know? Is this broken and unusable?

If you can give me a straighter answer than tech support, I will be forever in your debt. Thank you.

Jeff

Jeff,

I see what you say. My approach would be:

Create the CG and yes, it will be given a random number. However hit EDIT right after that and there is a NOTES field that you can use. I know this does not answer your question but that is a very useful field if you want to attach notes to a particular GC.

Now, lets say you have 30 CG created, if you click on the Header "GIFT CERTIFICATE CODE" , they will be sorted out in ascendent order (alphanum).

Hope this gives you a better view.

Suggestion for Network Solutions®® (other than fixing it), add a column with partial information from the NOTES field and make it searchable.

Scooter

Yes that area really needs some basic simple work over. Like a note area and date/time created. As it is now its hard to use manually. We have gotten to where we use odd dollars when we issue one to make it easier to find

Dave

The easiest way to keep your sanity and use gift certificates is....
Get all the customer information, make sure you've created a gift certificate in INVENTORY > PRODUCTS that matches the amount the customer wants and enter their order from the front end NOT THE ADMIN. This way it assigns an order number to the gift certificate so you know who's gift certificate it is. Otherwise the Admin side creation of Gift Certificates is poorly thought out and pretty much useless. I think if you try this you'll see what I'm talking about and it is much easier to manage when they have an order number assigned.

This brings up another question that I have been pondering as well... Why can't gift certificates and Coupon Codes be entered from the Admin for payment? Maybe one of the techs can answer this but We do MANY telephone sales and enter the information in the ADMIN because the customer isn't familiar/doesn't want to enter their own order. But we can't enter a gift certificate for payment or apply a coupon they have from the back, we have to look up the coupon and manually figure the discount to put in on their order. I'm thinking this needs to be added to the LIST. :-)