9.6 - Scheduled Tasks

[slabar]

I love that we can now schedule a lot of tasks to run automatically in Miva. However, a very important task cannot be performed with automatically unless I am blind. I can locate no where to schedule automatic deletion of All Shopping Baskets. Our site is constantly bombarded by bots and scripts and can get up to 14k baskets in a day. Currently I am doing this manually but I was really looking forward to automating this.

	Perform Module Cleanup Tasks
Delete:	Expired Shopping Baskets Only All Shopping Baskets

[Rick Wilson]

That's definitely in there, check the 9.6 docs on docs.miva.com

[slabar]

Rick,

Thanks for the reply sir. I did check the docs before posting and after your reply. However, I still cannot locate how to Delete All Shopping Baskets. I am only able to locate Delete Expired Shopping Baskets Only.

That's definitely in there, check the 9.6 docs on docs.miva.com

[Rick Wilson]

Oh I might have misunderstood. Why would you delete All Baskets unless you're in maintenance mode? That would clear the basket of any live shopper. I don't believe that's an automated task since it's not a wise setup.

[slabar]

Rick,

I know it's not wise but, I hate having several thousand unneeded baskets due to bots and scripts. Since 11:45 pm last night when it automatically deleted Expired Baskets I now have 4056 baskets.

Oh I might have misunderstood. Why would you delete All Baskets unless you're in maintenance mode? That would clear the basket of any live shopper. I don't believe that's an automated task since it's not a wise setup.

[Rick Wilson]

Ok that's normal. So you should set your basket timeout to say 60 mins and have it run every hour and delete Expired Baskets only. Is there some reason you're having very long basket timeouts?

[slabar]

Rick,

Thank you. I never even thought about lowering the basket timeout. I've had long basket times for years so customers could come back in a day or so to the same basket.

Ok that's normal. So you should set your basket timeout to say 60 mins and have it run every hour and delete Expired Baskets only. Is there some reason you're having very long basket timeouts?

[joshpappas]

Is there a performance concern to having that many baskets, or is the concern just being able to provide customer service by accessing a specific basket? We currently have a 60-minute timeout because we don't want inventory tied up for long periods of time, but we have considered extending that substantially to allow customers to come back within a day or so without losing their session now that 9.6 allows changing that inventory behavior.

[slabar]

I haven't seen any performance issues with baskets getting up to 30k+. My concern is all the fake baskets and not being able to see the real baskets. If customers would actually use the save cart feature I wouldn't need the basket timeout set so high.

Is there a performance concern to having that many baskets, or is the concern just being able to provide customer service by accessing a specific basket?

[Rick Wilson]

You can easily sort for the real baskets (once we fix that module in 9.62).

[slabar]

Rick,

That would be awesome!

You can easily sort for the real baskets (once we fix that module in 9.62).

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Is there a performance concern to having that many baskets, or is the concern just being able to provide customer service by accessing a specific basket? We currently have a 60-minute timeout because we don't want inventory tied up for long periods of time, but we have considered extending that substantially to allow customers to come back within a day or so without losing their session now that 9.6 allows changing that inventory behavior.

Josh, just wanted to note that the latest release adds a feature which lets you run inventory in a deduct at checkout completion mode now too, so if you do have customers who tend to add and come back much later, and you wanted to accommodate them without hurting inventory, that could be an option. Just keep in mind that if you're going to switch modes, you should go into maintenance mode, delete all baskets, switch, then open up; otherwise, you could have the inventory become wrong if it had already been deducted for active baskets before switching.

[joshpappas]

Thanks, David. I definitely plan to use that new option to deduct inventory at checkout, and we've been looking forward to it quite a while. I appreciate the tip about clearing baskets before making the switch. That makes perfect sense but I know I would have overlooked it.

[elcucococo]

This new task schedule feature is very handy!

I know it's not wise but, I hate having several thousand unneeded baskets due to bots and scripts.

I am glad I am not the only one seeing bots/scripts creating several thousand baskets everyday. Is this common on all Miva websites? I am paying for a lot of data usage without a lot of traffic.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Its common for ALL sites.