How to set up ELEX WooCommerce Request a Quote plugin?

This article intends to provide detailed, step-by-step instructions that’ll help you set up ELEX WooCommerce Request a Quote plugin. Refer to the product page to know more about other various features of the plugin.

With this plugin, you can easily sell the products in wholesale to retail merchants by letting them place orders as ‘quotes’ instead of adding the products into the cart. You can remove or add both the Add to Cart button and Add to Quote or any custom button text for the products on the shop page as well as product pages. 

You can also include products specifically to make them available to order as quotes and exclude some products as well with this plugin. Also, there are options to customize the Request a Quote form for letting the customers place the order. There are options to set an email and SMS notifications to the admin and also trigger email notifications to the customers according to the changes in the quote’s order status.

Overview

Some of the major highlights of the plugin include:

• Add to Quote button: This button is different from the Add to Cart button as the customers can place an order of the bulk amount of products by entering the number of products after choosing them from the shop page or product page.
• Remove Add to Cart: For removing Add to Cart button from the shop page and product pages to display the Add to Quote button. You can also display both buttons at a time.
• Include/ Exclude products: This option lets you include or exclude products individually, based on categories and tags from being available for requesting a quote.
• Include/exclude user roles: Select user roles to enable or disable the ‘Request a Quote’ option for them.
• Custom Templates: This feature will help you to set up a custom template for email, Google Chat/SMS notifications to be triggered to the customers, and admin.

• Custom Request a Quote form: Unlike the usual WooCommerce checkout, you can provide a separate custom form to be filled by the wholesale buyers to place the order.
• Trigger notifications: Options to set up a notification to be triggered to the admin through email, SMS, and Google Chat when a quote is placed.

All these rich features (and many more!) are wrapped up into one solution to serve your WooCommerce wholesale stores or selling products for wholesalers in your online store.

Getting started with ELEX WooCommerce Request a Quote plugin

Read an article to know how to complete the checkout process on ELEX. You can also read how to download, install, activate ELEX plugins.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you can go to the Dashboard > Plugins > Installed Plugins > ELEX WooCommerce Request a Quote Plugin> Settings.

Now let’s get down to configure the plugin.

General Settings

The settings are as shown below.

• Add to Quote Button Text: Add the placeholder text to be displayed on the button to place the quote for the products. By default, it is ‘Add to Quote’.
• Add to Quote Button Color: Choose a color for the ‘Add to Quote’ Button.
• Add to Quote Button Color on Hover: You can choose the color of the Add To Quote button upon hovering over it.
• Add to Quote Button Action: You can choose the action to be performed when the customers click on the Add to Quote button.

• You can choose any two options from the drop-down list.

Open Request a Quote Page: When the customer clicks on the Add to Quote button, they will see a hypertext – ‘Browse the List’. When they click on it, they will be redirected to the Quote page where they can add the number of products, and fill in the details on the form to place the order. 

When the customer clicks on the Add to Quote button, the Browse the List will be displayed as:

If you have chosen the Open Request a Quote Page, you will be redirected to the Quote page:

They can add the quantity they want to order and enter their details for placing the order.

Open in a Lightbox: If you have chosen this option, the products they have selected and the form to place the order will be displayed on a pop-up window. If you have chosen this option, you can enter the custom lightbox width and height.

When the customer clicks to place the quote, the lightbox will appear as the below screenshot:

On the lightbox, the customers can go to their account, search for products, and go to the Cart page using the button on the bottom.

• Add to Quote Success Alert Location: When a customer successfully adds a product to the quote list, an alert message will be displayed in the location you specify.

• Choose Quote List Page: You can choose the page on which quote requests from customers will be displayed on your WooCommerce store. For better clarity for the customers, you can leave it as the default page ‘Quotes List’ as the list of quote requests will be displayed on this separate page. You can also display the list on other WooCommerce pages by choosing from the drop-down list.

One important point you should remember is that, if you choose any page other than the default one, you should add the shortcode “ [elex_quote_request_list] “ on that selected page.

For example, I have chosen the Basket page and added the shortcode to its editor dashboard.

After saving it, you can see the Quote requests on the Basket page.

• Quotes List Page Title: You can enter a custom page title here. By default, it is the ‘Quotes List’.
• Disable Quote Request for Unregistered Users: If you have enabled it, the unregistered/guest users cannot place the quote for the products. They will be redirected to the page to register their account.

