Actinic User Conference - latest [Archive]

cbarling

23-Sep-2009, 03:21 PM

We have now finalised details of the conference and I do feel that we have an excellent line up.

To see details of the latetst confirmed speakers and some new sessions please visit www.actinic.co.uk/userconference2009 (http://www.actinic.co.uk/userconference2009).

We're not full yet, but we're heading that way so please book now if you don't want to be disappointed.

Chris

Rich Brady

24-Sep-2009, 09:29 AM

and be followed by networking drinks until 6:00pm

I think that may be slightly underestimated Chris ;-), you have seen who's going haven't you? *Looks at Tracey & Kathy*

kathynewman

28-Sep-2009, 09:11 AM

I think that may be slightly underestimated Chris ;-), you have seen who's going haven't you? *Looks at Tracey & Kathy*

Hmmm - I'll have you know that I am actually T-Total and as for Ms Hand I wouldn't like to comment as she is currently away and can't defend herself :)

george

15-Oct-2009, 12:12 PM

Will there be an official post with any news regarding the latest v10 additions?

cbarling

15-Oct-2009, 03:02 PM

George, we'll put some more details in the monthly update, which is due before the end of the month.

Chris

Rich Brady

15-Oct-2009, 03:07 PM

Will there be an official post with any news regarding the latest v10 additions?

Are you on twitter? #actinic09 will show you all the posts from yesterday until the monthly update is released.

george

15-Oct-2009, 03:08 PM

Cheers for the reply boss, we'll look forward to it.

george

15-Oct-2009, 03:09 PM

Are you on twitter? #actinic09 will show you all the posts from yesterday until the monthly update is released.

Aye, but the FACTS got suffocated by the nonsense. :eek:

Rich Brady

15-Oct-2009, 03:16 PM

LOL...

Just my take on it:

http://rich-brady.blogspot.com/2009/10/webd-on-actinic-v10s-big-3.html

Mike Hughes

15-Oct-2009, 03:34 PM

I'm looking forward to the post. Seeing Rich's blog, and some other comments I'd heard, there seems to be some confusion about what the RT stock control does and how it works.

Mike

plantsforshade

15-Oct-2009, 04:32 PM

Hi Mike

I understood the talk and demonstration by Ben to be the same as Rich ie that real time stock control will be achieved by your pc being constantly on so connected to the web 24 hours a day, and auto up/download will adjust stock levels on the site. Not by a database being remote from your pc.

I still haven't been able to find out if the Feefo customer feedback is on our site or feefo's ?

Regards

Nigel

TraceyHand

15-Oct-2009, 04:37 PM

ie that real time stock control will be achieved by your pc being constantly on so connected to the web 24 hours a day, and auto up/download will adjust stock levels on the site. Not by a database being remote from your pc.

That's how I understood it. You set it up, in Actinic, almost like a 'scheduled task' to sync it between orders/desktop and the server again.
That was how I understood it, anyway.

rmorrow

15-Oct-2009, 04:40 PM

Stock control will work on the server i.e. when a customer completes an order, their order quantity is reduced from the available stock in the on-line dataset (a file rather than a database). The upload from your PC is there to capture off-line stock changes i.e. MOTO orders, cancellations, stock adjustments, etc. So, no, you won't need to leave your PC on to have real time stock control. The only bit that is still unclear to me is how PSP-Pending orders are handled i.e. is stock reduced at checkout completion or after the callback from the PSP?

Golf Tee Warehouse

15-Oct-2009, 04:43 PM

I still haven't been able to find out if the Feefo customer feedback is on our site or feefo's ?

I believe the feedback is all stored on the Feefo site and you just have a link through to their site to view the site ratings.

A couple of sites that use Feefo and you can see it in action are: http://www.ctshirts.co.uk and http://www.clifford-james.co.uk

The feedback cannot be moderated which is both a positive and negative feature. It will improve customer confidence if it is clear that the ratings are not edited but this could back fire if you have a problem that results in lots of negative comments.

It appears that the Feefo service was originally a free service, they then introduced paid for Pro version and now the free version is no longer.

TraceyHand

15-Oct-2009, 04:53 PM

Ben did confirm that stock adjustments were only made after successful, completed checkout orders so presumably this covers 'payment sent later' type orders (cheques, CC sent separately etc) but not ones that don't ultimately get paid/completed.
I'd be interested to know HOW Actinic knows though?
Receipt page generation is...flaky..at best. Especially with Paypal..but who's to say if it's successful any other way?

Mike Hughes

15-Oct-2009, 05:16 PM

My understanding of the stock control is similar to Richard's. there is an online 'blob' the keeps track of the available stock on the server and is updated in real time.

