FedEx : HikaShop shipping plugin

Hi.

A FedEx plugin has been developed by Rich S Wyatt some times ago but this plugin is no more maintain.
You can see the original thread here

Because the plugin has still some problems on some websites, it will not be include in HikaShop but I open this thread in order to provide the latest version of the plugin.
For this occasion, I have created a github repository
You could download the plugin by using the "zip" download button. It should generate you a valide zip file for Joomla.

I have made some modifications on this plugin and I would like to continue to patch it in order to fix problems if you found them.
This is a fully collaborative project, you can make a fork and propose your modifications. I will be happy to reintegrate it in the master branch.

I would propose different versions of the plugin in the thread. I think one for "production", one with a lot of debug information.
(it would always be as attachment in this first post)

First fixed version:
Fixes and modifications for the "group package" option:
Adding an option for "ETA Delay":

Regards,

Hi Jerome,
Thanks for posting this. I was watching the previous thread and tried using the older version of this plugin with no success. However, after installing this latest version, I am at least able to see rates. However, the rates seem a little high when selecting multiple units and using the group rate option (which I activated by inserting the ups code into fedex_configuration.php). Are there any issues that would cause the product weight to be higher than it actually is?

Also, my client wants to ship all over the USA, but only wants to display shipping options that are able to ship in two days or less, because his products is perishable. So, if shipping locally, show ground, 2-day, and overnight. However, if shipping to California, then he only wants 2-day and overnight displayed. Is this a possibility with this plugin or do you have any suggestions that could point me in the right direction.

Thanks,

Hi,

If you have more information about wrong rates, what should be displayed, we could see and check the error in the plugin.
Some parts have been deactivated, some parts are not tested. Like I said, I fixed several problems but the base of the plugin is still the same.
I think that your problem is a problem of size/weight processing. We modified the UPS plugin because it had some packaging processing problem, I think the FedEx plugin has same problem (because it was a copy of the UPS plugin).

Features that your clients wants are implementable but it has to be hard-coded rules or be added as new special options.
In the plugin, you have to removing unwanted items during the last processing (around line 800 in fedex.php file)

I want to precise that we do not have any (personal) test account or documentation for FedEx so it is a little bit complicated for the team to work on this plugin.

Regards,

Hello,

I fixed several parts of the FedEx plugin, so if someone can test it or provide us a test account it would help us a lot.

Hi Jerome and Mohamed,
Thanks for working on this. I would be glad test this out in my environment. What are some things that you would like me to focus on? Please provide instructions for testing and I'll do my best to provide feedback.

Also, I would be glad to provide documentation if you still need it.

Thanks,

Hello Sammsui,

I would like you to :

- Test the "group package" Option which will allow you to group all of your package in one and send it to your customer. You'll just have to do a simple test of purchase and tell me if it works, if you can see the rates..

- Do a simple test of purchase (whith the "groupe package" option turned off), and tell me if the rates seem better.

- Send me the documentation via email (I sent you my mail via MP)

Thank you very much .

Mohamed,

The documentation has been emailed to you.

I have tested the plugin and the shipping rates do show up and are lower when the group rate option is selected.

A few related/unrelated observations:

1. If "Show ETA" is selected, the text displayed with the rates is in a strange format (see attachments)
2. If on the Product page, Ounces are selected as a unit of weight, the rates displayed are really high
3. If the "Use Box Dimensions" option is selected, the rates are high and also seem to be unaffected by the addition of multiple units

If you are considering adding any features to this, I would love to have the ability to limit shipping options based on transit time. For example, only display shipping options for 2 days or less based on the zone being shipped to.

Thanks for all that you do,

Two more discoveries:

1. Fedex rates that are displayed for anything other than Ground option are approximately $5.00 higher than what is quoted by fedex rep
2. If Grams are used on the Product page, then the rates do not increment when additional units are added

Thanks,

Thank you for the feedback.
We'll look at it and see if we can reproduce the problems and fix them next week.

I'm having trouble getting the plug in to work at all. I've tried multiple revisions from the first edition in the first thread, to the latest in this thread. During my checkout, I get the error "No shipping method found." About two weeks ago, I was able to get it to show up using some code edits to some of the hikashop files (edits that were listed in the previous thread) but had numerous problems after I got the plug in to show up. I updated to one of the newer versions of the plugin, and it stopped working at all. Im not a strong web developer, so I have difficulty diagnosing what is causing the problem.

Has anyone had experience with the "No shipping method found" message? If so, what could be causing that? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Hello pateaux and sammsui,

Can you please test it with the last version of fedex ?

I have uninstalled the plugin a few times using the extension manager, and reinstalled each version in this thread, including the one you posted (its actually the one I am using now). What I find interesting is that after the uninstall/reinstall, all my fedex information is filled in on the newer version. I dont know where it would save that information, and if it is saving the Fedex account information, would it also be saving some other setting or file that would keep a new version from working properly? Im not sure how that works.

Pateaux,
I've had some decent success with this plugin. There are still a lot of bugs, but with a little tweaking, you can it to work. Here are some tricks that I did to get it functioning. Install the latest version of the plugin (updated 6-20-2102). Make sure to set the weight to something other than 0 on each the individual product pages. Also the weight unit should be set to lbs. The other measurement types do not work with the "group packages" option. I have tried them all.

In the shipping configuration, make sure that all of the international shipping options are unchecked. Also make sure "Use Box Dimensions" is not checked. When I turn these on, it keeps the shipping methods from showing up.

The settings persist even when a different version of the plugin is installed. I don't why this is, but I don't think it is causing the problem.

Hope this helps!


Mohamed,
Other than what was mentioned above and in my previous two post, I have nothing new to add. Have you made any new modifications to this plugin?

Regards,

No don't worry it wouldn't keep a new version from working properly, here is the last version of the FEDEX plugin.

Mohamed, I just installed your newest version.

Sammsui, thanks for the insight. I found a few of my products without weights, and set to kg. I gave them all non-zero weights and set everything to lbs. I checked my settings in the plugin for international shipping and made sure they were all disabled, as well as any other settings you mentioned. Im still getting "No shipping method found"

Do I need the 'volume' dimensions filled in also (in inches?)

I set my volumes to 0 and it still works. What shipping methods do you have selected in the plugin. The very first one (Fedex Ground) does not work for me. I am using 2-Day, Standard Overnight, and Fedex Ground (Home Delivery).

Make sure that you have a Zone set in the plugin. Mine is "223 United States of America". I get "No shipping method found" when this is not set.

I apologize for this, but every time you install the plugin it is unpublished, so make sure you have it published.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

Good luck!

I had other shipping methods other than what you had listed enabled, so I just went down to a single 2-day method for testing. My zone is set to USA. Ive been careful to make sure the plugin was enabled each time. Still in the same situation. Im going to keep playing with some settings to see if I can figure out what is happening. Is there a way to look at the logs to see what might be causing this?

Also, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences.

Other things of note:

I have the "manual shipping plugin" enabled

I have contacted my site host, and had them enable SOAP (although they told me that if it needed to be configured, that I would have to do that, no idea how I would know if it was working, or if I needed to do anything, and if I did, I wouldn't know where to start. Since it kinda worked a couple weeks ago, I am inclined to think that is not the problem.

Pateaux,
Are you able to configure the manual shipping option to show up at all? If not, then it might not be the fedex plugin causing problems. Originally, when I went through this, I used the manual option to make sure everything else was configured correctly. Once that showed up in the shipping options, then I published and configured the fedex plugin.