REST API Settings

In this section, you can enable the REST API for the Quote Request Services. Using REST APIs has a number of benefits, but its ability to make the plugin independent, light, scalable, and able to handle many data types is its major benefit.

• Enable REST API: You can enable this checkbox to enable using REST APIs.

• REST API Token: If you have enabled REST API, the REST API request needs to be approved. For the header key “elex-raq-token,” we must create a token value in order to accomplish this. To produce the token, click “Regenerate.” All API requests will consist of this key and token in the header.

Click Save Changes.

Include and Exclude Products

If you want to include or exclude some products by their name, or the products under specific categories or tags for being available for the quote request option, you can set it up here accordingly. You can also include or exclude user roles for the availability of the ‘Request a Quote’ option from the drop-down list.

If you include products, only those products will be available for requesting the quote. If you exclude products, only those products will be excluded from having the option to request a quote. You can choose the products from the drop-down list.

If you do not choose any products, categories, or tags here for both inclusion and exclusion, all products in your store will be available for requesting the quote. 

Example of inclusion: Here we have enabled the option to include products. And we have chosen a product named “Album” for including it.

After saving it, you can see that only Album has the option to request the quote on the shop page.

Example of exclusion: We exclude a product named ‘Happy Ninja’.

It will reflect on the product page as:

• Include Roles: Include specific user roles to make the ‘Request a Quote’ option available exclusively for them.
• Exclude Roles: Exclude specific user roles to hide the ‘Request a Quote’ option for them.

• Disable Quote Request for Unregistered Users: On enabling this option unregistered users will not be able to request a quote. Guest users can be redirected to the My Account page for registration.
• Include/Exclude products based on stock: Select an option to determine how you want to display the add to quote button based on product availability. The available options are – Show Add to Quote button for all products, Hide Add to Quote button for all out-of-stock products, and Show Add to Quote button only for out-of-stock products.

Setting Up the Form for Requesting the Quotes

You can add the fields to be present in the form for the customers to fill up for requesting a quote. By default, there will be first name, last name, email, phone, and message. You can set each field to be ‘required’ by enabling it. If you do not enable it, it will be displayed as ‘optional’. And also there is an option to remove the fields.

• Submit button Redirection URL: Enter the URL to which the customer will be directed when the form is submitted.
• Submit Button Success Message: Enter the text that will be displayed after the Quote form has been successfully submitted.
• Custom field: You can also add a custom “Connected To” field for your custom form fields. Once added, this field will automatically be attached to the email notification that the customer receives.
• Custom Field Type: You can select from a wide range of field types. We have added Checkbox, Radio, images, and a lot more types in the Form field settings for your convenience.

One point to remember is, always make important fields such as email, and phone number, etc as required.

You can add the type of each field such as text or email, etc, a placeholder text, and the corresponding WooCommrece billing fields.

After saving it, the form will be displayed as the below screenshot:

Notifications

It is important to send notifications to the admin when a request for a quote has been placed by the customers. You can set email, SMS and Google Chat notification to be sent to the administrator. These notifications will contain the details regarding the order and the entered details of the customers as well.

By default, the notification email address will be the admin’s email ID. But you can add multiple email addresses (separated by a comma) to which the notification will be sent.

Below screenshot is an example of an email notification that the admin or the entered email address receives when a customer places an order:

SMS Notification

For triggering SMS notification to the admin, you can enable the SMS notification option and add the required details.

For setting up the SMS notification, you need to sign up to Twilio with your phone number and email ID and get details such as Twilio SID, Token and the Twilio Mobile Number. And you can enter the mobile number to which the notification to be sent when a customer places a request for a quote.

Check the screenshot:

Google Chat Notification

You can also set up a notification to be triggered to the admin’s Google Chat using Webhook URL. When a customer places a request for a quote, a notification will be triggered to the corresponding person’s Google Chat whose Webhook URL you have configured.

To get the webhook URL, go to the Google Chat widget of the person, who should receive the notification. And click on the arrow button beside the person’s or group’s name and choose Manage Webhooks.

And enter a name and avatar URL (optional). Then click on Save.

After saving, you can view the URL and copy it using the copy button and paste on the Webhook URL field on the settings.

