These are just some notes I took at the Miva Con. Not everything is fleshed out. Contact me if you want more details on what happened and what's coming up for Miva Merchant.
Miva Con 2019 was hosted at a beautiful resort called San Bernardino Inn, not far from Miva headquarters. You may think all we did was party and hang out in hot tubs, but that's only mostly true.
The format of the con changed slightly so there were fewer choices as far as breakout sessions went (and alas, I was not invited to give my SEO presentation, however I had lengthy semi-private session on my own with about a dozen interested store owners) which actually made it easier for people to figure out what they wanted to see.
The big deal of course is Version 10 which is going to be a wonderful thing. If you're thinking about converting your store to a new framework, wait for version 10 . Just wait for it. Once V10 rolls out we will be able to stage pages and entire frameworks from within without a dev store. So. Just. Wait.
Hot Topics
ShopBandit (demo is on their home page) is an amazing search solution for Miva Merchant. The guys have been around Miva Merchant forever, I know them personally, and they will install it, customize it, and you can test it out on your site before it goes live. Bottom line is if facets don't work for you, you need to check this out.
Day 1
There are some interesting and exciting things in store for Miva Merchant. A new fraud prevention module (the module is free, the service might not be) has been released called Signifyd .
StoneEdge order manager is undergoing a major update so if you're frustrated with how ancient and useless StoneEdge is right now, it should be modernized in the near future.
You will be able to use workflow queues to hold orders before processing. For example, if you have customers calling in during the first 15 minutes of an order because they want to change something, you could automatically hold all new orders for 15 minutes before processing.
A new readytheme is almost ready: Colossus. This theme has a new mega menu and appears to be based on a lot of graphic tiles to help people find what they want to buy.
The old and very expensive Quotes module has been updated to Quote 2 and is free. It integrates nicely with miva merchant (because it's made by Miva devs).
They are going to add Customer Loyalty points that can be used for purchases and other things.
Staging! This is in 10.0 which should be out before the end of the year. We will be able to stage new pages and entire sites right within the miva merchant admin, and this includes version control so multiple developers can be working on a page or theme without messing each other up. Very very cool. This is a game changer.
Day 2
Order Workflows are a dream come true for admins who need to do js integrations to push data to metric, analytics, management and other outside sources. For the most part, integration modules are unnecessary at this point. Workflow conditions are being added all the time, such as "send an email", and if we need one all we do is ask Miva because they are looking for ideas for more trigger conditions.
The JSON Api is another dream come true when it comes to pushing and pulling data. With the json api and workflow trigger/condition/action situation 95% of all integration modules are obsolete with the work being done within the admin.
Wait until true checks the workflow condition on a time interval/delayed situation. You can set it for 1 minute, five minutes, whatever you like up to 60 minutes. This is useful for workflow conditions that might take a few minutes such as receiving confirmation data from shipping or supplier data. It's probably useful to have "wait enabled" for all workflows, just set it to five minutes to make sure everything has finished grinding away before sending the data.
Json API Payment API's
All of this is just whiteboard material right now and there will probably be changes before anything is rolled out.
Version 10 Upgrade Tip Do Not Upgrade for at least a month after the new version rolls out sometime around 2020. Seriously. Version 10 is a huge mega update on all levels and being on the bleeding edge is a great way to crash your store. Miva has said everything will be smooth, but I wouldn't bet my business on it! Be patient, wait for a few weeks, and then update.
