After Site Change

[janep]

Hi

I hope someone can help me - I suspect I am missing something butI have a problem. We have 2 machines - 1 is setup for us to do all the development work, add new products, etc and to upload to the site - the 2nd is the order machine, just set to process orders.

I have read that the order machine needs to have a copy of the latest catalog on it to process orders correctly BUT what is the best method to transfer the site over

Everything I have tried has wiped all existing orders from the system each time and I cant see a way to avoid this


This means we need to stop orders for 2 weeks in order to do a site update and since we have some new suppliers coming online this can be a big nuisance - right now we should be starting the Xmas cmapaign but as we have a lot of new stuff to go up I cant accept orders until after that and that will be a couple of weeks!

There must be a way to do this!! To update the contents of the site without affecting the orders already in the system

I would be grateful for any/all ideas

Thanks

Jane

www.worldofdreams.net

[skysolutions]

I believe you can do this, by creating a snapshop on the development machine via: File-->Snaphot-->Export site then copying this file to the machine on which you will want to take the orders and here go to: File--Snapshot-->Import site

This should do it without losing your orders.

Hope this helps

[janep]

Snapshot Import Deletes all orders

I have been using the snapshot process to transfer the site/products but everytime it clears down the orders - completed or not

There must be some way to do this - it is stopping me bringing new products online as soon as they are ready - I have to batch them and take the whole site down for a couple of weeks - clear out all orders and then import my new snapshot

This is very close to causing me to look for an alternative to Actinic but i dont want to have to learn a new system if i dont have to

Jane

[cdicken]

When you are importing a snapshot in v7, after the screen where you select the file to import there should be a checkbox labelled 'Overwrite all orders in target installation'.

If you select that box, then all the orders on the downloading machine will be overwritten with the order history from the snapshot. BUT if you don't tick the box, then the order history should be left intact in the download machine.

[janep]

Thanks Chris

I never tick that box but the wretched thing just deletes all existing orders - we were lucky the 1st time and had no open orders but i still cant persuade it to behave properly and darent risk it

I end up not downloading the orders for a period of time and making sure all orders on the system are complete - i do the snapshot as you describe but the existing orders just vanish

Jane

www.worldofdreams.net

[janep]

Hi Chris

A bit more info - I managed to do an update this weekend but lost the orders again - luckily they were all completed/printed

I noticed when I did the last import of snapshot - not checking the box hoping to preserve the orders - that the system did a site upgrade after it imported the snapshot - I didnt ask it to and the 2 machines are running the same version (7.1) of actinic

May be it is this upgrade process that is deleting the orders?

Please help - this is costing us money

Jane

www.worldofdreams.net

[cdicken]

So when you go to 'Help | About' both machines are definitley both on 7.0.1 EGSA? Very odd that a site upgrade should be triggered then.

I have a different approach for you to try, which is to use 'File | Export' on one machine to export all the products, and then use 'File | Import' to import them. You will have to bring in all the relevant images separately, but this should work fine.

The other thing to mention is that you don't need to have a product in th edatabase in order to take an order for it. All the pricing data all comes down as part of the order and no reference is made to the product data in Actinic unless you are using stock monitoring.

[garyhay]

Chris

I do think thier might be a problem with "Overwrite all Orders" as a client of mine suffered the same fate. He was using the latest version of V6

[janep]

More Problems and lost orders

Hi again Chris

I made sure that both machines were definitely using the same version be reinstalling the 7.01 on both and checked the version and now matched

However when I did the snapshot import - although it did not do a site update it deleted my live paid for but not despatched orders!!!!!


Luckily I had printed the invoice/packing slip but I havent been able to send the correct emails to my customers and I have now to track everything by hand on paper.

There must be a way to stop this happening - it seems that at least one other person gets this problem

Thanks

Jane

www.worldofdreams.net

[cdicken]

Jane

This definitely should not be happening and I cannot fathom why it is happening. You need to register an email support question at http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/register.html and have someone try importing your snapshot.

Hopefully this will throw some light on the issue.