MITS ExtendedReviews: optimise your shop reviews with this proven module!

MITS ExtendedReviews expands the review system in modified eCommerce Shopsoftware into a powerful, convenient solution for managing and displaying customer reviews.

The module offers modern review management, shop operator comments, verified reviews, helpfulness votes, language-dependent output, flexible star symbols and optional email notifications. Extensive filtering, editing and analysis options provide greater transparency in the frontend and significantly easier management in the admin area.

Manage customer reviews professionally

Standard review management in modified eCommerce Shopsoftware is complemented by a completely new, modern administration page. Existing reviews can be conveniently searched, filtered, sorted, edited and approved.

• Modern review management in the consistent design of MITS modules from MerZ IT-SerVice
• Filter by date, customer, product, language, rating, status and verification
• Free-text search in customer name, product name and review text
• Sortable table view with pagination
• Enable or disable status directly in the overview
• Change verification status directly with a click
• Edit ratings using a convenient five-star selector
• Product image, average rating and number of active reviews in the detail view
• Direct links to the product and customer account

Verified and unverified reviews

Reviews can be marked as verified or unverified. For logged-in customers, the module can automatically check whether the reviewed product was previously ordered through their customer account.

• Automatic checking of new reviews against existing orders
• Manual marking in the admin area
• Retrospective checking of existing reviews
• Batch processing of large review collections
• Optionally mark all reviews as verified or unverified
• Transparent marking and analysis of verified and unverified reviews
• Transparent calculation and display of mixed review collections

Visitors can therefore better understand how the displayed average rating is composed. The module supports transparent presentation of customer reviews, but does not replace individual legal advice.

Public response from the shop operator

The shop operator can add a public response to a review directly in the admin area. The response is clearly highlighted beneath the relevant customer review in the frontend.

• Individual comment for each review
• Comment can be enabled or disabled separately
• Clearly identifiable as a response from the shop operator
• Configurable background, border, text and heading colours

This allows questions to be answered, misunderstandings clarified and constructive criticism addressed directly and transparently.

Helpful or not helpful

Visitors can optionally indicate whether a review was helpful to them. The number of positive and negative votes is displayed directly alongside the review.

• Helpful and not helpful voting
• Updates without reloading the page
• Protection against repeated voting by the same visitor
• Time-limited, session-bound security tokens
• Honeypot against simple form bots
• Session- and IP-based rate limiting against automated mass voting
• No storage of IP addresses in plain text

Multilingual reviews

In multilingual shops, you can specify whether visitors should see only reviews in the currently selected shop language or the entire review collection.

• Optional language switcher in the frontend
• Default mode: “current language” or “all languages”
• Language-dependent review lists
• Review count, star distribution and average rating adjusted to the selected language mode
• Language filter and correction option in administration

Review texts are not translated automatically. Each review remains assigned to the language in which it was saved.

Review filters in the frontend

Visitors can filter the displayed reviews by the number of stars awarded. The number of reviews at each rating level is shown directly on the corresponding filter.

• Show all reviews
• Filter by one to five stars
• Display the count for each rating level
• Combine with the selected language mode
• Consistent display in all supported templates

Flexible star symbols

The appearance of rating stars can be flexibly adapted to the template and its icon library.

Supported options:

• Font Awesome 6 Free
• Font Awesome 5
• Font Awesome 4
• Glyphicons
• Custom star images
• Freely configurable CSS classes for other icon libraries

Custom integration allows you to use Line Awesome, for example, or other icon sets available in the template. Classes for full, half and empty stars, as well as expansion arrows, can be defined directly in the module.

For image-based stars, the file extension to use can be fixed. Supported formats include:

• WebP
• SVG
• PNG
• GIF

Because only the configured file extension is used, no unnecessary file checks occur in the frontend.

Email notifications for new reviews

If desired, the module notifies the shop operator by email as soon as a new review has been saved successfully.

• Notifications can be enabled optionally
• Freely configurable recipient address
• Sending is independent of the customer email setting
• Review text, product, customer and verification status included in the message
• Direct links to review management, the product and, where applicable, the customer account
• Language-dependent HTML, text and subject templates

The module includes its own fallback email templates. These can be overridden safely for updates using files in the active template.

Direct integration into the admin area

Reviews can be accessed through more than the module menu item alone. The module adds appropriate links at important points in the admin area.

• Direct access from product editing
• Average rating and number of active reviews shown for the product
• Expandable display of recent product reviews
• Direct access from the product list
• Direct access from the customer account in the admin area
• Expandable display of recent customer reviews
• Links to customer account, orders, email and voucher management

Average ratings and analysis

The average rating is calculated according to the selected language and verification mode. The module also displays the distribution of one to five stars and the number of verified and unverified reviews.

• Average of all included reviews
• Number of active reviews
• Distribution of one to five stars
• Verified and unverified proportions
• Language-dependent recalculation
• Consistent star output in lists, boxes, filters and product views

Supported templates

Ready-made integration files are supplied for the following templates:

• tpl_modified_responsive
• tpl_modified_nova

Templates differ in structure and presentation. The module therefore includes adapted files and its own CSS rules for each one.

Important: complete template files may only be copied into an unmodified original template. For templates that have already been customised or come from third parties, integration must be performed manually using the supplied installation instructions.

Integration into other templates available at an additional charge

Integration designed to be as update-safe as possible

The module uses the auto-includes provided by modified, its own product class extension module and its own external controllers. The shop's original review pages remain as URL entry points and do not need to be modified directly.

• Installation, updating and uninstallation through the class extension module
• Dedicated database tables and configuration entries
• External controllers instead of modified shop root files
• Auto-includes for admin and frontend integration
• Optional CSS integration through the active template in line with the system architecture
• Switchable CSS fallback for unadapted templates
• Update-safe email template overrides in the active template

Included languages

The module is supplied with language files and email templates for the following languages:

• German
• English
• French
• Italian
• Spanish
• Dutch
• Polish

Key benefits

• Professional management of all customer reviews
• Transparent identification of verified and unverified reviews
• Direct communication through public shop operator responses
• Better guidance for visitors through helpfulness votes
• Flexible display for different templates and icon libraries
• Multilingual output with an adjusted average rating
• Automatic notifications for new reviews
• Convenient links to customer and product data
• Integration designed to be as update-safe as possible, in the style of current MITS modules from MerZ IT-SerVice

MITS ExtendedReviews transforms the basic review function of modified eCommerce Shopsoftware into comprehensive, flexible and transparent review management.