How to add backorder message to transactional emails

Question

I want to add extra information in a transactional email when the order has a product which is backordered.

I know where and how to edit the email templates following this guide: http://www.flyingtophat.co.uk/blog/2011/08/31/magento-displaying-custom-attributes-in-emails.html

The problem is I don't know how to check if the order has backorder items. I found that the table sales_flat_order_item has a a field qty_backordered but it has no value and is NULL.

I can get the value of the field with the following code

echo $_item->getQtyBackordered();

My question is, why is the value of the field NULL? How can I make sure the field gets populated with the amount of items which are backordered? Or maybe there is another solution?

The only thing I actually need is to check if a placed order has at least 1 item backordered (so I can display extra backorder information).

Answer 1

To add it to the Email:

app/design/frontend/default/<your_template>/template/email/order/items/order/default.phtml

and find this ~line 31:

<strong style="font-size:11px;"><?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_item->getName()) ?></strong>

Add the following line right after that:

    <?php if ($_item->getQtyBackordered()): ?>

        <p style="font-size: 10px;color: #CCC">
   * This product is not available  in the requested quantity. <?php echo  
   $_item->getQtyBackordered()*1 ?> of the items will be backordered.</p>

    <?php endif; ?>

Answer 2

qty_backordered set to NULL means your item was in stock in requested quantity by the moment of order was placed.

Other result means you have a problem with your installation. I'd suggest disabling 3rd party extensions to test if the problem is off-core.

Answer 3

Something like this ?

$items = $order->getItems();

$hasBackorderedItems = false;
foreach($items as $item){ // loop though all items in order checking the backorder qty
     if($item->getQtyBackordered() > 0){
        $hasBackorderedItems = true; // order has back order item stop loop
        break;
     }
}

This is not the most efficient way

Answer 4

We just ran into the same problem as the topic starter. But we work with configurable products, and I just figured out the qty_backordered field is set to the child order_item (simples) only. The problem is that in the emails the items displayed are the parent order_items (configurables) which have indeed the qty_backordered set to NULL.

So we fixed this as follows in the email template:

<?php
    $itemQtyBackordered = intval($_item->getQtyBackordered());
    $childQtyBackordered = 0;

    if ($itemQtyBackordered === 0) // if no qty backordered found on item, check if the child item has it
    {
        $childOrderItems = Mage::getModel('sales/order_item')->getCollection()->addAttributeToFilter('parent_item_id', array('eq' => $_item->getItemId()));
        if ($childOrderItems->count() > 0)
        {
            $child = $childOrderItems->getFirstItem();
            $childQtyBackordered = intval($child->getQtyBackordered());
        }
    }
?>

<?php if ($itemQtyBackordered > 0 || $childQtyBackordered > 0): ?>
    <p>your message</p>
<?php endif; ?>