Trying to get S-Mart off the ground but first want to set up a working partner program. The partner would have my banner on his site with a cgi link and PartnerID (QUERY_STRING, i.e., ...?PartnerID) to the html page http://www.checksoftware.com so that the query string is eventually picked up. The email to me would then list the Partner's query string so he could get credit for a sale. Any help would be most appreciated.

-- Dennis Shimkoski (checkin@checksoftware.com), May 25, 1998

Answers

Hi, I have thought about doing this also. I haven't had time to try this but I believe it would work just fine. There is probably a better way but I assume this is the easiest. You have to make copies of three files and modify each one for each new partner. I will use the name joe as an example of a partner.

order.html Modify your order form first by adding a Hidden Field such as Partner = Joe. Save this file as the joeorder.html. This way the name will be sent to you when an order is received.

smart.cfg Leave everything the same but change the $order to joeorder.html. Now change the file name of smart.cfg to joe.cfg.

smart.cgi Browse down until you get to Read in user prefs and change require smart.cfg to joe.cgi. Rename to joe.cgi

Just point Joe to www.yourdomain.com/shop/joe.cgi

This may sound like a lot of work but it would give you the ability to co-brand a version for your Partners by modifying the Headers and Footers in the partner.cfg file. If you wanted to automate the system just pre-modify a bunch of the files with alias partner numbers and sell or give out these numbers. I hope this helps and is understandable. Please E-mail me if you have any questions.

-- John Paulson (webmaster@accentech.com), July 31, 1998.