Order Export

[rmladden]

I am evaluating Actinic. I do not have Bypass Catalog Order Processing checked, but if I export an order it marks it as complete. Also, unless I check Bypass Catalog Order Processing, I cannot use the Export Outstanding report. I want to export payment information for processing without a PSP.

I would think that without Bypass Catalog Order Processing checked, normal order processing would be required for an order to me marked as complete, even if it is exported.

Bob Ladden

[rmladden]

I have played with it some more and it gets more confusing. After exporting, it's marked as complete, even if it has not been paid. If I process a payment, it is still complete. If I delete that payment, it is still complete. But if I then print an invoice, it becomes pending. Why would printing an invoice change it but not deleting the payment?

Bob Ladden

[Jan]

The order will move to completed if

a) it is exported

OR
b) it is fully paid for, the invoice has been printed and it has been shipped

What are you trying to do - if you detail your order processing procedure (or maybe your ideal order processing procedure) then we might be able to make some suggestions.

If you just want credit card details for processing you could print the credit card authorisation report.

Regards,

[rmladden]

Thanks Jan, I've been reviewing your products and I may need some of them.

I want to be my own PSP. I currently process my own credit card payments. This is without Actinic. It is an old primitive procedure.

This is what I would like to happen.
1. Order recieved.
2. New orders exported to CSV files to separate payment system.
3. If credit card charge good, order is marked paid. I can do this manually.
4. Order is marked shipped, invoice (or packing list) printed. Two address labels printed. Automation would be nice.

What I really do not want to do is re-type the credit card number back into the payment system (an old DOS application). I still want to use Actinic's order processing. I can build a file that the payment system will accept from the CSV file.

What do you think?

Bob Ladden

[Jan]

Why don't you write (or have written) an application that would export the payment details into the correct format for your dos app to process. You could then run this on orders that have not been processed as yet and use Actinic in the standard way.

If you want automation then take a look at my automation mole and batch order processing mole, if you use these then you could have them automatically download orders for you, run the program to export the details for your dos program, have it ship the orders, print the details and mark the orders as printed in Actinic. I think this could save you quite a bit of time.

Are you going to print your labels with a label printer or using laser labels - we have software to do both.

Here are some links to the relevant bits of software :-

Automation Moles :
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Actinic_Moles.html

Batch Order Processing:
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Act...rocessors.html

Mailing Labels:
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Mailing_Labels.html

Custom Development:
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Custom_Projects.html

We also have a software library that has some really nice free tools to use with Actinic (see the link at the bottom of the page.

Regards,

[rmladden]

I would like to export directly from Actinic to the format I need, but I don't know how to do that. That is why I wanted to use Actinic's export report.

I see you have an export processor. Does it do CSV too? I could parse XML if I have to.

Does the delivery address labels work with the Actinic Batch Order Processors or only within Actinic?

How would this work?:
1. Export orders using your Export Orders Actinic Batch Order Processor (and format address at the same time)
2. Mark the orders that paid good in the DOS app as paid.
3. Use the Actinic Batch Order Processors to print the invoice, marked shiped, and print mailing labels. I could also do this part manually, but the processor should save time.

Bob Ladden

[Jan]

I would like to export directly from Actinic to the format I need, but I don't know how to do that. That is why I wanted to use Actinic's export report.

You would need to write something to do the export for you - this could be a query in Access that you then export to CSV OR you could have a program to produce the CSV written in something like VB or C++.

I see you have an export processor. Does it do CSV too? I could parse XML if I have to.

This is really to export the order processing reports - I don't think it would do the job you are looking to do.

Does the delivery address labels work with the Actinic Batch Order Processors or only within Actinic?

Mailing labels are not an option in batch order processing, you can use them with Actinic directly or with a program I have called Quick Orders that is about to be released. (more details about quick orders later)

How would this work?:
1. Export orders using your Export Orders Actinic Batch Order Processor (and format address at the same time)
2. Mark the orders that paid good in the DOS app as paid.
3. Use the Actinic Batch Order Processors to print the invoice, marked shiped, and print mailing labels. I could also do this part manually, but the processor should save time.

I think that you have two distinct areas of processing

1) Take the payments

I would suggest two ways to do this

a) Use an automation Mole to download your orders, format the addresses, and export the payment details (the export payment details would be done by running a custom program).

b) Use the format address processor to correct the address format, but run it manually. Then use a MACRO and SQL query to extra the payment details into a CSV, either for a complete day OR for an entered date range.

a) is easiest but b) would be a cheaper option.

2) Process the payments in Actinic.

Then I would suggest processing the orders using a product that we have in development, this is a product called Quick Orders and it gives you an advanced batch style interface for processing Orders, it also allows you to print labels.

It allows you to easily pick out particular orders - eg in your case you might want to find orders that have not had their payment taken, you can then check the ones where payment was sucessfully taken by your DOS app (or check all, and then uncheck the ones that failed) and then print invoices, labels, mark items as shipped, mark items as paid etc.

I have attached a screen shot to this post - the product is ready to release but not actually for sale on my site as yet - so you would be able to use it right away if you wanted to.

Sorry that it took me such a long time to get back to you on this.

Regards,

[rmladden]

I was able to write a SQL query in Excel and outer join the Order and PaymentHistory tables to get the data I need to export. That was not hard.

I am evaluating Actinic. I like the catalog part, but the order processing is primitive. Your Quick Orders product should help a lot. The filter feature would be wonderful. When a customer would call about their order, Actinic has no good way to search for it (customers never have their order number handy). It looks like it will show me the orders I need to see for processing.

Will you have a trial version available soon?

Bob Ladden