WooCommerce 3.1

On June 29 a new version of WooCommerce has been released. With over 1600 commits it’s still a minor update and should be compatible with all 3.0 plugins and themes. The update contains a few new features and a lot of improvements.

The main new features are:

CSV Import/Export

The new WooCommerce version allows a CSV file import an export of all product types, including variations, are dealt with in the same CSV file. This new feature needed in the past premium extensions and is now part of WooCommerce. The easy way to import and export data, should enhance the user experience especially for new users coming to the platform.

You can choose what data should be exported and extensions can add extra data fields to the CSV table. The importer can update existing products by ID and SKU, or it can create new products instead.

Extension licenses now in WooCommerce core

To improve the updating process of purchased extensions from WooCommerce.com, all licenses are now stored in the WooCommerce core to help customers to keep their extionsions easier up to date.

Search helpers: WC_Order_Queryclass

For the developers it is now much easier to query orders by multiple props with an extra class. As example for searching for products in a specific date range, this function will gave the results:

$orders = wc_get_orders( array(
    'billing_first_name' => 'John',
    'date_paid' => '2016-01-01...2016-12-31`,
) );

Other changes:

• There is now a checkbox for «terms and conditions» on the checkout slide
• In WooCommerce 3.0 when going to pay for an order assigned to a customer you’re presented with an unfriendly “invalid order” message. Now, you’ll either see a useful message if the order is not yours, or you’ll see a login form if not yet logged in.
• oEmbeds (e.g. to show videos) are now supported.
• You can now set stock statuses for variations in bulk from the edit product screen.
• As admin, you can now use the “Copy from billing address” button to populate a shipping address of an user from the billing address in one click.
• Also the setup wizard was improved.

The upgrade to WC 3.1 should be easy and without issues, but it’s still recommended to test and backup the site before going live. More information can be found in the WooCommerce Blog.