Catalog on one and orders on another machine

[mike_howles]

We are just about getting ready to set the webshop live and are just going through the order processing testing phase.

I have the catalog maintenance on my machine and order processing on a sales machine.

I have done an initial snapshot for the sdales machine which is fine but I just need to know the actual mechanics of how this goes in the future.

e.g. the sales machine will be doing most of the work now and I will be just doing the shop maintenance. If I make changes to the shop, upload the changes to the webshop do I then need to take another snapshot to import onto the sales machine? If I do, how will this affect the order processing/customer accounts set up on the sales machine?

I've taken a look through knowledge base etc and cannot find any definitive answers on this, so for anyone out there who does this could you possibly give me a basic idea of how it works?

Thanks

Mike

[Bruce]

Hi Mike,

Through checking either one of the 'Allow on this PC' options (under 'Business Settings | Options') you can specify whether a particular machine is used just for 'Catalog Maintenance' or just for 'Order Processing'.

This means that one PC can be used to maintain and upload a store to the web site whilst the other machine can be used solely for order processing from that catalog.

To permanently disable the ability to upload from a machine that is processing the orders, remove all the templates from the system (all files of the form Act_*.html)

You do not need to keep carrying over a snapshot to the order processing machine each time you upload new design changes or add / delete products from the catalog. Once the order processing machine is set up with the initial snapshot and all is working well, then that should be just fine.

Kind regards,

[mike_howles]

Brilliant, thanks Bruce.

Mike

[Waggers]

Guys, can I jump in on this thread?

We have User 1 who updates the catalog and processes the orders and
User 2 who just process the orders (usually when User 1 is busy or away).

I've installed Actinic on both PC's but pointing to a directory on the server (f:\Actinic v8\).

Is this safe, and what would happen if both users opened Actinic at the same time (at the moment we make sure one is out before the other is in!)?

Could User 1 be working on the catalog at the same time as user 2 was processing orders?

Richard

[Florian]

Jumping in also....

The reason we've decided against upgrading to Business is because we also use two different machines for design and order download/processing (located at different sites). My understanding is that when new customers place an order which get downloaded by the processing machine, you need to upload again to create their account on the website for when they next want to purchase.

This means that you need to take a snapshot at the processing machine, take it to the design machine, install it and do an upload to get the new customers account up and running. As we are making constant design changes at the design machine we would end up in a constant loop of designing, uploading, downloading, processing, snapshot, installing, uploading, etc....

Stock control is also rendered meaningless as it needs an upload after each order has been downloaded and processed to update the stock levels on the site. We couldn't possibly administrate this in an efficient way.

I also understand that after adding new products to the website you have to take a snapshot and install that on the order processing machine to allow for off-line ordering of new products.

Maybe I've misunderstood the actual mechanics and limitations of a two-site setup, please someone enlighten me!

Regards
Florian

[pnagames]

we would also like an answer to a question in this matter.

we will have the two tasks on separate machines (on different locations as well)

if the one machine updates the shop but the other processes the orders isn't there going to be a problem with orders on the processing machine on products added since the snapshot?

also what happens with stock monitoring?

[RuralWeb]

Split ordering/management effectiveness is dependent on exactly what is being done on by each PC. Generally Ive found that if stock monitoring is involved then it all quickly falls appart. It only really works for the simplest stores ie no stock control, no customer accounts, no auto best sellers/new products.

Getting it to work on more complex sites depends on how much extra work you are prepared to put in.

[Florian]

You're right Malcolm. The only V8 Marketing feature that is updated 'live' at our site is the 'New Products' list. This obviously happens ok as it is generated by the design machine when it uploads updates to our site.

Our Bestseller list needs to be updated manually and we're not running customer accounts or stock control on our site either - these features are simply not manageable if you use split-site operations.

Florian

[clefty]

Our Bestseller list needs to be updated manually

I use split maintenance / order processing and would love to have the auto bestsellers feature.

It would be nice if the best sellers data were uploaded from the maintenance PC
at the end of the orders downloading, rather than during a site upload / refresh.

Will probably cross post this as a "Wish List" suggestion.

[Mark H]

I am running split ordering and site management on one site at the moment (v7 - I presume similar to v8 in this respect). What I am still not sure about is how to bring the two machines TOTALLY back into sync at a certain point in time. In theory, should it usually be good enough to import a snapshot into the orders PC from the site management PC without overwriting orders?

