Ratings and Reviews

Article Number: 367 | Rating: Unrated | Last Updated: Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 8:49 AM

Purpose:

To explain how to manage and add Product Ratings and Reviews.

The Product Rating system allows you to customize rating categories by which your customers can rate products when they create product reviews. By default, NRO comes with three pre-existing ratings: Price, Quality, and Value.

TIP: The pre-existing ratings will not appear in your front-end (storefront) until you edit them and select Default Store View (see Editing Ratings below).

When reviews are submitted by your customers, and approved by you, the Rating is displayed above the review comments. All Ratings will be averaged and display on all product listing pages (category pages, search results, etc.) and the product information page, with the number of total approved reviews to the right (in some places this number displays in parentheses).

Solution:

Managing Ratings

Editing Ratings in the NRO Admin Panel

Select Catalog / Reviews and Ratings / Manage Ratings .
Click the rating you wish to edit.
You can change the Default Value or leave it as is
In the Default Store View field, enter a unique name for this Rating as it will appear on the front-end (storefront). If you leave the field blank for any Store View, the Default Value will display in the front-end (storefront) of that Store View.
In the Visible In field, select the Store Views in which this Rating will be available for your customers to rate products when they create product reviews.
If you wish, you can alter the Sort Order of the rating. This will determine its position in the list of Rating values available to your customers.
Save your changes.

Adding Ratings in the NRO Admin Panel

Select Catalog / Reviews and Ratings / Manage Ratings .
Click the Add New Rating button in the top right of the page.
In the Default Value field, enter the name of the Rating as it will appear in your Admin Panel.
In the Default Store View field, enter a unique name for this Rating as it will appear on the front-end (storefront). If you leave the field blank for any Store View, the Default Value will display in the front-end (storefront) of that Store View.
In the Visible In field, select the Store Views inw hich this Rating will be available for your customers to rate products when they create product reviews.
Save your changes.

Managing Reviews

The Reviews system allows you to monitor, edit, and delete any product reviews and ratings that have been added to a product. Reviews can be left by any user whether or not they are logged in. Reviews will not display in the front-end (storefront) for other customers to see until you approve them in the NRO Admin Panel. If you wish, you can also add reviews to products from the NRO Admin Panel.

Adding Reviews from the NRO Admin Panel

Select Catalog / Reviews and Ratings / Customer Reviews / All Reviews .
Click the Add New Review button int he top right of the page.
You will be redirected to a list of all existing products in your store. Select the product for which you wish to add a review.
In the Product field, you can see the name of the product you selected. Clicking on the product name will redirect you to that product's page in the NRO Admin Panel.
The Product Rating field will state "Rating isn't Available" until a rating has been submitted and approved.
In the Status field, select whether the Review will be Approved, Pending, or Not Approved. For it to display in the front-end (storefront), it must be Approved.
Enter the name of the reviewer as it will appear in the front-end (storefront) in the Nickname field.
In the Summary of Review field, enter the title of the review as it will appear in the front-end (storefront).
Use the Review field to enter the detailed contents of the review as they will appear in the front-end (storefront).
Save your changes by clicking the Save Review

Editing and Approving Pending Reviews

The process by which customers create reviews is very similar to the process by which they are created in the NRO Admin Panel. Customers, however, cannot edit the Status or Visible In fields. When a customer first submits a review, by default the Status will be Pending and it will appear in the Pending Reviews queue int he NRO Admin Panel. To access this queue:

Select Catalog / Reviews and Ratings / Customer Reviews / All Reviews .
Make changes to any review by clicking Edit int he Action column. Select Approved to remove this review from the Pending Reviews queue and display it in the front-end (storefront). Select Not Approved to remove this review from the Pending Reviews queue without displaying it in the front-end (storefront).
The Visible In field will automatically select the Store View in which this review was submitted. When they are available, you can choose to change, add, or remove Store Views from this list.
You can also edit any of the content of the review.
You may notice there is a field available that was not present when creating a review from the NRO Admin Panel, and it is labeled Posted by . This field describes whether the reviewer was logged in (Customer) or not (Guest) when they submitted the review. It will say Administrator for reviews that you created in the NRO Admin Panel.
Save your changes by clicking the Save Review button.

If you do not need to change the contents of any pending reviews, you can make batch updates to them in order to save time. In the Pending Reviews queue, select the reviews to which you would like to make updates. At the top of the reviews list, you have the option to Select All or Select Visible (reviews currently displaying on the page). Or you can simply check the checkboxes of each review to which you wish to make updates individually. You can see the number of items selected at the top of the reviews list, and it will update each time a checkbox is checked or unchecked. When you have all the desired reviews selected, choose your preferred Action from the dropdown menu at the top of the reviews list. The Actions available are:

Delete - this will delete the selected review(s) from your site when you press the Submit button.

Update Status - selecting this will produce a Status dropdown menu to the right, where you can choose to set the Status of all selected reviews to Approved, Pending, or Not Approved. The status will change when you press the Submit button.

When a review is Approved or Not Approved, it can still be edited. Simply navigate to Catalog / Reviews and Ratings / Customer Reviews / All Reviews , locate the desired review, and click Edit in the Action column. You can make the same edits here that you can in the Pending Reviews queue.

If you wish, you can also subscribe to an RSS Feed of all newly created Reviews. In both the Pending Reviews page and the All Reviews page, there is a link called Pending Reviews RSS . When you click this link, you will be prompted to enter your User Name and Password. These are the same ones that you use to access the NRO Admin Panel. You will be redirected to the RSS page, where you can select which reader you would like to use for receiving this feed.

Putting It All Together

By default, the ratings system uses stars (1 star, 2 stars, 3 stars, etc.). You can use the default star ratings, or change the labels in your storefront using Inline Translations:

Enable Inline Translations under System / Configuration / NCR Retail Online / Translation . TIP : Once you've enabled Inline Translations, go to your storefront and look for the book icon near the upper left corner of the ratings table. Whenever you are editing table headers in an HTMLtable, edit all the table headers using the single book icon for the table usually located in the upper left corner of the table.
Change the default rate categories from 1 star , 2 stars , etc. to Poor , Below Average , Average , Above Average , and Excellent , or other rating categories as desired.
Select Catalog / Ratings & Reviews / Manage Ratings and add a new rating or edit an existing rating.
Change the rating's Default Value – this is the text that displays in your storefront.
Be sure that the rating is visible in the Default Store View .

Eliminating SPAM

You can configure NRO to not allow reviews from Guest customers in an effort to eliminate SPAM through the product pages. The setting is located in the NRO admin panel under System > Configuration > Catalog section > Catalog tab > Product Reviews Panel.