The 'syncing' with the PC is to keep everything up to date when you alter stock on the PC. For example if you make sales in EPOS or via amazon or ebay.

You can switch off your Actinic PC and the Real Time Stock Control will still work quite happily. This is important as switching a 200W PC off for 12 hours overnight will save almost £100 a year in electricity, not to mention the environment, world, etc.

Mike

TraceyHand

15-Oct-2009, 05:20 PM

that's interesting because I'm sure I heard Ben mention something about setting a frequency of updates?
Maybe this was to sync back from server (which is 'realtime') to desktop so that your OFFline levels are accurate when you look at them.
'twas a long day yesterday. I've slept (and drunk LOL) since then :D

cbarling

15-Oct-2009, 05:26 PM

That's right, the stock will be adjusted online and the syncing is so that EPOS / telephone orders and web orders all share the same stock levels.

The stock synchronisation is new code designed to run fast. When the sync happens, orders will also be downloaded. The user will have a choice on how frequently this runs.

So real time stock will run quite happily on the web site with your PC turned off.

Chris

plantsforshade

15-Oct-2009, 05:31 PM

Thanks for the update I got the wrong end of the stick from Ben saying "you would come in in the morning and all the orders would be already downloaded"

Best wishes

Nigel

Mike Hughes

15-Oct-2009, 05:38 PM

Good. Glad that's settled.

Next item on the agenda: FeeFo.

Not being familiar with them I thought at first they were a company I'd already run across. But no, that was a company called Trustpilot.

So why FeeFo? From what I can see FeeFo has about 120 customers rated and a total of 10,000 reviews over the last year.

Trustpilot has over 50,000 companies rated (including mine apparently) and about 1.5 million reviews. http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/ If you scroll down their page you can see the best and worst rated businesses which looks about right.

Oh, yes. and Trustpilot looks to be about half the price.

They way they work looks very similar so is there something about FeeFo that makes them preferable to TrustPilot?

Mike

Golf Tee Warehouse

15-Oct-2009, 05:48 PM

It looks to me that TrustPilot get a vast majority of the ratings from other sites, (pricegrabber, shopzilla, rreviewcentre, etc), for example ebuyer has 8820 ratings (PriceGrabber=7994, reviewcentre.com=288, TrustPilot users=16)

cbarling

15-Oct-2009, 06:23 PM

We've actually been talking to Feefo on and off for a couple of years, and thinking about working with them. It was around two years ago that the Feefo founder, Bill Cawley, presented to our product management meeting.

It's important with partnerships that the companies are well established here (Trust Pilot doesn't even have a UK office), has appropriate technology, is interested in the market that Actinic addresses and looks like they are succeeding. They also need to be flexible on price so that a great deal can be offered to our own customers.

We feel that Feefo gets a tick in all of these boxes.

I'm sure there were other possibilities, and it's generally not true to say that only one company fits the requirements, but we do feel this will be a very successful initiative.

Chris

malbro

15-Oct-2009, 06:26 PM

I'm sure there were other possibilities, and it's generally not true to say that only one company fits the requirements, but we do feel this will be a very successful initiative.

ChrisDo you have any idea of the sort of price band we are going to be looking at per year?

cbarling

15-Oct-2009, 06:33 PM

Mike Hughes

15-Oct-2009, 06:48 PM

OK. fair enough. I'll hold off a while until we get some more details on the FeeFo proposals.

Mike

PS. Can I just say that I was very impressed by Peter Turner, the CEO of Creditcall. Ok, there wasn't much in the presentation but the man himself came across as someone I would trust with a key part of my business and was enough to finally convince me the move to Actinic Payments is a safe as well as sensible choice.

grantglendinnin

15-Oct-2009, 08:45 PM

I believe the feedback is all stored on the Feefo site and you just have a link through to their site to view the site ratings.

A couple of sites that use Feefo and you can see it in action are: http://www.ctshirts.co.uk and http://www.clifford-james.co.uk

The feedback cannot be moderated which is both a positive and negative feature. It will improve customer confidence if it is clear that the ratings are not edited but this could back fire if you have a problem that results in lots of negative comments.

It appears that the Feefo service was originally a free service, they then introduced paid for Pro version and now the free version is no longer.
Can someone from Actinic confirm if the Actinic user stops paying for Feefo, that the reviews they have gained on their products will not be automatically be removed from the Actinic users site?

Furthermore, as the entire system is held on Feefo's servers, what happens if a review left is abusive - does the Actinic user have to contact Feefo and wait on their response, which could take anything from a few minutes to several days, resulting in loss of trade...?

