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Hack 96 Negative Feedback Notification

Have a script notify you whenever
you've received negative feedback.

Given the importance of feedback,
especially to sellers, it's a good idea to routinely
check your feedback profile for complaints or comments that should be
addressed, as discussed in [Hack #4].
But doing this every day, especially for sellers who receive dozens
or even hundreds of feedback comments every week, can be a chore.

This script routinely scans your feedback profile and notifies you of
any new negative or neutral feedback you've
received.

#!/usr/bin/perl
require 'ebay.pl';
$localfile = "feedbackalert.txt";
%roles = ('S', 'seller', 'B', 'buyer');
my $rsp = call_api({ Verb => 'GetFeedback',     [1]
DetailLevel => 1,
UserId => $user_id,
SiteId => $site_id,
StartingPage => $page_number,
ItemsPerPage => 1
});
$totalcomments = $rsp->{Feedback}{FeedbackDetailItemTotal};
$oldtotal = 0;
if (-e "$localdir/$localfile") {
open (INFILE,"$localdir/$localfile");
$oldtotal = <INFILE>;     [2]
close (INFILE);
}
$newcomments = $totalcomments - $oldtotal;     [3]
if ($newcomments == 0) { exit; }
if ($newcomments > 200) {
$num_pages = int($newcomments / 200) + 1;
$page_size = 200;
} else {
$num_pages = 1;
$page_size = $newcomments;
}
PAGE:
for (my $page_number = 1; $page_number <= $num_pages; $page_number++) {
my $rsp = call_api({ Verb => 'GetFeedback',     [4]
DetailLevel => 1,
UserId => $user_id,
SiteId => $site_id,
StartingPage => $page_number,
ItemsPerPage => $page_size
});
if ($rsp->{Errors}) {
print_error($rsp);
last PAGE;
}
FEEDBACK:
foreach (@{$rsp->{Feedback}{FeedbackDetail}{FeedbackDetailItem}}) {
my %i = %$_;
($text, $type, $from, $item, $id, $role) = @i{qw/CommentText CommentType
CommentingUser ItemNumber TransactionId FeedbackRole/};
if (($type eq "Complaint") || ($type eq "Neutral")) {     [5]
open (INFILE,"$localdir/$localfile");
while ( $line = <INFILE> ) {
if ($line eq "$id\n") { next FEEDBACK; }
}
close (INFILE);
open(MAIL,"|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t");
print MAIL "To: $selleremail\n";
print MAIL "From: $selleremail\n";
print MAIL "Subject: Negative Feedback Alert\n\n";
print MAIL "A ".$roles{"$role"}.", $from, has left this feedback:\n";
print MAIL "$type: '$text'\n";
print MAIL "regarding this transaction:\n";
print MAIL "$itemurl$item\n";
close(MAIL);     [6]
}
}
}
open (OUTFILE,">$localdir/$localfile");
print OUTFILE $totalcomments;     [7]
close (OUTFILE);

What may seem like an unnecessary extra call at the beginning of the
script (line [1]) is actually quite
necessary to achieve compliance with eBay's
Production Access Rules. This call retrieves a single comment
entirely for the purpose of determining the total number of feedback
comments in the profile, $totalcomments.

The number of new comments ($newcomments, line
[3]) is calculated by subtracting the
previous total ($oldtotal, line [2]) from the current total. Then, all new
comments are retrieved with the second GetFeedback
API call on line [4].

All this needs to be done because GetFeedback
doesn't support the EndTimeFrom
or EndTimeTo arguments (possibly signifying the
dates that feedback comments were left) that are supported by most of
the other API calls discussed in this chapter. Paradoxically, adding
an extra call (line [1]) prevents the script
from issuing too many calls later on. Since the script
doesn't need to download the entire feedback profile
every time, you also don't need to cache feedback,
as eBay suggests.

The script then iterates through the profile and sends an email every
time a new negative or neutral feedback comment is encountered.
Finally, the script records the new total (line [7]).

To automate this script, schedule it to run regularly (every day, every week, etc.), as described in [Hack #17].

See [Hack #91] for a script to notify
you when a user with a negative feedback rating bids on one of your
auctions.