Sharing stock Levels Over Two Sites

[SolSearcher]

Is it just me or do other users of Actinic 10 need to be able to share live stock levels over two sites? I really need the live feed stock level facility but Actinic 10 does not support this. I have two sites sharing an excel stock sheet and this seems a bit old hat. I feel that Actinic has raised my hopes with live stock control but left me high and dry with no solution for a shared stock sheet.
I have contacted Code Path and Andy can do a work around but it's just out of my price range (although reasonable for the amount of work he will have to put in for development.)

Are there any plans for Version 10 to address this problem?

[guccij]

Did Actinic ever promise such a thing for v10? I can't remember it at all if they did.

[leehack]

I very much doubt it Jay, it will be something needed quite rarely i'd say and thus not warrant the development time to do it, if indeed it was possible anyway. The process would be fraught with pitfalls.

[SolSearcher]

I just presummed that because a shared stock sheet was avaliable in version 8 that it would be avaliable in Version 10 with the live stock control. I am a bit gutted as I thought there would be more users wanting this feature but obviously not.
I do feel stuck in the dark ages with my stock levels sharing a excel sheet on my hard drive but It's my own doing and trying to manage the stock levels on two seperate sites is impossible for me to do so I'm stuck really.

Sorry for wasting time and making assumptions, just got a bit excited when I read about live stock levels.

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Jay,

You're not alone in thinking this would be a useful feature and I'm also a bit disappointed that Actinic in RTSC mode won't be able to link stock to an external spreadsheet.

Having said that, I can see the difficulty in making it do this and think the RTSC is a better solution even if it does mean I'll now need to import stock levels from my spreadsheet rather than link as I do today.

It is going to be difficult to control stock across more than one website. As far as I can tell, Actinic will control stock in RT on the website and make regular sync calls to the PC to keep up to date with MOTO sales. I have to assume at this stage that the PC stock levels are updated to avoid MOTO sales that can't be fulfilled.

Does anyone know if this means the orders are downloaded to the PC when the sync calls take place or do we still need to click 'download orders' ? It's quite a key issue for anyone who keeps track of stock on a master spreadsheet.

The main question I have is what happens if I do a new 'import' of stock levels from a spreadsheet when Actinic is in between stock 'syncs'? Presumably this will mess up the whole thing which is going to be a bit of a problem.

I would guess there are going to be similar issues for people who link to Sage. i.e. When is going to be safe to update the link without messing up the stock levels?

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

...Does anyone know if this means the orders are downloaded to the PC when the sync calls take place or do we still need to click 'download orders' ?=...

From the help file:
With this option selected, stock levels of stock-controlled products are maintained in real time on the web site as online orders are received, and synchronised with stock levels on the desktop following ‘Retrieve Orders’ and ‘Publish to Web’ or ‘Refresh Website’. This synchronisation can optionally be automated, and stock levels can be displayed on the web site if desired.

[pinbrook]

agreed Mike.

Whilst the RTSC is a great start i have several clients who sell multi channel (several websites, exhibitions, weekly networking events etc)and are desparate for someway to improve SC or at least have an indicator to say where stock is.

[Mike Hughes]

Thanks Duncan,

The key bit is this and what actually happens:

This synchronisation can optionally be automated,

i.e. does it just synchronise the stock levels on the PC or does it download the orders and synchronise?

To keep stock synchronised across muliple sites (and channels as Jo says) we really need to be able to synchronise stock one more level up.

i.e.

1) RTSC on website
2) Stock sync website to Actinic on PC for MOTO orders
3) Stock sync Actinic to master database / EPOS / Sage etc.

It's this third level that's causing the complication as it's not clear how or when this can be done.

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

IMO
I think they are just referring to scheduled tasks in windows and using the command line to initiate a download of orders, which in turn will synch the stock. I don't think you need to do an upload to update the stock with RTSC enabled - I think a download will trigger the synch.

[SolSearcher]

If there are people interested in a software solution to share stock levels over two sites than CodePath would be interested in taking the project on, it could be an extension of their site clone application.

Just can't afford to commision it on my own at the moment.