automation of tasks

[blancbleu]

Hi,

Newbie to e-commerce here.

I'm looking to create some stores and then integrate (pass the orders on) to a company who warehouse stock and fulfil the orders.

Its not practical to keep opening the desktop app and clicking 'download orders' etc.

Are there any libraries (.NET, java etc.) that come with actinic that would allow me to automate a lot of this stuff by writing code to interact with them?

Any other ideas / comments much appreciated.

Tried calling to 'discuss the benfits of working with actinic' but met only with a recorded set of options and don't seem to be allowed technical support until I buy the product! :-(


Also, what are the chances of doing live stock level lookups in a remote database?

Thanks
jon

[garyhay]

http://community.actinic.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=27 has done alot of what you are asking for

[Ben]

Hi Jon

With Actinic Business and Developer you can make use of command line parameters to automate and schedule the downloading and exporting of orders (the application must be open). Orders are exported into .csv files.

Most pre-sales queries are handled by the sales team, but they will happily put you through to the support team if the query is more technical.

Ben

[blancbleu]

ok thanks so far people.

I'll try the Sales option on my next call :-)

[Jan]

I have a program that downloads orders for you at scheduled intervals and emails a copy of the invoice/packing list to a third party. This sounds to me like a good solution for your problem. See

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Actinic_Moles.html (automation moles to collect the orders for you)

and

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Actinic_Batch_Order_Processors.html (batch order processors, sets shipping status, print status and emails reports).

Install both products, set up your batch processing options in the batch order processor program, then select order download and batch order processing in the automation program, set the interval between runs, start the scheduler and away you go.

Both products have a free trial.

If you have any questions please call.

Many thanks,

[blancbleu]

Hi Jan,

Sounds interesting. I will have a look shortly.
Do your solutions need to have the desktop application open for them to function?

Thanks
Jon

[Jan]

The automation products 'drive' Actinic, if it is not open, they open it up (there is an option to close it when finished). You cannot use Actinic while a run is in progress.

The batch order processors work on the Actinic database, if you have actinic open you have to refresh the orders list to see the changes that have been made.

We are in the process of merging the products and selling them as a package rather than as two separate products, this will simplify things quite a bit.

Regards,