Fixing a WooCommerce shop’s distributor integration

The problem

The integration was meant to send each order to the supplier, bring the tracking number back, and update prices and stock every night. Most of the time it did. But the developer who built it had stopped responding, and the gaps were left for the owner to cover by hand:

• Missed orders. Apple Pay orders, and orders mixing this supplier’s products with others, didn’t reach the supplier. The owner had to send them by hand.
• Unpaid orders sent anyway. Orders went to the supplier the moment they were created, before payment. Even cancelled or declined orders could go out.
• A sync that kept stopping. The nightly price and stock update gave up part way through the catalogue.
• Messy tracking. Tracking numbers showed twice in the customer’s account and couldn’t be clicked.

What we did

Before changing anything, we reviewed how the existing code worked and put safeguards on a staging environment, so testing could never email customers or send an order to the supplier. Then we worked through the list.

• Every paid order goes through. Apple Pay and mixed-supplier orders now sync on their own.
• Only once payment succeeds. Cancelled and failed orders are no longer sent, and the order records why nothing went to the supplier.
• A nightly sync that finishes. The web server was cutting the job off after about five minutes. It now works through the catalogue in small batches, picking up where it left off, and emails the owner a summary each day.
• Tracking that does its job. Clickable tracking numbers, shown once, and shipping emails that list only what has actually shipped, including partial shipments.
• Tracking sent to PayPal. Submitted automatically for PayPal orders. If the supplier uses a carrier we haven’t seen before, the owner gets an email to match it rather than the system guessing.
• Orders complete themselves. Once everything from the supplier has shipped, the order is marked complete, allowing for refunds, holds and partial shipments.

The result

The new sync runs with no errors. Orders, tracking and stock now look after themselves. When something does need a person, the owner gets an email saying exactly what.