Major Additions - Product Review Forums ? Research, Review & Compare Items

Version 1.4.0 has been released to remove the giftery / list it integration of the addon now that service has been discontinued. No upgrade is needed though there have been a few other bug changes since 1.3.5.

Finding Feedback Can be Like a Needle in a Haystack

The more your forum grows, the more of a challenge it becomes to sort through the history and get the full story.

Product Review Forums Brings Structure to the Chaos

As a full-featured product management addon, PRF sits on top of your forum allowing you to create defined products which, unlike individual posts, stay relevant over time. Each comment, review and even product updates filter back into this one spot allowing for a quick and comprehensive overview while the individual discussions rage on as always.

Here's just a few of the many features you'll find in PRF:

• Bring structure to products with established pages & reviews
• Reduce the number of repetitive posts from members looking up the same info
• Increase your traffic with content-rich, seo friendly, product listings
• Drive revenue by adding your own affiliate links to product listings
• Increase the activity stream's value with review integration
  
• Engage visitors with integrated wishlists from Giftery.me

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Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

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QUICK TIPS:
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Enabling Product Forums: To show product details and ratings, each product-forum must be enabled in the forum manager.

Adding Products: You may upload products one at a time through the admin [includes an image uploader using GD] or you can bulk import through XML. You can also enable users to add moderated products through a global and usergroup option.

Product Review Index: To access your forum's product overview go to www.yoursite.com/productforums.php - You may want to add a link to this to your navbar or as a tab.

Customization: This addon is made to be customized. To change the color schema see clientscript/vbulletin_css or dive right on in to the templates and phrases.

Powered by Giftery.me: This mod is maintained includes two integrations you should know about. Both can be controlled through the mod options.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

Is there anything I can do for the existing listings with a query perhaps Ted, there's 395 of them right now, updating each one at a time would take too long and I don't have so much free time.

Additionally Ted, is there any way for us to add more than just the one Affiliate shop link for each listing, our members of course are Worldwide and having shops just from one country is of no use to our members in Sweden or America or Africa etcetera. Is there also any way of adding additional affiliate shop links to existing Product listings?

The XML process should update every existing product that's included using the SKU / UPC and Title as a key.

There is only one link field supported by default but of course you could add more, or put them in the description.

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Sorry Ted, not following, are you saying to re-upload the xml's, if so, will this put the product listings back into the fore of the site content as in the sideblocks for new posts and the activity page, I have just annoyed the hell out of my members by deleting all the listings and uploading the product xml's afresh, long story and rather a dull one. I shouldn't want all the Product listings to appear in the stats as new content again, I would have an uprising on my hands.

[sgbmad]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Great!

Ted, the new version of "productforums.php" works but it does not work totally because doesn't appear the custom fields.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

Sorry Ted, not following, are you saying to re-upload the xml's, if so, will this put the product listings back into the fore of the site content as in the sideblocks for new posts and the activity page, I have just annoyed the hell out of my members by deleting all the listings and uploading the product xml's afresh, long story and rather a dull one. I shouldn't want all the Product listings to appear in the stats as new content again, I would have an uprising on my hands.

If there's no new products there will be no new posts. The system updates what already exists... assuming it can find a match on the SKU or UPC that is.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by sgbmad

Ted, the new version of "productforums.php" works but it does not work totally because doesn't appear the custom fields.

Gotcha. Try this version...

/upload/productforums.php

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

If there's no new products there will be no new posts. The system updates what already exists... assuming it can find a match on the SKU or UPC that is.

Ah right, I didn't include the SKU's, I forgot to add them tot he xml's, and there are no UPC's to be used any way, so running the xml's again without the SKU's will cause problems!

[Ted S]

That's a problem indeed...

Do you have reviews on any / many of the products yet?

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

That's a problem indeed...

Do you have reviews on any / many of the products yet?

No there aren't any reviews just yet, I just re-uploaded the xml's recently and no-one has had chance to add reviews yet, but some are due in soon.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

No there aren't any reviews just yet, I just re-uploaded the xml's recently and no-one has had chance to add reviews yet, but some are due in soon.

Why not make a quick change to your XML to add in SKUs [they don't have to be real to anyone else, just a simple 001, 002, 003, ... works], delete the forum & existing products and reimport now?

This will save you a lot of headache making updates down the road.

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Why not make a quick change to your XML to add in SKUs [they don't have to be real to anyone else, just a simple 001, 002, 003, ... works], delete the forum & existing products and reimport now?

This will save you a lot of headache making updates down the road.

Okay, so essentially I need to add sku's no matter what, it makes more sense to me to add the real ones, adding fake sku's would be a bit faster as I would not have to access the real ones from the source site but it feels wrong to me so I will add the real ones.

Ted, once I delete the existing Products and then import the xml's again, is there some way I can stop them from showing in the activity stream. Doing this is really going to annoy my members, it otherwise would add 395 new posts to the activity stream, I can't afford to anger my members with this again. I see I can exclude Product Reviews from the Activity Stream but I can't find any way of excluding the new threads created by the xml's in the forum specified in the core settings..