Exporting an XML file per order

Question

We have a store setup using ExpressionEngine and Expresso Store, it's all working great however we now need to integrate with another system. This system imports information on orders, it's basically a CRM system, it required an XML file to be produced each time an order is processed, we've managed to produce an XML feed for these orders but unfortunatently it requires a seperate file for EACH order. This is the XML we produced:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Clarity xmlns="http://www.touchsystems.co.uk/schemas" Type="Order" DateTime="2011-04-04T17:58:41.000000" Source="Customer Website">

  {exp:store:orders}
  <Contact>
    <Name>{billing_name}</Name>
    <Company></Company>
    <Telephone>{billing_phone}</Telephone>
    <Email>{order_email}</Email>
    <Address>
      <Address1>{billing_address1} {billing_address2}</Address1>
      <City>{billing_address3}</City>
      <County>{billing_region_name}</County>
      <Postcode>{billing_postcode}</Postcode>
      <Country>United Kingdom</Country>
    </Address>
    <Detail>
      <Title></Title>
      <Extension></Extension>
      <Fax></Fax>
      <Website></Website>
    </Detail>
    <Comment></Comment>
    <Document>
      <Title>Online Order REF {order_id}</Title>
      <Notes>Here are some example order notes</Notes>
      <Detail>
        <Terms>Delivery within 30 days of payment</Terms>
        <CustOrderNo>{order_id}</CustOrderNo>
        <RequiredDate>{order_date}</RequiredDate>
      </Detail>
      {items}
      <Item>
        <Partcode>{sku}</Partcode>
        <Description>{title} {modifiers}{modifier_name} {modifier_value} {if price_mod_val}({price_mod}){/if}{/modifiers}</Description>
        <Quantity>{item_qty}</Quantity>
        <UnitPrice>{price} - {item_subtotal}</UnitPrice>
      </Item>
      {/items}
      <Totals>
      </Totals>
      <DeliveryAddress>
        <Contact>{shipping_name}</Contact>
        <Address1>{shipping_address1}</Address1>
        <Address2>{shipping_address2}</Address2>
        <City>{shipping_address3}</City>
        <County>{shipping_region_name}</County>
        <Postcode>{shipping_postcode}</Postcode>
        <Telephone>{shipping_phone}</Telephone>
      </DeliveryAddress>
    </Document>
  </Contact>
  {/exp:store:orders}
</Clarity> 

But we're not really sure how to go about generating a single XML file per order, will we need to do this with PHP or can ExpressionEngine handle this? Any ideas would be really appreciated!

Answer 1

Looks like you have working code to generate XML for multiple orders, and generating XML for a single order is easy by just including the order_hash or order_id parameter.

The only problem then is how to move these files into an FTP directory for your CRM. To do this you could either set up a nightly script to check for new orders and save their XML to a particular folder, or as Derek mentioned in the comments, you could use the store_order_complete_end hook to do this immediately after the order is saved.

Answer 2

You could have an admin-only page where you list orders using store:orders, and have each link to the order detail via its order_hash.

{exp:store:orders}
{if count  == "1"}<ul>{/if}
    <li><a href="{path="orders/view/{order_hash}">Order #{order_id}</a></li>
{if count  == total_results}</ul>{/if}
{/exp:store:orders}

Then orders/view looks like:

{exp:store:orders order_hash="{segment_3}"}
    // your XML template here
{/exp:store:orders}

You'd want to add something like {if logged_in_member_group != "1"}{redirect="404"}{/if} to each page to make sure prying eyes could not see.