Automating returns form using PHP (& MySQL?)

tcarnell

Hi all,

Can I start by saying I'm a relative newbie to PHP and MySQL, so please be kind 🙂

I work for a Mac retailer and currently on our website we have a form where anyone with a defective product fills in their details and when we receive the form submission we send them an email with an RMA number which they need to attach to the product before sending it back so that we can trace who it's come from.

We'd like to automate the process so that the user types in their details and a unique RMA number is automatically provided to them both on-screen and via email.

The RMA numbering is very straight forward and could start at 1000 for instance and simply increase by one each time a user correctly fills in the form, so the first person to submit gets an RMA number of 1000, and next gets 1001, etc.

How could this be done using PHP?
Would it need a database (MySQL?) to hold the RMA number and associated details about each person's product fault as they are submitted, simply adding a field to the database with each submission?

Does anyone know if anyone else has already written such code (there's no sense in reinventing the wheel!) and is there any code resource sites that are worth looking at?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony.

jtp51

By all means, PHP can develop an application that suits your needs. There are several ways to do this and using a database is a good idea.

By inserting a RMA transaction record into the database, it will provide you a history of transactions, plus you'll be able to select the max RMA value in the database, add (int) one, to use as the RMA value for the next customer. This will guarantee an unqiue RMA value.

The RMA numeric value could get very large since your dealing with Mac products.

🙂

(Sorry, I had to throw that in...)

Another detail such as sending the email with the RMA number to the customer will require that your internet host where you plan to host the application, will allow you to send emails with PHP by using the mail() method.

Or if you have your own web server and mail server, I'm sure your system administrator could set that up.

I'd check on that as well since this is a requirement.

The logic of the application described is not hard and I am not for sure if there is any prebuild applications that meet your requirements at this point, but again... this isn't hard.

Are you building this yourself or are you looking for contracted help?

Thanks,

tcarnell

Hi Todd,

Thanks very much for your helpful advice.

jtp51 wrote:
Another detail such as sending the email with the RMA number to the customer will require that your internet host where you plan to host the application, will allow you to send emails with PHP by using the mail() method.

I'll contact the host and check that with them.

jtp51 wrote:
Are you building this yourself or are you looking for contracted help?

We may be looking to contract this work out.
Are you interested?
I see you live in the States, but paying you in US Dollars wouldn't be a problem for us.

Look forward to hearing from you.
Tony.