Greetings NFC members,
In a continuing effort to adjust to the changing needs of the Nebraska Food Cooperative, we have pushed forward with installing the latest release of “Open Food Source” software. You may notice some minor disruptions as we ensure the system is functioning correctly. NFC is the first organization to benefit from this significant development effort and we should expect a few challenges.
For everyone
- A new front page with a layout friendly to your mobile devices.
- Integrated theme throughout the site.
- Simplified button-style controls and links within the shopping site.
For customers
- Improved layout of membership and shopping information between the member panel and shopping panel.
- Product listings with improved controls for moving between pages.
- Ability to checkout products individually from the customer basket. NOTE: This is a significant change from the past and customers must checkout any products they wish to receive.
Customers can now order more products than are actually available. This will give producers a chance to fill larger orders as additional product becomes available. Example: the image at right shows an order of five items where only two are known to be available. The customer will only be charged for what is shipped and there is no guarantee the producer will fill the full request.- A button near the top of product lists (Show/Hide Search Options) will allow viewing products in a variety of ways.
For producers
- Inventory can now be adjusted directly in producer product listings similar to the way customers add products to their basket.
- Inventory can now be assigned directly by name rather than selecting it from a dropdown list.
- Product images can now be deleted from a product and can be rotated at 90-degree intervals.
- The screen for editing products has been totally reworked.
- The product confirmation process, which was previously confusing, has been simplified greatly. There are no longer “preferred” products. A single version of each product can be made “active”, which will be the version available for customers to order.
- A button near the top of producer product lists (Show/Hide Search Options) will allow viewing the producer’s products in a variety of ways.
- Products can now be deleted permanently – but only if they have never been ordered.
What to do if you encounter problems
This software was released as soon as possible and there may still be a few kinks to work out. We ask that customers and producers remain vigilant for anything that seems incorrect and alert webmaster@nebraskafood.org if you encounter anything that seems wrong.
For those who like the technical details:
- This is the first release of OFSv1.2.0.
- The software includes a migration from MySQL to MariaDB.
- We have moved to a new server, upgrading from Debian 6 to Debian 9.
- The software was developed, in part, through a grant from the USDA and will help other food cooperatives as well.