Mass Actions triggering at different times

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.6.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.4.8

I have a weekly mass action that is set to occur at 7am on Fridays. This last week (March 4th) it occurred at 10:02am. Any idea why this would happen? Nothing has changed in the configuration.

Sorry - it was March 11th. I've updated the timestamp to 1457701200 in massaction_last_trigger_weeks to fix. In previous weeks it was triggering at 7am. It it normal behavior for the time to change like this?

Hi,

It could happen if the last time, the cron task was delayed. For example, if there was a problem on the server on our end triggering your cron task, or your server not responding or not being accessible at that time (for example, if you put it in maintenance).

This is still occurring - and now the mass actions seem to be failing all together.

The latest one that failed was this morning at 7:00 am. Our weekly mass actions are set to occur at 7:00am on Friday each week. The massaction_last_trigger_weeks value as of this morning was 1460721600 (7:00am CST 4/15). At 7:10 I ended up having to manually process the mass action.

Here is a log of the past weeks:

3/28 - successfully triggered by cron but at wrong time (18:42) manually reset massaction_last_trigger_weeks
4/1 - successfully triggered by cron at correct time (14:00)
4/8 - cron trigger failed, manually processed (14:59)
4/15 - cron trigger failed, manually processed (14:38)
(updated timezone in Joomla config to Chicago time)
4/22 - cron trigger failed, manually processed (7:08)

Any idea why this is happening?

Hi,

On our end the cron task for your website is successfully triggering every hour.
Could you check that your cron task is properly configured:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/5...cron-task.html#check

Everything appears to be set correctly according to the docs. I regularly receive the cron reports (had it set to every time HikaShop is triggered) and visiting the Cron URL works fine. Tomorrow morning the 2 weekly mass actions (detailed in my other topic) should trigger by everything I am seeing - but then again, I thought the same thing last week and they failed. I will be monitoring in the morning to see if they trigger and let you know.

One other thing I just noticed. Earlier this week I manually set massaction_last_trigger_weeks to 1461326400 (7:00 am 4/22 Friday CT)

It is now 1461329885 (7:58 am 4/22 Friday CT)

I've manually changed it to 1461326400 again.

What is causing it to change on it's own? Having it 'slip' like this is causing all sorts of reporting issues.

You will have a slight slip each time. Because that is the date when the mass actions run last time.
And the system will trigger them again when the cron is called after that time + 2 weeks.
But the cron won't be called at that time + 2 weeks at the same second. It might be off by several seconds or minutes (because our server is not triggering only your website and so your cron call is called with a small delay each time.
If you want a precise cron, the best is to configure it on your own server:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/5...ron-task.html#server

Would setting the con up on my server allow us to have it execute at the same second each week? If the interval keeps slipping this way eventually the reports will occur later and later in the day. They need to hit the HR department in the morning. I would really like to avoid having to reset the database trigger value each week.

Hi,

If your cron task is triggered precisely, the delay will be: time to run the mass action + (cron task trigger frequency)
So if you configure your server cron task to run each minute, the maximum delay between two weeks will be 2 minutes and it can be close to 0.
After 1 year, you might have a 1 hour delay, which I suppose is acceptable.

Hi,

Just to recap, mass actions on a time-based trigger need to be set up as a corn task on the HikaShop website?

I'm just trying to figure out why my mass action is not going off .

also, how would I set up the filtering so that only orders placed during the last day are exported? I've set up all of the other settings but want to make sure that the reports I'm trying to get aren't overlapping data.

Hi,

1. If your mass action is not going off, it's either that its settings are wrong, or that your cron task is not configured properly.
Here is the procedure to check your cron task: www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/5...cron-task.html#check
If that doesn't help, please provide a screenshot of your mass action settings.

2. You can use a filter on the column "order_created" being >= to {time}-86400

I was afraid this would happen. After having this interval 'slip' for several months we reset the massaction_last_trigger_weeks back to its original setting. Our massaction report runs at 7am each Friday and pulls orders from the previous week (order_created >= {time}-604800). It then exports an excel document and emails it to a different department for fulfillment. By setting the massaction_last_trigger_weeks back from around 8am to it's original 7am we lost an order in the 7am to 8am window in the following weeks report (order occured at 7:44). This appears to be a major flaw in the system. I would strongly suggest changing how this massaction cron based system works to eliminate this 'slip'. Is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening each time we have to correct the slip?