The problem that is muddying the water for me is that I have a habit of holding lots of "non-Actinic" folders and files in the equivalent of "site 1" so that Dreamweaver can find the whole site easily (I tend to bolt Actinic shops into non-Actinic websites), and the first thing I do if I'm moving a site onto another PC (not split) is to copy the whole of "site 1" and then import the snapshot.

Clearly in a split system I can't copy the whole of "site 1" from the site management PC to the orders PC and vice versa, so do I have to import the snapshot from the management PC to the orders PC (without overwriting orders) and then carefully copy over any changed "non-Actinic" folders and files, or is there an easier way to do this? Also, having gone through this process, would the orders PC then be capable of uploading a site identical to the last one uploaded by the management PC?

(In case you're wondering, I have two reasons to want to get this right - the first is to cope with the situation where we are fed up with running two PCs, ie no stock control etc, the second is I'm trying to work out how best to backup the two PC system).

[Mr Bump]

I use split maintenance / order processing and would love to have the auto bestsellers feature.

It would be nice if the best sellers data were uploaded from the maintenance PC
at the end of the orders downloading, rather than during a site upload / refresh.

Will probably cross post this as a "Wish List" suggestion.

I'm going to split the machines one for orders one for site maintenance, my question is if I take a snapshot from the computer with the orders at the end of the day and put it on my usb stick - can you then just import the orders on the maintenance machine? And would the best sellers be updated this way?

[Mark H]

I don't think you can just import the orders onto the maintenance PC as that would be a good answer to my problem, but we'll wait in hope for someone to answer both questions

[Bruce]

Mark,

In theory, should it usually be good enough to import a snapshot into the orders PC from the site management PC without overwriting orders?

This is the correct way to update the order processing PC to what is current on the maintenance PC.

The problem that is muddying the water for me is that I have a habit of holding lots of "non-Actinic" folders and files in the equivalent of "site 1" so that Dreamweaver can find the whole site easily (I tend to bolt Actinic shops into non-Actinic websites), and the first thing I do if I'm moving a site onto another PC (not split) is to copy the whole of "site 1" and then import the snapshot.

In this case you still take over a snapshot to the maintenance PC and then copy over the other external folders to the 'Site1' folder, as if you just place the contents of the maintenance PC 'Site1' into the 'Site1' of the order processing PC then there is every chance that you may loose your order data unless you have a recent backup.

Also, having gone through this process, would the orders PC then be capable of uploading a site identical to the last one uploaded by the management PC?

Yes, you would be able to as a one off, though it would be better to maintain separate back-up's for both instances of the application on a removable or other wise accessible location.

In reality there is no need to update the order processing PC with the info on the maintenance PC, unless you want to use this as a fallback option.

And to answer both your questions on orders

I'm going to split the machines one for orders one for site maintenance, my question is if I take a snapshot from the computer with the orders at the end of the day and put it on my usb stick - can you then just import the orders on the maintenance machine? And would the best sellers be updated this way?

In v8 if you look on the 'File' menu, you should see an option 'Import Orders'. This will allow you to save the catalog.mdb from your maintenance PC to a USB stick and then import the orders into your maintenance PC using the above mentioned method.

Kind regards,

[Mark H]

Thanks Bruce - the last comment sounds like another good reason to go to V8!

[mike_howles]

Just going on from that:

We have been happlily running the shop with virtually no problems.

When it first went live and before any transactions took place I took a snapshot from the maintenance machine and imported it to the orders machine.

Since then I have not done an import though I have done plenty of exports from the maintenance machine (as backups). Incidentally, if we had a complete disaster and the maintenance machine died would a new machine with a new install of Actinic run the same with an import of the last snapshot?

Provided there are no changes to the actual hosting of the shop I cannot see any reason for another import to the orders machine.

In any case, if it was required it could easily be done if there were no unprocessed orders on the orders machine.

Incidentally we are bypassing Actinic order processing as we use an internal accounts/invoicing package. For this we use the data entry sheets which are excellent.

The two girls who do the internet orders have found Actinic much easier to use and it has actually saved them a lot of time and a considerable amount of paper.

On average we process around 200 internet orders per day and it does run sweetly.

Mike