Magento: Add additional product/item attributes in order and invoice emails

Recently I was working with a German client, who wanted to show additional product attribute options in the order and invoice emails due to stricter law for e-commerce in their country. Magento provides basic information in the default email templates, but each store has their unique requirement to show additional information.

I will show you how to add extra product attribute values, along with order item options and custom options in order emails and invoice emails.

Here is the code that should work for order and invoice emails to get additional PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES displayed:

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$productId = $_item->getProduct()->getId(); //for order emails
//$productId = $_item->getProductId(); //for invoice emails
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($productId);
$attributes = $product->getAttributes();

//Get a list of all PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES you want to show in this array...
$dispAttribs = array('hardrive', 'memory', 'processor'); 

foreach ($attributes as $attribute) {    
        $attributeCode = $attribute->getAttributeCode();
        if(!in_array($attributeCode, $dispAttribs)) continue;
        $label = $attribute->getFrontend()->getLabel($product);
        $value = $attribute->getFrontend()->getValue($product); 
        echo "<br /><strong>" . $label . ":</strong> " . $value;
}

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Magento: Difference between order states and statuses

If you are building website in Magento, you may have noticed that there are two columns in sales_flat_order table which are confusing. These are state and status. You might think what is the difference between these two, both having same meaning.

Well, this is not the case. They both are different. State is used by magento to tell if the order is new, processing, complete, holded, closed, canceled, etc.; while Statuses are the one that YOU would be defining at the backend in System -> Order Statuses. Magento displays order STATUSES and not STATES in the backend order detail page to let you know which status is assigned as per your mapping. Remember, multiple statuses can be mapped with one state, while vice versa is not possible. Continue reading »