Magento - Differentiate Normal orders and orders created programatically - php

Question

I am able to create orders programmatically using my custom module.
I wish to add a flag to differentiate between various types of orders that can be created from admin/websites and orders created from my custom module.
I understand that admin and website orders can be differentiated by
if(!empty($order->getRemoteIp()){
//place online
}
else{
// place by admin
}
However, I still want to differentiate between orders manually placed from admin and orders placed from my custom module.
The following are some solutions I thought of
1) Adding a prefix to the order or order-increment id.
2) Creating a new store during creation of module and add all orders from my custom module using that store. However, I am not sure of what implications this might cause.
3) I am able to change the store name during order creation using
$order->setStoreName('customName');
But, this is not visible in the admin grid or order detail page. I'm guessing they fetch the information for "Purchased From" from the store id.
I am looking for, what could be the best solution from the above, or a better solution if any.
Note: My module is currently compatible with magento v1.4 and above. So I will need a solution that covers most versions.

Answer 1

You could create an order attribute and set it when you create your order.
To create an order attribute you can do like this, in your module folder, in sql/mymodule_setup/mysql4-upgrade-VNUMBER.php:
$installer = $this;
$installer->startSetup ();
$setup = new Mage_Eav_Model_Entity_Setup ( 'core_setup' );
$installer->getConnection()
->addColumn (
$installer->getTable ( 'sales_flat_order' ),
'my_attribute_code', // this is where you set the attribute code
'varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL' );
$setup->startSetup ();
$setup->addAttribute (
'order',
'my_attribute_code',
array (
'type' => 'int', // or text or whatever
'label' => 'My attribute Label'
));
$installer->endSetup ();
Then when dealing with the order, simply use
$order->setMyAttributeCode($value);