Darren B

15-Oct-2009, 08:45 PM

the only concern i have with putting my eggs in one basket is what happen if i decide i dont want feefo anymore?

Im guessing all my ratings will be wiped clean, and i bet i wont own the rights to the data either. If i cancel then my site rating is cancelled aswell this i can understand but the lost product reviews would be a PITA. From what i understand the codepath system still gives you access to your data / is stored with actinic.

leehack

15-Oct-2009, 08:59 PM

Can we hold fire on the Feefo pricing for a bit please?

We have got some figures, but it's all so hot off the press that we haven't got everything lined up yet. In fact I only sent the signed contract back this week. If I say too much more, marketing will want to take me out and shoot me :)

Hopefully I can get news out in the fairly near future.

Chris
Come on Chris this is all a bit woolley. You've told us you've been speaking to them for 2 years. You said there would be something exciting to be announced at the conference, it is now announced, people are interested and want to get some fundamental information.

Given you've signed the agreement recently, one assumes you've sorted the pricing out before doing that, so let us know please. If you pander to marketing, you might just lose the interest of a lot of people, whose interest you tried to gain in the first place.

If you announce new things like this, surely you can appreciate people are going to want to know about it immediately. If you can't give that info, surely holding back any mention of the solution is a better idea. Communication seems such a difficult concept with Actinic at times.

Rich Brady

15-Oct-2009, 09:10 PM

guccij

15-Oct-2009, 09:14 PM

As we managed to go out of stock on two normally slow items yesterday while I was at #actinic09, v10 and the new stock control can't come soon enough :)

Benjamin Dyer

16-Oct-2009, 07:36 AM

Personally I would have liked to have seen Ben go deeper into the stock control and feedback issue.

Some sort of demo would have been a great addition. I appreciate that time was sort, but IMO it was an oppertunity to really get my juices going :D

Yes, sorry about that, time was tight on the day, its difficult to cover everything. As Chris mentioned we will be covering how this all works in greater detail very soon.

george

16-Oct-2009, 08:22 AM

Mike Hughes

16-Oct-2009, 08:25 AM

PS Will there be a `next order` button in v10?

I didn't hear it discussed at the conference, George.

Maybe you should have primed me.

Mike

george

16-Oct-2009, 08:30 AM

Hardly a big announcement though eh fella?

Ben : "and by public demand we've introduced a next order button"

Audience : *loud shrieks, screams, general chanting of `Actinic Actinic Actinic` and various people requiring medical attention due to the chaos*

errrr yeah, best keep it quiet for now. ;)

leehack

16-Oct-2009, 08:34 AM

Audience : *loud shrieks, screams, general chanting of `Actinic Actinic Actinic` and various people requiring medical attention due to the chaos*
Now that is what i call funny, that just nearly cost my keyboard a mouthful of cornflakes, woohoo it's Friday and the laughter has began.

cbarling

16-Oct-2009, 08:50 AM

Yeah, thanks George, made me lol too. That's a good start to a Friday.

Chris
(Currently working on answers to some of the other questions)

pinbrook

16-Oct-2009, 09:03 AM

The conference was not designed in any way to be a v10 launch so understandably it didnt get that much of a focus from the Actinic team. It is however an important release so feeding as much information to customers as soon as possible would be a good plan of action.

We've already noticed people being put off by the possible costs so squelching rumours and getting the facts (FACTS) made public will help people decide if its something they want to add to their site via the upgrade.
totally agree george, sadly this is what happens when something is announced ahead of time, people clamour for detail that just isnt there yet. Result? rumour, speculation and mis-information and disapointment.

I've learnt over the years, to take note of new features but pencil them in for implementation at least 6-12 months later. Sad but true.

Hopefully actinic will be able to become more reactive (new featues) with the introduction of an API. Modern day packages seems to benefit from opening up let hope actinic can too

Rich Brady

16-Oct-2009, 09:11 AM

Yes, sorry about that, time was tight on the day, its difficult to cover everything. As Chris mentioned we will be covering how this all works in greater detail very soon.

I understand that you have to cater for the masses and from what we discussed on Wednesday most people asked for clarity on the things that were detailed in Darren's presentation.

Will his presentation next year be glitch free? :D The poor bugger hasn't had much luck so far has he?

TraceyHand

16-Oct-2009, 09:33 AM

Will his presentation next year be glitch free?

what fun would that be? :D

cbarling

16-Oct-2009, 11:30 AM

I'm going to make three separate postings in the next few minutes in the Actinic News conference on three aspects of Feefo - why independent? pricing and how it works. That should keep the discussions more compact.

Chris