This documentation is based on the latest version of the Magento 1 connector.
How it works
Before using the Magento 1 Verified Reviews module, you must first register on the http://www.verified-reviews.com portal. The information you will be requested to provide during the configuration of your Magento module will all come from your Verified Reviews Customer Account.
The Magento module integrates an API allowing us to communicate with it. Once the module is installed and configured, everything is automatic: Verified Reviews will communicates directly with your e-commerce solution.
- Automatic retrieval of orders and review requests :The module communicates your last orders directly to us. Our platform therefore retrieves the orders for which we must send review requests, according to the configuration set up in the settings explained later in this document.
- Display product reviews on your website : The module allows you to display your collected product reviews on our platform directly on your product sheets and thus reassure your customers about the quality of your products.
- Displaying the Verified Reviews rating widget : You have the possibility to display a floating widget on your website. This widget allows you to display to your visitors your average overall rating from Verified Reviews and thus reassures the potential customer about the quality of your services.
Visuals of the connector
These visuals apply to the default Magento 1 theme.
Home page and category pages
Option 1 - stars and number of reviews in brackets
Option 2 - stars only
Product pages
Stars block
Review box
Option 1 - Full review block
Option 2 - Reduced display
Details of the review block
Installation and configuration of the connector
Installation via Magento Marketplace
Retrieve the module's installation key
- login to Magento Marketplace
- Use the search engine to find the Verified Reviews module or here click to view the module
- Check that this is the version of the module for Magento 1 (M1)
- Click on « Add to cart » and proceed to place your order
- Once the order is placed, click on « Install »
- Create a new key for Magento 1 via the « Create a new access Key ».
- Copy the keys, they will be needed for later.
Installation via Magento Connect
Download the Verified Reviews connector
The module is available from your Verified Reviews account. To access it, simply log on to: http://www.verified-reviews.com and go to "Orders > Our Ecommerce Modules". Click on "Download" to obtain the module and save it on your computer.
Installation of the connector Magento 1
Step 1
The first step is to connect to your Magento administration interface and go to the "Magento Connect Manager" via the "System > Magento Connect > Magento Connect Manager" menu.
After clicking on the "Magento Connect Manager" link, you must authenticate yourself by entering your Username and Password.
Step 2
Once on the "Magento Connect Manager" page, click on "Choose a file" and select the archive you have previously downloaded. Click on "Upload" to install the module.
You should see a message that the connector has been successfully installed.
You can then click on the "Refresh" button to update the contents of this page. The connector will appear in the list of installed modules/connectors.
You can return to your back office by clicking on the "Return to admin" button.
Configuration of connector on Magento
Module menu
The Verified Reviews module can be found in your Magento back-office in the "Catalog > Verified Reviews" menu. As of version 2.9.x, this menu has four submenus:
- Export of orders (CSV file) : Allows you to create a .csv file with the orders of the selected site. For more details, please see the following section section dedicated to this fonctionnality
- Configuration : Allows you to configure the module.
- Verify the installation :Allows you to check the installation status of the module. For more details, please refer to the section dedicated to this functionality
- Google Shopping - Product Data (PLA): Allows you to configure product information to be sent for Google Shopping reviews, mapping product information and attributes (ID, SKU, brand, colour, custom attribute, etc.). For more information, please see the section Configuring data for Google Shopping (optional)..
Configuration
Setting up customer IDs
Once the module is installed, go to the "Catalogue > Verified Reviews > Configuration" section and choose your shop in the top left-hand menu. Two pieces of information are requested, the Secret Key and the Website ID.
To find them, go to your Verified Reviews account and navigate to the "Integration > Configure my Magento module" menu.
On this page you will find the information to be filled in the module in the "Your integration codes" box. Copy the Secret Key and the Website ID.
If you are using the "MultiStore" functionality you need to fill in the Secret Key and WebsiteID for each shop you want to use our module for using the shop list on the top left.
In the screenshots below, both shops are configured on the same Verified Reviews account (same Website ID and Secret Key)
Store 1
Store 2
If you want to use our module for your multi-language shops, you need to create several Verified Reviews accounts for the corresponding countries (each account being linked to a shop).