Hi,

I don't see what could be done to avoid that.
The system isn't meant to be able to handle that in the first place.
It would require different triggers that would work not with a last triggered timestamp but with a fixed date and time you could set for the trigger, but the mass action system doesn't even allow settings for triggers so it would require changing the trigger system of the mass actions to support that.
Now you can always develop your own little hikashop plugin implementing the triggers of the mass action system to add your own trigger and handle it the way you want by taking as an example the system massaction and the hikashop massaction_order plugins.

I have created a workaround. Here is the updated massaction (but there are still problems):

Triggers:
Every weeks

Filters:
Order status = payment confirmed
order_product_code = REGEXP ^V...$ (All the product codes are formatted the same: Start with a 'V' and are 4 characters long. E.g. V100, V200, V300, etc.)
order_created >= {time}-619200 (Which is 1 week + 4 hours)

Actions:
Export csv file
Email the csv file
Change status to 'shipped'

Every time the weekly 'slip' gets close to 1hr I manually set it back.

This leaves around a 1hr window in which orders used to slip through the cracks. However, by setting the time to minus 1 week + 4hrs this gap is closed (and gives me a little slack). Since the filter only includes orders that have the 'payment confirmed' and the massaction updates the orders to 'shipped' when it runs I don't have to worry about it grabbing any incorrect orders.

However, the csv file is very cumbersome. If a single order contains more than one of the ^V...$ items (E.g. V100x1, V200x1) it includes duplicate rows for the order. Is there any way to have the csv only include one line per order?

Hi,

If you don't have any filter on the order_product table columns, then you should only have one line per order. You get one line per order per product because you have that filter.

I need to restrict it to products that have that specific product code format. I could also do it by product category. Is there another way of doing this that would make it one line per order.

Since you need the filter on the product_code, you'll have one line per order. If you wanted to change that, you'd have to change the export function in the massaction product plugin code, but it won't be simple. A PHP developer could do that for you, but in that case, it could just build a small plugin to export the CSV in the good format with the good timing without any delay in the triggering.

I would be willing to hire you to develop what we need as a plugin or to simply add it to the core Hikashop extension.

Would it be easier to customize the reports section? I'm seeing 2 options to get us where we need to be:

Option 1:
Develop a plugin (or build the option into the core extension) to simply collapse the duplicate rows in our existing massaction reports (what we have been discussing). If we can accomplish this quickly it represents the simplest path to our goals.

Option 2:
The Reports in Hikashop allow us to grab what we need. However, it lacks any automation and the exported csv documents have so much extra information in them that they are next to useless.

Here are the features we would need to customize the reports:

1) Ability to pick and choose the columns exported in the csv
2) Ability to schedule these exported csv to be sent via email at a set interval (weekly)
3) Ability to update order status when the report runs (change 'payment recieved' to 'shipped' etc.)
4) Ability to print reports (would only apply to reports with charts and would export as a pdf)

#4 is a bonus item. Not critical. 1-3 would be necessary.

If you and your team are willing to develop either option1 or 2 let me know.

You can already pick and choose the columns you want for the export of CSVs in mass actions.
The Orders>Reports menu CSV download funfction only contains the the columns relative to the report display so it would be complex adding more columns to it.
The CSV export on the orders listing is meant as a simple one click button. I don't see the point in adding a pick and choose column setting there since in that case, you can do it with a mass action.
Exporting a CSV and sending it by email at a "relative" fixed interval and changing the status while doing it is possible with the mass action system too.

So the points 1 to 3 are already met by what's there. So that means that you don't say everything you need for your CSV export & email function (like for example a filter on the product codes without the having one row per product, etc).

I would actually recommend going a third option:
Having a custom script being built for you which would load the data from the database, generate the CSV exactly like you want with the filters you want directly in the script and the format you need, etc, send it by email and update the order status. You could run such script really precisely, at the same second every week with your own server cron task.
The cost of developing such custom script would be similar to the cost of modifying HikaShop systems to handle your very precise needs, and it could be done by any PHP developer as long as you provide a precise information on what the CSV should contain and what your database looks like.