After saving the settings, when a customer places an order for requesting a quote, the admin will receive a notification on Google Chat.

Check an example:

Send Notifications to the Customers

It is important to trigger notifications of the order status to the customers in each step of the processing. You can send the notifications to the customers in 3 scenarios. When you have received their request for a quote, approve the quote or cancel the quote. Check the screenshot:

When you receive an order in your WooCommerce store, a notification will be triggered to the customer as:

You can approve or reject the quote from the order page.

You can either approve or reject the quote request and click on Update.

If you have approved it, then a notification will be sent to the customer as in the below screenshot: 

In this notification, they will receive a link to pay- ‘PAY NOW’. After clicking on the link, they can pay you for the quote.

If you have rejected it, a notification will be triggered to the customer as in the below screenshot:

Debug Log: Enable this option to check the SMS and email notifications details such as the subject, address, and mail/message body that are triggered. These details can be found by navigating to WooCommerce > Status > Logs.

Template Settings

With this option, you can change the notification template for email, Google Chat, and SMS notifications sent to admin and customers. You can change and customize the subject, heading, email body, chat body, and so on according to the requirements. Check the below screenshot:

It is easy, as you can find a table with titles and their placeholders on the page. You can simply type the required fields and add the placeholder to the email body. The corresponding value of placeholders will be added dynamically into the email, SMS, and Google Chat notifications.

Note: Please note, @payment_link placeholder can be used only on the ‘approved’ email template which will be sent to the customers after the order is approved by the admin. This is because the customer needs to be directed to the payment only after the approval of orders.

When it comes to emails for both admins and customers, you need to use the HTML tags and you can choose any tags according to your requirements. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with coding and HTML. The tab provides suggestions for all template fields. You can simply refer to them or use the same ones in the suggestions.

You can customize the 3 different emails to the customers separately such as the quote ‘requested’, ‘approved’, and ‘rejected’ emails.
Click Save Changes after configuring the templates.

Check an example:
This is the default email sent to the customer when the admin receives the order.

Here I am changing the templates as in the below screenshot:

I have changed the Email Subject, Heading, and Body as highlighted in the above screenshot.

After saving the settings, the email will look as the below screenshot:

The subject, heading and the body (added address location along with the customer name) has been changed on the new email.

Hide Add to Cart

Hide the ‘Add to Cart button’ for the products on the Shop page as well as the Product Pages when the ‘Request a Quote’ option is available on your WooCommerce store. 

You can display the ‘Add to Cart’ button for specific products based on their category, name, and tags if you hide the ‘Add to Cart’ option for all products in your store. If you want to include specific user roles for the availability of ‘Add to Cart’, select the user roles accordingly. 

 

• Hide Add to Cart (Shop Page): Enable this option to hide the ‘Add to Cart’ option for all products from the shop page.
• Hide Add to Cart (Product Page): Enable this option to hide the ‘Add to Cart’ option for all products from the product page.

If you do not enable this option, the Add to Cart button will be displayed along with the button to request a quote. Check the screenshot:

• Hide Price: Hide the product’s price from the product page, shop page, and quote list page to avoid customers quoting a price to match the minimum price.

• Exclude Products: This option is for including the products from being available to add to the cart based on their category, name, and tags from the drop-down list. Do not get confused, after you enable ‘Hide Add to Cart’ from both shop page and/or product pages, it will be hidden for all products. If you want to exclude specific products and enable the ‘Add to Cart’ option for those products, use this option.

Check the screenshot below for an example of excluding products under the ‘Music’ category.

As per these settings, the plugin will exclude the products under the ‘Music’ category from hiding add to the cart.

Similarly, you can choose user roles for displaying the ‘Add to Cart’ option for them. You can choose the required user roles from the drop-down list. Check the below screenshot:

Check the video below to understand how to hide the Add to Cart button:

To know how to hide the ‘Add to Cart’ button for products based on different conditions, refer to the article – How to Hide the ‘Add to Cart’ Button for Products Based on Different Conditions Through the Request a Quote Plugin?

Minicart icon

Enable AJAX Cart: By enabling this, you can display a quote cart icon on the right side of the page that, when hovered over, shows the updated list of quotes that are added to the cart.

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To explore more details about the plugin, check out ELEX WooCommerce Request a Quote Plugin.

You can also check out other WooCommerce and WordPress plugins in ELEX.