For example, your website is available in French, Spanish, Italian and English. To benefit from the multilingual configuration you must have an account on each of our platforms:
- https://www.avis-verifies.com/ (FR)
- https://www.opiniones-verificadas.com/ (ES)
- https://www.recensioni-verificate.com/ (IT)
- https://www.verified-reviews.co.uk/ (UK)
The multilingual configuration has the following pattern:
- Each platform collects orders in the language that corresponds to it, which makes it possible to send review request emails in the language of your customer (e.g. on the ES site, the order will be collected on the http://opiniones-verificadas.com platform) and the collected reviews will be in the language of the page.
- FR product pages will then display the reviews collected on https://www.avis-verifies.com, ES pages will display those from https://www.opiniones-verificadas.com/ etc.
In the screenshots below, the French shop is associated with an FR account (idWebsite and Secret Key of the FR account) and the English shop is associated with an EN account (idWebsite and Secret Key of the EN account)
EN store with a key and Website ID of a Verified Reviews UK account
Shop FR with Secret Key and Website ID of an Verified Reviews FR account
Configuration steps :
Customer IDs are entered in the “System Integration” section which allows you to establish a connection between the module and your Verified-Reviews account.
- Select the store to configure
- Paste the Secret Key as well as the website ID.
- Select “Yes” in “Enable Module on this Website” to enable the module on this store.
- Configure the Reviews: Product Page and Reviews: Category Page (Product List) sections
- Only use the “Advanced Configuration” section if you know your site configuration very well
Reviews Section: Product Page
Number of reviews to display in the product sheet
Choose the number of reviews you want to display by default on the product sheet when the page first loads. The other reviews will be hidden, all the visitor has to do is click on “More reviews…” to see them.
The color of the stars
You can customize the color of the stars on your product sheets to better match your graphic chart.
Allow visitors to judge the usefulness of the reviews?
You can add a helpful review button (yes/no) to each review.
Displays a message if the product has no reviews
This option displays the message "No reviews have yet been left on this product" in the event that no reviews have been collected it for it yet..
Activate product Rich Snippets
By activating this option, you will activate Rich Snippets (or rich extracts) on your product sheets.
Rich Snippets are structured data that will indicate to search engines that your product has reviews and will allow them to know the number as well as the average rating.
Rich snippets format: if your theme already includes rich snippets, you must select the same format in the module configuration. After selecting the format, empty the Magento caches and if applicable the server cache too.
How do I check that my rich snippets have been successfully integrated?
Google offers a test tool to check if a web page is eligible for rich snippets, available here Rich Results Test - Google Search Console
Just enter the url of a product sheet with reviews. Google returns errors present in the integration of rich snippets or indicates that the page is indeed eligible for rich snippets by presenting a preview of the result.
Our module is responsible for adding the AggregateRating and Reviews tags and obtaining an effective preview on the Google test tool but cannot completely guarantee the display of rich snippets in browser search results, given that Google considers many other factors (content quality etc.)
Reviews Section: Categories Page (Product Listing)
Display the stars
This option allows you to activate the display of the stars on the product lists (home page, category pages)
Display the number of reviews
This option allows you to add the number of reviews in parentheses after the stars on the display of the category pages
Activate the link that redirects to the Reviews Page
If this option is activated, on the product lists, a click on the stars will redirect to the product page.
Advanced configuration
Size of the stars in pixels at the top of the product page
This option allows you to change the size of the stars at the top of the product sheet under the product name.
Size of stars in pixels for product reviews
This option allows you to change the size of the stars in the reviews tab.
Reduced review display area
This option hides the graphic at the top of reviews. Select "Yes" only if the product reviews are displayed in a small block (for example: 400px., see Block on the right in the image below):
Retrieve parent product ID
Select "Yes" to retrieve data from the parent product instead of the child product
Verify the Installation
This section allows you to see the installation status of the module and offers several options available to fix the module in case of installation errors.
Please do not use this section if you are unsure of which actions to use. If you have any problems with the module, please contact our technical support at the following address : support@avis-verifies.com.
