Robert Heath Development

For a few years now we’ve been using Bugzilla as a project management tool in addition to tracking issues. We’ve been able to get by with this however we’ve always known that Bugzilla is not intended to be a project management tool and so we started looking for a more suited alternative.

Enter Redmine. Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database, and open-source. In addition to issue tracking, it also has project management features, project based wikis and document management. Redmine also integrates tightly with most common versioning systems including Subversion and CVS.

As attractive as Redmine was, we still had thousands of clients, bugs, comments, and files in Bugzilla. We could not afford to lose this information and we certainly didn’t want to notify our clients that they would have to use two different systems for tracking bugs and feature requests. To solve this problem I wrote a migration script that transfers virtually all of the information in Bugzilla including attachments, permissions, bugs, comments, projects, etc. into Redmine.

The bulk of my experience is with PHP and Java. Being new to the Ruby world, and since Bugzilla is written in PHP, I decided to write this migration script in PHP instead of Ruby…

Download bz2redmine.tar (40,690 bytes)

If you are unable to unpack this file download WinRar here.

Robert Heath Development sponsors a number of discussion groups that promote new current and technologies.

Here are a few:

Ajax (also known as AJAX), shorthand for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”, is a development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is intended to increase the web page’s interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

AJAX Development Discussion Group

In software engineering (or computer science), a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations. Object-oriented design patterns typically show relationships and interactions between classes or objects, without specifying the final application classes or objects that are involved. Algorithms are not thought of as design patterns, since they solve computational problems rather than design problems.

AJAX Patterns Discussion Group

Java Design Patterns Discussion Group

Contribution Name: Manufacturer Sales Report
Contribution Version: 2.1
Author Name: Robert Heath
Author E-Mail Address: robert@robertheath.net
Author Website: www.robertheath.net

This contribution adds the ability to view sales reports based on manufacturer rather than customer or product. This version adds the ability to view a breakdown of products sold by manufacturer in addition to total sales by manufacturer. It also adds a printer friendly version of the report which displays the Store name, time and date the report was created, and the reporting period specified.

INSTALLATION:

Step 1: Upload the files included in this package

Step 2: Add the following line to /admin/includes/filenames.php

AFTER
define(’FILENAME_STATS_CUSTOMERS’, ’stats_customers.php’);

ADD
define(’FILENAME_STATS_MANUFACTURERS’, ’stats_manufacturers_sales.php’);

Step 3: Add the following line to/admin/includes/languages/english.php

AFTER
define(’BOX_REPORTS_ORDERS_TOTAL’, ‘Customer Orders-Total’);

ADD
define(’BOX_REPORTS_SALES_MANUFACTURERS’, ‘Manufacturer Sales’);

Step 4: Add the following line to /admin/includes/boxes/reports.php

AFTER
‘<a href=”‘ . tep_href_link(FILENAME_STATS_PRODUCTS_PURCHASED, ”, ‘NONSSL’) . ‘” class=”menuBoxContentLink”>’ . BOX_REPORTS_PRODUCTS_PURCHASED . ‘</a><br>’ .

ADD
‘<a href=”‘ . tep_href_link(FILENAME_STATS_MANUFACTURERS, ”, ‘NONSSL’) . ‘” class=”menuBoxContentLink”>’ . BOX_REPORTS_SALES_MANUFACTURERS . ‘</a><br>’ .

Contribution Name: Customer Export
Contribution Version: 1.0
Author Name: Robert Heath
Author E-Mail Address: robert@robertheath.net
Author Website: www.robertheath.net

This contribution adds the ability to export and save customer data in CSV (Comma Separated Value) format. CSV is a standard format that can be imported into most applications that allow data import. CSV format is also compatible with most spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel.

INSTALLATION:

Step 1: Upload the files included in this package

Step 2: Add the following line to /admin/includes/filenames.php

AFTER
define(’FILENAME_CUSTOMERS’, ‘customers.php’);

ADD
define(’FILENAME_CUSTOMER_EXPORT’, ‘customer_export.php’);

Step 3: Add the following line to/admin/includes/languages/english.php

AFTER
define(’BOX_CUSTOMERS_ORDERS’, ‘Orders’);

ADD
define(’BOX_CUSTOMERS_EXPORT’, ‘Export Customers’);

Step 4: Add the following line to /admin/includes/boxes/customers.php

AFTER
‘<a href=”‘ . tep_href_link(FILENAME_CUSTOMERS, ”, ‘NONSSL’) . ‘” class=”menuBoxContentLink”>’ . BOX_CUSTOMERS_CUSTOMERS . ‘</a><br>’ .

ADD
‘<a href=”‘ . tep_href_link(FILENAME_CUSTOMERS_EXPORT, ”, ‘NONSSL’) . ‘” class=”menuBoxContentLink”>’ . BOX_CUSTOMERS_EXPORT . ‘</a><br>’ .

E-Commerce/Content Management System

Rx Wellness Center delivers custom branded nutritional supplements for independent pharmacies nationwide. As a part of their service, they provide a semi-customized website for their client pharmacies. With over 400 individual pharmacies, each with their own unique domain name, Wellness Works needed a system that could manage content to be shared by all pharmacy sites (including a fully functional product catalog with e-commerce capability) and allow the pharmacies to have unique content and a unique graphic design.

To meet these requirements I created custom content management tool to with a full featured administration tool to dynamically generate and maintain pharmacy sites. Since the sites are very graphical a web based HTML editor was integrated to assist in content creation.

In addition to content management and e-commerce, customer management and reporting was a necessity. In order to keep Rx Wellness Center in touch with their customers, I developed an email list management tool for sending both automated and manually generated email messages. In order to track sales and pharmacy performance a custom sales statistics program was created.

E-Commerce

One of my most recent projects is The Moxie Buck. The Moxie Buck is an online clothing retailer that markets women’s novelty t-shirts. I built the site using a streamlined version of osCommerce. The site utilizes CSS to achieve a clean contemporary look.

E-Commerce

The Texas Music Store is an online retailer of Texas based music. The Texas Music Store was in need of a full featured e-commerce solution that would lend itself to their business process. In addition to physical products such as CD’s, The Texas Music Store also needed the ability to handle downloadable content such as MP3’s. My dilemma was to develope a full featured e-commerce solution on a budget. In order to meet both the feature requirements as well as the budget constraints I decided to use open source software (osCommerce) as the platform.

Out of the box, osCommerce is a very full featured e-commerce solution, however it did not quite meet the needs of the client. In order to satisfy these needs customization was necessary. I added several features such as cross-promotions, coupons and gift vouchers, page creation tools, and many others features that enhance both the customer’s and store owner’s experience.