Is your Magento 2 order grid overflowing with test orders, outdated entries, or completed transactions you no longer need? A cluttered order grid can lead to significant inefficiencies, making it difficult to find relevant information, impacting performance, and ultimately hindering your ability to manage your online store effectively. This is where the ability to delete and archive orders becomes crucial. While Magento 2 offers basic order management capabilities, it lacks the flexibility to efficiently remove or archive unwanted orders. Fortunately, the Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order extension from Scommerce Mage provides a robust solution to streamline your order management process. In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of deleting and archiving orders, delve into the features of this powerful extension, and guide you through its installation and configuration.
Understanding the Need for Order Deletion and Archiving
A cluttered Magento 2 order grid presents several challenges. Difficulty finding relevant orders becomes a major hurdle, slowing down order processing and customer service. Performance issues due to database bloat can arise as unnecessary data accumulates, impacting the speed and responsiveness of your backend. This can lead to potential confusion and errors, impacting crucial business operations. Ultimately, a messy order grid contributes to a poor user experience for administrators, reducing productivity and increasing frustration.
To address these issues, it’s essential to understand when to delete and when to archive orders. Order deletion is appropriate for:
Test orders: Orders placed during development or testing phases.
Cancelled orders: Orders that were cancelled by the customer or due to payment issues.
Erroneous orders: Orders placed accidentally or containing incorrect information.
Order archiving, on the other hand, is suitable for:
Outdated orders (completed long ago): Orders that are no longer active but need to be retained for record-keeping purposes.
Orders needing review later: Orders that require further investigation or follow-up.
Orders for compliance or reporting purposes: Orders that need to be kept for legal or regulatory reasons.
By effectively deleting and archiving orders, you can achieve a clean and organised order grid, leading to improved efficiency, enhanced performance, and a better user experience for your administrative team. This streamlined workflow allows you to focus on managing current orders and growing your business. You can also explore other methods to boost Magento performance as detailed in our post on Magento 2 performance optimization techniques.
Introducing the Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order Extension
The Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order extension empowers you to take control of your order management by extending the default Magento 2 functionality. It provides a comprehensive solution for deleting and archiving orders, helping you maintain a clean and efficient order grid.
Key features of the extension include:
Permanently delete orders and related information: Remove unnecessary orders completely from your system.
Archive orders (manual and automatic): Move outdated or non-essential orders to a separate archive grid.
Separate archive order grid: Easily manage and access archived orders in a dedicated grid.
Move archived orders back to the main grid: Restore archived orders to the main order grid if needed.
Email notifications for deletion and archiving: Keep track of order deletion and archiving activities with automated email notifications.
Customizable email templates: Tailor email notifications to your specific requirements.
User role (ACL) support: Control which admin users have permission to delete or archive orders.
This extension addresses the limitations of default Magento 2 by providing a flexible and user-friendly interface for managing order deletion and archiving. By using this extension, you can achieve improved order management, save time, and enhance the user experience for your administrative team.
With this extension, you can permanently delete orders and all associated information from your Magento 2 order grid. Here’s how it works:
Select orders for deletion: The extension allows you to choose which order statuses (e.g., canceled, failed) can be deleted. This ensures that only irrelevant or unnecessary orders are removed.
Email notifications: Admins will receive an email after each deletion, ensuring transparency and record-keeping. You can customise the email template and define multiple recipients for these notifications.
Irreversibility: Deleting an order is a permanent action, meaning it cannot be undone. This ensures that once an order is deleted, all related data is completely wiped from the system.
Go to Admin>Sales>Orders and select order/orders that you want to delete then from the “Actions” dropdown click on Delete Order(s)
B. Archiving Orders
Archiving offers a flexible middle ground for orders
How to Archive Orders
Manual Archiving: You can manually archive individual or multiple orders by selecting them from the main order grid and choosing the “Archive” option from the actions dropdown. This will move the selected orders to the archive grid, keeping your main grid clean and organised.
Automatic Archiving: Set up automatic archiving based on a defined retention period. For example, you can configure the extension to automatically archive orders that are older than a certain number of days, reducing manual workload and keeping the grid tidy without needing constant attention.