The options available in the advanced section are:
- Install Tables: Reinstalls the module tables.
- Add missing fields : Add the columns of the missing module in the commands table.
- Fix primary key field : Fixes the issue of primary keys for review synchronization.
- Flag orders to 1 : Changes the status of all commands to "already retrieved by the module".
- Check order configuration : Verifies the connection between the child and parent products.
- Reset all module configuration page : Deletes all module configurations.
Google Shopping - Product data (PLA)
This section allows you to map product information to its attributes (ID, SKU, brand, color, custom attribute, etc.).
For more information about configuring data to show reviews on Google Shopping, please see section Configure data for Google Shopping (optional).
Configuration of the connector on Verified Reviews
Access the configuration from your Verified Reviews account in "Integration > Configure my Magento module".
What to do if the "Configure my Magento module" tab does not appear?
If this tab "Configure my Magento module" does not appear, it means that your Verified Reviews account has not been configured for Magento.
To change this you need to go to Config > My Account
Then in the My Certificate > eCommerce Solution box, choose Magento 1
Save the change by clicking on the “Save” button at the bottom of the page.
Retrieving the module configuration
This step will allow you to recover the configuration of your Magento 1 site in order to configure our module according to it.
- Click on "Save website config" to check the connection between Verified Reviews and Magento 1.
- If the success message “The configuration was successfully retrieved.” appears and the square in the right section "Module Status" has green checkmarks, the module is configured correctly.
- Si un autre message apparaît, vérifiez les configurations précédentes et si le problème persiste contactez le support Avis Vérifiés en allant dans : « Config > Accéder au support ».
Multistore configuration
If you have multi-stores under Magento 1, you must fill in the Secret Key and the IdWebsite for each store that you want to be linked to our module.
If you want to use our module for your multi-language stores, you must create several Verified Reviews accounts on the corresponding platforms of each countriy (each account being linked to one of your stores).
When you click on “Save website config”, the list of all the websites and shops of your site appears. Only the shops next to which it says (Current Configuration) are configured for this Verified Reviews account. The identifier of the configured store appears between braces {}.
If it says "(Current Configuration)" to the right of a store that you do not want to configure, go back to the module configuration on your Magento 1 back-office then select the store in question from the drop-down menu at the top LEFT. Delete the Secret Key as well as the Idwebsite and change the option "Enable Module on this Website" to "No" then click again on "Save website" in the Verified Reviews account.
Module configuration options
This step will allow you to configure the module and the review requests. All you have to do is fill out the form by following the instructions. In case of problem, hover over the "?" for help.
Automatic order retrieval
- Activate the automation: Click yes to activate. This is the main condition for starting the automatic collection of your orders.
- When to retrieve orders: You can choose between two options:
- when creating the order by choosing "On order": in this case ALL orders will be recovered (including orders canceled, refunded, etc.).
- via one (or more) specific order status by clicking on "On order status change". If you choose this option, you must select the status(es) in the list of statuses.
Review collection
- Collection of reviews: you can define a delay before the request for review is issued.
- The first part allows you to select the number of days between the time the order is retrieved by our services and the sending of the review request.
- The second part only concerns product reviews. You can choose to separate the sending of review requests to your customers by adding a delay to the sending of the email for product reviews, for example to give the customer time to test the product.
- Example :
- How long after this event should we send the review request? 3 days
- How soon after sending the site review request should we send the product review request? 5 days.
- For an order picked up on the 1st of the month, the brand review request will be sent 3 days later, and the product review request will be sent 5 days later, i.e. 8 days after the order is picked up by our services.
- Example :
- Extension of emails for which not to send review requests: allows by default not to query customers of marketplaces where temporary emails of the type xihdhsi54412@amazon.fr are created for each order. You must therefore fill in the email extensions for which review requests should not be sent (the extension corresponds to what is after the @). We have already filled in some of them, you can add more by separating them with a “; ".
Product options
- Would you like to get reviews on your products? : Check yes to retrieve product reviews (when we retrieve orders, we will include the details of the products ordered and we will ask your customers about all the products they have ordered).
