What’s New in Dealer Station 5.08

Friday, Sept. 2, 2005

Dear Dealer Station Customer:

We will load version 5.08 of Dealer Station(R) on Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. We plan to begin the update process at 10:00 PM Eastern Time and anticipate completion by 2:00 AM ET on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005. During this update, your site will be unavailable.

This message describes the new enhancements in Dealer Station 5.08 and explains where to find documentation on how to use them.

You'll find the updated documentation on our Dealer Station Documentation page:

• Dealer Station Admin Manual
• User Manual "Understanding Online Purchasing"

To view the manuals, you will need Adobe® Reader® version 4 or above.

Version 5.08 offers the following enhancements:

Change Center Stage Text.

Your Dealer Station web site includes links to the following pages: Home, News, About Us, and Contact Us. These links appear in the Center Stage area of your web page. We’ve added a new feature to the Site Text page that lets you rename these four links. You can assign them any text that helps your customers more identify the page links. For more information, see Chapter 2: Site Text in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual.

Enter Page Text.

We’ve added a new section to Site Text: Page Text. This area lets you enter page names and title bar labels for the end-user web pages. This includes such pages as Browse Catalog, Zip Order, Returns, Quick Order, Rewards and so on. By displaying a heading on each page, your end-users can quickly determine which page they are on. You can use HTML text for each web page. For more information, see Chapter 2: Site Text in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual.

Edit P/O Budgets.

Previously, if you set the Edit Budgets parameter to Yes, the end-user had access to monthly budgets. If this parameter is set to Yes, we’ve added the ability to let the enduser also have access to P/O Budgets. End-users can now easily switch between the Monthly Budgets page and the P/O Budgets page. They can specify a current budget and next year’s budget per month or per purchase order. For more information about setting the Edit Budget parameter, see Chapter 9: Default User Settings and Chapter 10: User Accounts in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual. For details concerning editing budgets, see Chapter 5: Using the Customer Center in the handout Understanding Online Purchasing as well as the enduser online documentation.

New User Level Parameters.

We’ve added three new user level parameters: Display Matching Machine Tool, Display Zip Order, and Display HP Printing Supplies Site. You can use these parameters to toggle these features on and off for specific end-users. You can set these parameters using the Default User Settings, User Accounts, and Update Users in Mass pages. For more information, see Chapter 9: Default User Settings and Chapter 10: User Accounts in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual.

Display 20 Default Lines on Quick Order Page.

Previously, end-users could click the No. of Blank Order Lines drop down menu to select a number of Quick Order Lines. We’ve changed this process by removing the No. of Blank Order Lines field. The system will now automatically display 20 blank lines by default, instead of just five lines, simplifying the Quick Order window. For more information, see Chapter 3: Using the Order Center of the handout Understanding Online Purchasing as well as the end-user online documentation.

Remove the Prefix Box from the Quick Order Page.

You now have the ability to remove the Prefix box from the Quick Order Page. By removing it, the end-user can enter line items much faster using one field for both the prefix and line item number. To enable this option, we’ve added a new box to the Site Preferences page: Display Prefix Field on Quick Order Page. If you set this box to No, the Prefix box will no longer appear on the Quick Order Page. The end user will need to enter the prefix and item number in the Item Number field without any spaces, PAP33311, for example. In Site Text, two additional boxes have been added for use with Quick Order: Quick Order Prefix and Item Number Combined Text and Quick Order Comments Text. The Quick Order Prefix box lets you enter text that appears above the Item Number field on the Quick Order page. The Comments Text box lets you customize text for the column heading that displays on the Quick Order page. For more information, see Chapter 5: Site Preferences and Chapter 2: Site Text in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual and Chapter 3: Using the Order Center of the handout Understanding Online Purchasing as well as the end-user online documentation.

Improved Unit of Measure Display.

Previously, the item quantity’s unit of measure appeared in an abbreviated format, such as BX, DZ, EA, PK, and so on. We are enhancing the online catalog to display the full text: “box,” “dozen,” “each,” “pack,” and so on. The catalog will also display the quantity per selling unit of measure. For example, 12/BX will display as “12 each per box.” Making this information clearer to your customers will help them decide how many of an item they truly want to order, and cut down on returns due to mistaken quantities. For more information, see the handout Understanding Online Purchasing as well as the end-user online documentation.

Display Catalog Name on Item Detail Page.

The Item Detail page will display the vendor catalog name, just above the catalog’s page number. You add the page number to an item using the new Page Number field in the Item Management page. The catalog name that appears can be changed in the Catalog Management page. For more information concerning changing catalog names, see Chapter 7: Catalog Management. For details concerning adding a catalog’s page number, see Chapter 16: Item Management in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manuall.

More Catalogs Now Available.

The catalog content from HorizonUSA, S.P. Richards JWOD, and United Stationers JWOD is now available on your site. If you want to offer products from these catalogs, make sure you’ve loaded the latest item files from O/PUS into your DDMS Item database. Then use the Catalog Management page to select the catalog you want to add. Remember, it is the dealer’s responsibility to comply with the U.S. federal Javitz-Wagner- O’Day Act as an authorized JWOD distributor. For more information concerning adding catalogs, see Chapter 7: Catalog Management in the handout, Dealer Station Admin Manual.

Correction for Department List.

Previously, if you created or updated a user-level department list, the names in the pull-down menu to your customers would not display properly if the department name was changed. We are correcting this element to be updated automatically when each user logs in.

Correction for Admin Favorites.

We are correcting an issue with the Assign Favorites Lists section of Admin Favorites. If you assign a Favorites list to an account, you should not have to select multiple departments to allow all the account’s users to view the globally assigned list. But if you assign Favorites lists to specific departments, a user who transfers to a new department will see the correct department’s assigned list.

We hope that you find the new features in Dealer Station 5.08 beneficial in growing your e-commerce business.

Sincerely,
ECi Technical Support