Retention Period: In the extension settings, define the number of days after which an order will be archived automatically.
Cron Job Scheduling: The extension allows you to schedule a cron job to run at specified intervals (default: midnight) to handle automatic archiving.
Separate Archive Order Grid: Archived orders are moved to a dedicated archive grid, accessible from the Magento admin panel. This grid provides full control over archived orders, allowing you to view, manage, or restore them.
Restoring Archived Orders: If you need to retrieve an archived order, the extension allows you to easily restore it back to the main order grid with just a few clicks.
The option to Delete and archive orders is also available at the individual order level.
Email Notifications for Archiving
Just like with order deletion, the extension offers customizable email notifications for archiving actions. Admins can receive updates after each successful archival process, with details like the number of orders archived and any relevant information. You can:
Customise email templates for archiving.
Define sender and receiver email addresses to ensure that the right people in your organization are notified.
C. Email Notifications
Email notifications are an essential part of maintaining transparency and ensuring that all actions related to order deletion or archiving are recorded. The extension allows you to:
Customise email templates: Modify the content of the notification emails to match your brand’s tone and style.
Set up email recipients: You can configure multiple email addresses to receive these notifications, ensuring that the right team members are always informed.
These notifications are particularly useful for store admins who want a clear record of actions taken on the order grid, especially when deleting or archiving orders.
D. User Role (ACL) Support
Not every admin should have the authority to delete or archive orders. The Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order Extension includes Access Control List (ACL) support, allowing you to define which admin roles can perform these actions. This feature is crucial for maintaining security and ensuring that only authorised personnel can delete or archive orders.
Role-based permissions: Admins can assign permissions for order deletion and archiving based on specific user roles, ensuring that sensitive actions are restricted to trusted team members.
Full control over admin actions: By limiting access to these features, you can protect your store’s data and prevent accidental deletions or archiving by unauthorised users.
The user guide contains more technical information on how to use the module properly.
Best Practices for Using the Extension
To get the most out of the Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order Extension, follow these best practices:
1. Regularly Review and Delete Unnecessary Orders
Periodically review your order grid and delete orders that you no longer need, such as canceled or test orders. This practice helps you keep the order grid clean and easy to navigate.
2. Establish a Clear Archiving Policy
Decide on a clear policy for archiving orders. For example, you might want to archive orders that are older than six months or orders that are complete but still needed for compliance or reporting purposes. Automating this process ensures your order grid remains clutter-free without manual intervention.
3. Utilise Automatic Archiving
Set up automatic archiving based on your defined retention period. This setup saves you time and effort by automatically archiving old orders. Additionally, you can restore archived orders if you need them later.
4. Monitor Email Notifications
Regularly check the email notifications for order deletions and archiving. These notifications provide you with a record of what you have deleted or archived, which ensures accountability and transparency across your team.
5. Train Staff on Proper Usage
Train all admins and staff members with access to the extension to properly use the delete and archive features. This training will help them avoid accidentally deleting important orders and ensure they handle archived orders correctly
6. Back Up Data Before Bulk Actions
Before performing bulk deletions or archiving large numbers of orders, it’s a good practice to back up your order data. This will ensure that in the unlikely event of an error, you can restore your data without losing important order information.
Conclusion
The Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order Extension is an essential tool for managing your Magento 2 order grid effectively. By providing advanced order deletion and archiving functionalities, it helps store admins keep their order grid organised, improve store performance, and reduce the risk of errors. Therefore, whether you need to remove irrelevant orders or archive old ones for future reference, this extension offers the flexibility and control you need to streamline your Magento 2 order management.
Key Benefits:
Improved performance: A cleaner order grid means a faster and more efficient admin panel.
Time-saving automation: Automate the archiving process to keep your order grid tidy with minimal effort.
Enhanced control: With user role permissions and customizable notifications, you have full control over who can delete or archive orders.
Ready to take control of your Magento 2 order grid? Download the Magento 2 Delete or Archive Order Extension today and start streamlining your order management process.