- Do you want to display product reviews on your product sheets? : Check yes to display the reviews on the corresponding product sheets. Every day, we synchronize the latest product reviews that you have collected in your database.
Widget Display
-
Would you like to display the floating widget: If yes, the widget will be displayed on your site.
-
Floating Widget Script: You can paste the code corresponding to the widget you created. See below for more details.
Click on “Send this configuration”. Our platform communicates directly with the module in order to save this configuration.
You are now automated, you can follow the review requests sent to your customers from "Stats > Reporting - Review requests". Your orders will begin to be retreived on the next run of our cron.
First order export (optional)
To quickly obtain your first reviews, the Verified-Reviews module includes an order export feature allowing you to generate a CSV file already formatted on the right structure which can be loaded directly via your Verified-Reviews Customer Area. The first export of orders allows you to generate the first reviews quickly by surveying the customers of your orders already placed.
- Go to “Catalog > Verified-Reviews > Export > Order” to access the export of orders.
If a 404 error appears, you must disconnect and reconnect to your Magento back-office.
- Choose the store or website for which you want to export orders from the menu at the top. “All Store Views” is selected by default, which means you will export orders for all stores in your Magento.
- Orders since: Allows you to choose the order creation period, starting from the current date.
- Add product information: If "yes" then the file will include order product information for the purpose of collecting both your site and product reviews. If you choose "no”, the file will not include any product information and your customers will be polled for site reviews only.
- By clicking on the "Download Order" button at the top right, you will be prompted to download the CSV file.
- The download of the file starts by itself, by default you can find it in your download folder
- Once you have retrieved the generated csv, you can go directly to the order download area here.
- You must upload the csv and associate the fields with the columns of the csv file. Be sure to follow the tutorial and check the information provided before validating the orders import.
If you want to retrieve product reviews, it is the csv product_id column that must be associated with the “Product reference” field. If you don't select the correct column, then the collected product reviews Will not be displayed
If in doubt about the import, do not hesitate to contact our team who will accompany you because this operation will automatically send emails to your customers within minutes of the import in case you didn't add any delay in the sending process.
Automatic retreival of orders.
General procedure
We collect your orders according to the configuration you define in your Verified Reviews account > Integration > Configure my Magento module.
You can track the orders retrieved in your account in Stats > Reporting - Requests for reviews / Requests for product reviews / Requests for delayed product reviews.
By default, when we also retrieve the product details, the product reference is the ID of the parent product in the case of a configurable product and the ID of the child product in the case of a “grouped” type product. If a review is left on the product, this review will be associated with the Magento ID in your Verified Reviews account. Then this review will be synchronized to your site and will be displayed on the product page corresponding to this Magento ID.
Our order retrieval cron runs every 6 hours on your site to check if there are new orders to retrieve.
Parent ID / Child ID Management
Option Retrieve parent product ID enabled
Automatic order retrieval
| Type of product | ID retreived |
| Downloadable | Child ID |
| Simple (without a parent product ID) | Child ID |
| Product sheet of grouped product | Child ID (simple product) |
| Simple product page associated with a grouped product | Child ID |
| Configurable product | Parent ID |
| Bundle | Bundle ID (not the IDs of the products that make up the bundle) |
Review display
| Type of product | Product sheet on which the review appears |
| Downloadable | Product page Downloadable |
| Simple (without a parent product ID) | Simple product page |
| Product pages of grouped products | No display |
| Simple product page associated with a grouped product | Child ID product page (simple product) |
| Configurable product | Configurable product page (parent ID) |
| Bundle | Bundle ID product page (No display on the product pages making up the bundle) |
Option Retrieve parent product ID not enabled
Automatic order retrieval
| Type of product | ID retreived |
| Downloadable | Child ID |
| Simple (without a parent product ID) | Child ID |
| Product pages of grouped products | no ID retrieval on product pages of grouped products |
| Simple product page associated with a grouped product | Child ID |
| Configurable product | Child ID |
| Bundle | Child ID (product compsing the bundle) |
Review display
| Type of product | Product sheet on which the review appears |
| Downloadable | Downloadable product page |
| Simple (without a parent product ID) | Simple product page |
| Product pages of grouped products | No display |
| Simple product page associated with a grouped product | Child ID product page (simple product) |
| Configurable product | No display |
| Bundle | Display on the product pages of child IDs (products making up the bundle) but not on the product sheet of the bundle |
Configure data for Google Shopping (optional)
By default, the module retrieves the following product information:
- Product ID
- Product description (name)
- Product sheet URL
- Product image URL
- Product SKU
To show your reviews on your Google Shopping store, the reviews must have the following data in relation to the products:
- Product ID
- Product description (name)
- Product sheet URL
- Product image URL
- Product SKU
- Product brand
- GTIN_EAN (for EU countries), GTIN_UPC (for the US and CA), GTIN_ISBN ou GTIN_JAN
- Product MPN
If the GTIN is filled in, the MPN is not necessary and vice versa. However, if you have these two data you can map them, otherwise only map either the GTIN or the MPN.
