"incomplete" ads (ad management)

  • Resolved John

    (@dsl225)


    10 years, 5 months ago

    Hello,

    Why some ads submitted by users end up being listed under “incomplete” tab? I get several in there and I have to manually approve their payment status (although they are all free). When I approve them, their status becomes “completed”, while others, that had their submission go straight have a status shown as “not required”.

    Also, sometimes, it’s stated that the user’s email address has not been verified – but how a user may post an ad if his address is not verified as my settings allow only registered users to posts ads?

    Apparently, something is not fully done right by the users at frontend but I wonder what.

    In addition, I don’t well understand what is supposed to be shown under the “new” tab and what under the one named “completed”. The ones that I manually enable from the “incomplete” tab are found under “completed” but not under “new”…

    https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/another-wordpress-classifieds-plugin/

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author AWP Classifieds Team

    (@awpcp)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    Hi John,

    Sorry that you ran into issues here!

    I’m not sure I understand what might be going on. Let me start with a few questions:

    1) Are the ads you place free or paid?
    2) Are the ads required to be approved by the admin before going public?
    3) Who are you placing the ads as? (admin user or non-admin user)
    4) Which ads are which? (You said some work, some don’t…which ones work, which ones don’t?)

    I think understanding what you’ve tried to date would help me explain the behavior better here.

    Thread Starter John

    (@dsl225)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    Hi, thanks for your feedback.
    First the answers to your questions:

    1/ free
    2/ yes
    3/ non-admin (subscriber) at frontend
    4/ mostly those that don’t have pictures (explanation below)

    Here is how they show under “incomplete” tab:
    http://i63.tinypic.com/zldc8j.jpg

    And here’s what shows at top when Admin edits them in order to enable them:
    http://i66.tinypic.com/1zyyqhf.jpg

    I tested further myself yesterday, by signing in with a subscriber identity and I found out that “probably” what happens with those ads is that their authors didn’t completely finalize the ad submission process and rather ended it (closed the browser window?) when they reached the image upload page. Some of those ads having this issue also had pictures attached, but most didn’t.

    That makes me think that users believe the process is over when they reach this image upload page, either because they don’t have images to upload or even, when they have one to upload they believe everything is over and they don’t notice the “continue” button at bottom of page.

    With my test, the ad remained under “incomplete” tab as long as I didn’t click on the “continue” button – which is of course a correct behavior because the process is not finished.

    What is strange is the second image above that states that the user’s email has still to be verified. If this was true he wouldn’t be able to post an ad. I don’t know whether this message displays at user’s side or only at admin.

    When the admin marks this ad as “paid”, he’s also able to enable it and then everything is fine. But there are 2 drawbacks:
    – the admin isn’t aware that an ad is nested under the “incomplete” tab until he manually checks
    – the user doesn’t receive a message that his ad has been approved and published.

    As far as I can see, the main reason for this is that the “continue” button is not clearly visible and maybe is displaying at the wrong side of the page: the button is at left side, while most buttons inviting for a “next step” are always at right side of the screen.

    Maybe something more flashy for this button (blinking) would help?

    I don’t really know but I can only say that one third of the ads published at my site end up in this “incomplete” folder and it would be hard to believe that I’m the only one with this issue.

    Plugin Author AWP Classifieds Team

    (@awpcp)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    Let me ask my developer based on what you mentioned above and see what he says.

    Plugin Author AWP Classifieds Team

    (@awpcp)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    Hi John,

    OK, here’s what my developer said:

    Why some ads submitted by users end up being listed under “incomplete” tab? I get several in there and I have to manually approve their payment status (although they are all free). When I approve them, their status becomes “completed”, while others, that had their submission go straight have a status shown as “not required”.

    When a user leaves the posting process before reaching the final step, the listing is marked as incomplete: no confirmed payment status and appear as unverified.

    The payment status is set when a payment is made or when the user reaches the final step of the posting process. Similarly, the verified attribute is set at the end of the process, where the plugin consider the current settings to decide whether this user needs to review his/her email address or not. Since only registered users are allowed to post, the verified status will be always set to true, but only after the user has completed the posting process.

    Also, sometimes, it’s stated that the user’s email address has not been verified – but how a user may post an ad if his address is not verified as my settings allow only registered users to posts ads?

    John is right, there is no point in showing the verified status if we already know that only registered users are allowed to post listings. In that case we should hide the Unverified tab to avoid confusion.

    In addition, I don’t well understand what is supposed to be shown under the “new” tab and what under the one named “completed”. The ones that I manually enable from the “incomplete” tab are found under “completed” but not under “new”…

    New listings are listings that were successfully posted to your website and you haven’t reviewed. When you review a listing (there is Mark Reviewed action that shows up if you are in the New tab only), they stop appearing in the New tab and show up just in the Complete one.

    Apparently, something is not fully done right by the users at frontend but I wonder what.

    They are not reaching to the end of the posting process. Do the listings you manually enable have images? If not, maybe they are leaving the process at that step. If you have Preview Step enabled, that’s another point where they may be leaving.

    I agree that the way we handle and display listings status is far from ideal right now. There is room for improvement both to make the admin screens less confusing and to prevent users from leaving the posting process earlier or make the process itself shorter.

    What is strange is the second image above that states that the user’s email has still to be verified. If this was true he ouldn’t be able to post an ad. I don’t know whether this message displays at user’s side or only at admin.

    Like I said before, that message shouldn’t be showing up in this case, because email verification is not necessary (perhaps not even enabled) under the current plugin configuration. The problem right now, is that the verified status of a listing is initially set to false and properly updated at the end of the posting process. Since these are incomplete listings, the status was never updated.

    This is definitely something we want to work on, but as noted before–the custom post type migration is taking precedence here before we can really attack this in the right way.

    Thread Starter John

    (@dsl225)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    Thank you for this well documented reply.
    I agree with you: CPT is the most important step forward at this point, but I just wanted to share my experience so far.

    Some remarks to the above (not expecting them to be corrected, but just to let you know):

    – I still have 9 items (out of total 120 published) listed under the “new” tab, that are all verified, enabled and published – but still listed there (and also under the “complete” tab.

    – It is clear that, sometimes, users are leaving the submission process before it completes. Some of them have pictures, some not. So it’s not really due to not having pictures to submit and thinking the process is over. My point here again, is that the process steps are not clearly highlighted and I hope this will be better handled in future versions (CPT or not).

    Best wishes for the CPT migration process and really looking forward to this!

    Plugin Author AWP Classifieds Team

    (@awpcp)

    10 years, 5 months ago

    We definitely have this on our issue list to work out, because a smooth process is the key to successful ads. Stay tuned for more details in late Feb.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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