Catalog on one and orders on another machine

[richardh9999]

Mark,

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.

I am currently using V7 Business/Developer. To date I have run the maintenance on a separate machine from the orders download and really would like to keep it this way as I make changes to our product base and even to our templates on a daily basis. However I now want to introduce the use of Customer Accounts and possibly Online Stock Control.

It seems to me that if I stay on V7 it would be almost impossible to continue to keep the two main processes separate (unless someone has a brilliant solution that I don't know about but our catalog.mdb file is around 90Mb and rising)

Does the comment above mean that in V8 it is more easy to keep things separate??

Also, is there any simple explanation as to the pro's and con's of snapshot vs. backup vs. export vs. file copy ? I know the safest method is the snapshot export/import but I wonder if 'clever' things can be achieved by using any of the other methods. (It always seems a shame that there is no Orders Merge facility).

What is it in my 90Mb of catalog.mdb that takes up so much space? I only have about 2000 products max. Are the images contained in the catalog.mdb? Surely not?

[Bruce]

Does the comment above mean that in V8 it is more easy to keep things separate??

Yes, you can import orders in v8

What is it in my 90Mb of catalog.mdb that takes up so much space? I only have about 2000 products max. Are the images contained in the catalog.mdb? Surely not?

The images should be in your site folder and not stored in the database. The size could be due to a large number of orders in the database, or unpurged orders/ content. You could try compacting your database 'Housekeeping | Compact Databases | Catalog'. Once done check to see if the database is still that big. If none of the above mentioned contributes to the size of the database, then I would suggest raising a support ticket as we will have to see that database.

Kind regards,

[Carju1]

New 2 pc set up order/maintance processes

Hi All,

I'm in the process of setting up a first actinic shop and have about 200 products on so far (target is 10000 by year end). I'm the IT guy and I need the 'maintence and product update' activities on my pc. I will also need to do stats and stuff on this 'maintenance' pc so will need copies of all orders on at least a weekly basis. 60 miles away is our order fulfilment centre where the orders are all processed and customers contacted and they will have a copy of actinic there, no maintenance should occur from this pc but they will need a fairly uptodate copy of the products for telephone orders to be entered on the system. Everyting between the two locations will need to be sent by email, no stock control is being used but customer info needs to be kept.

We have been testing the way we can work this before it can go live and I appear to have found a way to update the two pc's on a weekly basis but can anyone suggest an easier or way of doing this with smaller files being emailed.

On maintenace pc. Goto Files > snapshot > export site then save file as xyz.acd. Then email this 4MB file to the orders pc.
On Orders pc goto files> snapshot > import site > select the xyz.acd file and then select the "all content" option (NOT orders option).

This appears to fully update the site with all new products etc but nothing on orders.

To send me the weeks orders the 'orders' pc must close Actinic & accept the database backup option. They then email me the backup.mdb file 10MB. I then on the 'maintence' pc Goto files > import orders > select the emailed backup.mdb.

This appears to add and alter all the new orders without changing the actual layout or product bits.

My problem is the size of the files 4mb .acd and 10MB mdb and I only have 2% of the intended product range on so far. Will these files become half a GB size before to long?. Is there another easier way? I tried a few other ways and manged to trash and crash various bits and this is the only way I managed the trick.

Thanks in advance, I know some other shopping carts and am an experience IT person just new to Actinic. Hopefully as I get more experienced with the product I can return the help to others.

Julian

[mike_howles]

That explaination of the method of keeping both PC's completely up to date seems very logical. I may well be inplementing that method myself, or at least trying it.

Ok, I'm intersted here in the size of the snapshot file and the effect a large number of products has on it. As a guide we have around 70 products on our shop and the acd file is running at just below 3Mb.

I take it your two sites are not connected via your network or a VPN connection?

It may be a bit of a pain but I would set up an ftp site so that the files could be ftp'd around, especially as they potentially could get very large. Mainly because emailing them will cause a problem with some mail servers as they tend to limit email attachment sizes.

Mike

[RuralWeb]

To send me the weeks orders the 'orders' pc must close Actinic & accept the database backup option. They then email me the backup.mdb file 10MB. I then on the 'maintence' pc Goto files > import orders > select the emailed backup.mdb.

V8 has an export orders function.

[Carju1]

Mike, For the snapshot I'm at 200 products and its 4MB but the differences could be down to image sizes, layout etc not just product quantity.

No we dont have a VPN or Network but thanks I like the FTP idea as we have about 200MB free on an existing web server and that may be the way to go (if the files don't expand expotentially.)

Malcolm, I spoted that export orders function and tried it. Not sure if it was one of my 'crashed the system' attempts or just plain failed when I tried to re-import it. From what I can see it creates a .csv file. However the import orders function wants a .mbd file.

Also reading the help on it it says "Fully complete the order" so not sure if it will take pending orders or not? I got the impression that that "export order" command was intended to get out your orders so you can use them in some sort of spreadsheet or accounts package rather than to put them back into Actinic. Anyone out there use this option to re-import???

TIA - Julian