The data of points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are already retrieved by default by the module, so you can leave them as "Not Set".
- Choose the store to configure in the menu at the top "Current Configuration Scope".
- Map fields: the field on the left specifies the data to be mapped and the list on the right shows the available product attributes.
- Press the "Save" button.
- Empty the Magento caches and, if applicable, the server caches to take the configuration into account, otherwise it will not be taken into account.
Here is an example of a mapping:
If the data that has just been mapped “disappears” you will have to empty the Magento caches in order to see them mapped.
If you wish, you can also map other product attributes in information 1 to 10 ("Extra Info1 - Extra Info10"). If you have any questions regarding this point, please contact our support at the following address : support@avis-verifies.com.
Here is an example of extra information mapping:
Display of website/brand reviews
Setting up the Website review widget
You can combine widgets, i.e a floating widget for desktop and another for mobile.
Floating widget that will display on desktop and mobile
Floating widget that will only display on Desktop
Floating widget that will only display on mobile
The widget you have just created is displayed at the top of the page in the “MY WIDGETS” section, click on “Integrate” and copy the code from the first box “Retrieve the widget code” (with some exceptions).
To add the widget script via the module, go to the “Integration” section then “Configure my Magento module” and go down to the “Display of widgets” section.
Select "Yes" for the question "Do you want to display the floating widget?" and paste the script copied previously in the corresponding box.
If you have created different widgets, for example a floating one for Desktop and another for mobile, just copy paste the two scripts one after the other.
Widget Changes
To modify a widget that has already been created, go to the “Integration > Site Widget Integration > My Widgets” section and make the desired modifications to the widget of your choice, then click on “Update”. We have cache on widgets, changes will not appear immediately on your site.
Site Reviews iframe integration
Once you have collected more than three site reviews, you can add an iframe to your site that directly displays the collected site reviews.
Access your Verified Reviews account and click on “Integration > Site Widget Integration” then in the “Vertical iFrame Widget” or “Horizontal iFrame Widget” section.
- Choose the widget you prefer and click on the "Create my Widget" button, then copy the code of the iFrame and paste it in the location of your site where you want to display it. Unlike the widget, the iframe is not sent in the module configuration.
- You can customize a few features of the iframe with the different options presented below the code, then click on the “Update” button.
- If you want to customize the CSS of the iframe, you can add your CSS rules in the “Custom css” block, then click on the “Update” button.
A cache is present on the iframes. Your personalization may not be immediately visible.
Display of product reviews
- In your Verified-Reviews account in the “Integration > Configure my Magento module” menu, the “Product option” section, select “Yes” for the following two questions:
- Would you like to get reviews on your products?
- Do you want to display product reviews on your product sheets?
- Click on “Send this configuration”.
If this is the first time you are displaying product reviews, contact your account manager or Verified Reviews support, a manual synchronization of reviews is required.
For any new product review submitted, you must wait 24 hours to see it appear on your site.
- To check the display of product reviews, go to "Reviews > Product Reviews - Published", choose a review older than 24 hours and check it is displayed on your website. You can click the "small arrow icon" to open the product page directly.
