Software Review Stable maybe, Functional NOT.

[slove05]

First let me say I was rooting like HE!! for this software. It was EXACTLY what I have been looking for. I've been testing Zenbership over the last month and the entire "SHOP" section needs massive work. For anyone coming into this I thought it would help to know what issues you're going to have to over come or work around. I'll revisit this application after a few years to see if it stabilizes but unless you are a hard core programmer this is NOT the application for you. I'll layout the issues...

1. "Paypal" gateway and Invoice cannot be used together with out another gateway that accepts CC's

2. The Paypal gateway does not update correctly so while subscriptions are paid for they are not created.

3. Request an Invoice option creates a "paid" transaction but no invoice to send to the customer even if it did it would send a transaction notice that it is already paid.

4. HUGE security sessions flaw where if two different people happen to use the same computer the sale will be associated the previous user not the current user.

5. If you create a product with options NO WHERE on the admin side will you be able to see the option the person selected. So if you sell a t-shirt in a size large no where past the payment.php page will it be seen. Not on the transaction, not the receipt to the customer, not on ANY of the admin receipts, email view, and not on the invoice (which never gets created if you ask for an invoice.) There is no way to see what option they select unless you php admin into the database and look at the actual table. Even then the checkout process never adds the option to the "complete" tables so you must match the session to the ppsd_cart_items and then look up the option they selected... this is the biggest thing that killed if for me and a huge oversight.

6. Once anyone clicks preview order and goes to the process.php page to "Preview Order" all the Product information goes out the window. They cant see anything about what they are ordering except the total.

7. Once you click "Complete Order" It takes you to the Order Complete Page where the product information again disappears.

8. The receipt the user gets is missing all the product information as well as the payment method . If you click the more information button to view the order details the view order page shows you No product information, billing information, shipping information, payment method ect. only the total and the order number.

9. Every transaction is marked as paid in the admin side so even if you wanted to run an unpaid transaction search to create an invoice you'll never find one.

10. If you try to use the top right "user menu" after viewing almost anything in the member area it assumes you are in the pp_cart section or in the /manage/ section already so it breaks the links.

11. The event ticking process is just as buggy... You cannot Will Call or invoice for event tickets.

12. You cannot add employee's unless you do it from the database and then go in and edit.

13. You cant export unless you use Internet Explorer.

I've chased, worked around, implemented so many custom fix's for small problems that if an update came out I'd never be able to do it for fear it would break other custom fix's.

This is AMAZING IN THEORY but it needs many more tweaks before it is ready for anyone without extensive coding experience. If anyone out there is using this successfully without a bunch of work I'd love to hear from you. For now I'm done wracking my brain over this. I sincerely hope this software gets the attention it deserves because it has amazing potential.

[steviobee]

I am in the same boat and couldn't have said it better myself, I have just set up something else and will be tidying this software up, exporting data with Internet Explorer and shutting Zenbership down in the next few days.
It has created more work than we ever imagined, I am too busy to keep going in looking for fixes and want an easier solution to membership management.

Unfortunately, Zen it isn't, at least not for the time being anyway.......

[jbelelieu]

Thank you for this list - I'm working hard to update the software right now and will review and take all of these into account.

[runtim]

@slove05 and @steviobee thanks for the feedback. I'll skip this.

[catalano]

@slove05 have there been any improvements? Items 1 - 3 in your list would seem to be deal killers for my needs. I just installed and was trying to test, but I immediately ran into so many problems...

[slove05]

I honestly had to move on and have not looked back. This software continues to tick all the missing boxes within our current software but the complete lack of functionality and the fact that I would have to again buy a private server to even test continues to keep it low on the list. Looking back I lost 2 solid months of development hoping just one more fix would would do the trick but as they say time is money and the time it would take to fix out weighs the few benefits we would gain.

[catalano]

@slove05 Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Can I ask what platform you moved on to? I'm still searching for something that offered all of the features that this product could have. Its a shame the developer just seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.

[steviobee]

@catalano I had also lost over 60 hours of dealing with this, same as @slove05. I have however moved onto Club Express, a paid solution but my time is used elsewhere and the club is now more established and can pay for it. It is very reliable and has plenty of options, still with access to customise for different purposes. Good luck.

[catalano]

Thanks @steviobee. I'll check out Club Express.