Database Orders ​

After a couple thousand orders, your site might start to feel slow when storing orders as entries. However, there is a solution... switching a database.

But wait.. you say. Isn't Statamic a flat-file CMS? The answer is yes but when your site starts to scale, you can run into bottlenecks. Databases have proven to be able to scale well and are easy for querying.

When should I switch to a database?

  • You have a few hundred/thousand orders and you're starting to see performance suffer
  • You need to do some kind of complicated queries against your orders
  • You want to keep your orders out of version control

How it works

So, instead of your orders & customers living as entries in your content folder, they will live in your database. Simple Commerce uses Eloquent in order to talk with the database (Eloquent is a Laravel thing).

Switching to a database

Note!

The following steps assume you already have a database setup. If you don't, please review Laravel's documentation.

The process of switching your site to a database is painless, all you need to do is run a few commands, then you'll be golden.

First, install Runway which will let you manage your customers & orders in the Control Panel.

composer require statamic-rad-pack/runway
composer require statamic-rad-pack/runway

Next, run the "switch command". It'll copy the relevant database migrations, publish Runway's config file and update references in the Simple Commerce config:

php please sc:switch-to-database
php please sc:switch-to-database

Before continuing, you should run the copied database migrations. You can do this by running:

php artisan migrate
php artisan migrate

Finally, if you want to migrate any existing orders or customers, you should run the "migrate command". Make sure you run this command in each of your environments.

php please sc:migrate-to-database
php please sc:migrate-to-database

The above command will not delete any entries or collections. You may do this yourself once you're satisfied with the migration.

Troubleshooting

If you receive an error running the sc:migrate-to-database command, please ensure you've run the sc:switch-to-database command first and that your content array looks like this:

// config/simple-commerce.php
 
'content' => [
    'customers' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Customers\EloquentCustomerRepository::class,
        'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Customers\CustomerModel::class,
    ],
 
    'orders' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\EloquentOrderRepository::class,
        'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class,
    ],
 
    'products' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Products\EntryProductRepository::class,
        'collection' => 'products',
    ],
],
// config/simple-commerce.php
 
'content' => [
    'customers' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Customers\EloquentCustomerRepository::class,
        'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Customers\CustomerModel::class,
    ],
 
    'orders' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\EloquentOrderRepository::class,
        'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class,
    ],
 
    'products' => [
        'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Products\EntryProductRepository::class,
        'collection' => 'products',
    ],
],

If you re-run the command, it should then run as expected.

Control Panel

When you make the switch, Simple Commerce will install Runway, another addon by me (Duncan McClean). Runway is the thing which lets you manage your database records/Eloquent models in the Control Panel.

Runway has it's own documentation site - you may read it if you please.

Custom Columns

There are cases where you may wish to add columns to either of the provided tables: orders/customers. You may do this by simply writing a migration to add a column to the table:

php artisan make:migration AddPickupPointColumnToOrdersTable
php artisan make:migration AddPickupPointColumnToOrdersTable
/**
 * Run the migrations.
 *
 * @return void
 */
public function up()
{
    Schema::table('orders', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->string('pickup_point')->after('gateway');
    });
}
/**
 * Run the migrations.
 *
 * @return void
 */
public function up()
{
    Schema::table('orders', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->string('pickup_point')->after('gateway');
    });
}

You should then run your migrations:

php artisan migrate
php artisan migrate

Once migrated, Simple Commerce will get/set any order or customer data to your custom column, rather than relying on it being saved to the data column.

Customisation

If you need to, there's way to customise/override the Eloquent model used, along with the 'repository'.

The Model

First, in order to customise the Eloquent model, you'll need to create your own version of the Model in your app, then tell Simple Commerce to use that version instead of the default.

  1. Copy the OrderModel/CustomerModel class from inside Simple Commerce into your site's App\Models directory. You will need to also update the 'namespace' of the class.
  2. In your simple-commerce.php config file, replace the model reference with your own:
'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class, 
'model' => \App\Models\Order::class, 
'model' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class, 
'model' => \App\Models\Order::class,
  1. Finally, update the reference to the Order model in the Runway config (config/runway.php):
\DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class => [ 
\App\Models\Order::class => [ 
    // ...
],
\DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\OrderModel::class => [ 
\App\Models\Order::class => [ 
    // ...
],

And there you go... that's you using a custom version of the Eloquent model.

The 'Repository'

  1. Create a repository class which extends the default one provided by Simple Commerce
  2. In your simple-commerce.php config file, with a reference to your new repository:
'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\EloquentOrderRepository::class, // 
'repository' => \App\SimpleCommerce\EloquentOrderRepository::class, // 
'repository' => \DuncanMcClean\SimpleCommerce\Orders\EloquentOrderRepository::class, // 
'repository' => \App\SimpleCommerce\EloquentOrderRepository::class, //

And, in theory: that should be you!