Technical recommendations
Module update
If your module has been customized (overloads, modified module files, etc.), be sure to make a copy of the files before updating and test the update on a pre-production site before updating on your site major.
FAQ
Reviews and/or stars are not displayed
Checking product IDs.
As detailed earlier, the Magento 1 module uses the Magento Product ID as the product reference. You can check in your Verified Reviews account that your reviews are linked to Magento IDs.
To do this, you can go to Stats > Reporting products. You will then see the number of reviews by product reference. If the product references indicated do not correspond to IDs, then we recommend that you make a change of references to replace these references with the parent Magento IDs. Please contact our support team to help you make this change. Following this change of references, we will resynchronize all your product reviews to your site.
First manual synchronization
If it is a module installation and you already have product reviews, request a manual synchronization from Verified Reviews support.
Automatic display of new published product reviews
A published product review in your Verified Reviews account is automatically synchronized the next day to your site.
Other cases
In other cases, here are the steps to follow in the event that the reviews are not displayed:
1. Check the connection between our platform and your website (Verified Reviews account > Integration > Configure my Magento module, you can click on the “Test connection” button or click on “Send configuration”). If you get a failure message, please contact our support team.
2. Check in your Verified Reviews account > Integration > Configure my Magento module that the option "Do you want to display product reviews" is marked as yes
3 .Check if reviews are recorded in your database. To do this, you can go to the “Check installation” section in the module menu in your Magento Back-Office and check that Reviews and Average are not 0. If they are 0, contact the support team to request manual synchronization of reviews
On the product sheets
If the reviews are still not showing you will have to make sure that in your template the code to show the Magento reviews is present. Use the following instructions:
To display the stars at the top of the product page
In the app/design/frontend/{INTERFACE}/{THEME}/template/catalog/product/ folder you must have a view.phtml template. In this template, the following line of code must be present and not commented. This piece of code manages the default display of stars in Magento themes, we also use it through our module.
<?php echo $this->getReviewsSummaryHtml($_product, false, true); //reviews ?>
To display reviews in the product sheet
In the app/design/frontend/{INTERFACE}/{THEME}/catalog/product/ folder you must have a view.phtml template. In this template, the following line of code must be present and not commented. This piece of code manages the default display of reviews in Magento themes, we also use it through our module.
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('reviews') ?>
On the product listing page
In the app/design/frontend/{INTERFACE}/{THEME}/template/catalog/product/ folder you must have a list.phtml template. In this template, the following line of code must be present and not commented. This piece of code manages the default display of stars in Magento themes, we also use it through our module.
<?php if($_product->getRatingSummary()): ?>
<?php echo $this->getReviewsSummaryHtml($_product) ?>
<?php endif; ?>
Average rating, number of reviews, or reviews don't match
In this case please contact Verified Reviews support team requesting a manual review synchronization.
My orders are not being collected
- Check the connection between our platform and your site (Verified Reviews account > Integration > Configure my Magento module, you can click on the “Test connection” button or click on “Send configuration”). If you get a failure message, please contact support.
- Check if the automation is activated in Verified Reviews account > Integration > Configure my Magento module
- Check that your orders to be retrieved have the same status(es) as the one(s) you have selected on your Verified Reviews account in the module configuration page
- Check your module version and/or update your module to the latest version available
- If you get a connection, the automation is enabled, the statuses are correct, and your version is up to date but you still unable to collect your order then you will have to contact our support team.
The site review widget is broken
When the widget is integrated several times on the same site, the stars of the widget disappear.
In this case, please check in your files that you have not hard-coded the widget script, in addition to having sent it from the module configuration page on the Verified Reviews account.
Annexes
Clear Magento caches
Go to the “System > Cache management” menu and click on each of the orange buttons at the top left as shown in the image below:
If you have a server cache, please clear that as well, otherwise changes may not be visible on your Website until the server cache is cleared.
Follow-up on review requests
If you are now automated, you can track review requests sent to your customers from "Review collection > Reporting - Review requests".
You can do a specific search using the filters at the top of the page.
Review Follow up
You can follow your published, moderated and rejected reviews in the "Reviews management" menu.
You can do a specific search using the filters on the left side of the page.