I was surprised not to find a true "on sale" function in ViArt. Many carts I've worked with contain a method to set each product price as "on sale" with a user definable date-range as the criteria when the special pricing starts & stops. Before I request a custom mod, can anyone tell me if I've simply overlooked this feature?

I know of no such function. You can however create coupons for one product with an expiration date e.g £5 off XXXX expires on the date of your choice.
 
There is not as far as I know any way in which to display active coupons.
 
Thinking about it though this would be good if a "active coupon block" was added and available via CMS. As all offers could be configured via a coupon and shown on a page of your choice.
 
Sorry not really a solution at this stage

Thanks for the reply. Your coupon idea is a good one, but I think I'll see if the ViArt team can do a customization for the "sale" feature. My client would like to do 20% off days and other timed sales without the need for any user intervention.

What you're asking for wouldn't necessarily need user intervention.
 
While creating such coupon, you can set it to auto apply, so they won't have to type such coupon code in, the coupon would apply automatically if specification are met.
 
I wouldn't think you would need to custom mod for what you're looking for

That's a great idea Dan! It's a little more admin to setup, but it should do what my client needs. I'll give that a try! Thanks!