Announcing Version 7.4.2 of
ECinteractive and is.D-Force2

This message covers the following timely topics:

What’s New In This Release?
How Do I Set Up My "Down For Maintenance" Page?

What’s New In This Release?

ECi is loading Version 7.4.2 of ECinteractive™ and is.D-Force® 2 onto your live Web servers Saturday, May 3, 2008 — between 9 PM and 7 AM Eastern Time. This maintenance release includes the following changes, pending final testing:

• Enhanced the SPR Enhanced Catalog feature by automatically filtering the search results to items that only pertain to the General Line catalog. This enhancement streamlines the search results, because duplicate items from other catalogs will no longer be displayed. (7336)
• Corrected an issue with the Sync Departments function in the Account Management page, so that a large customer with many departments does not cause the synchronization process to timeout. (7312)
• Corrected an issue with the Merchandising Product marketing tool, so dealer rankings are retained after the quarterly content load. (7516)
• Corrected an issue with the Pay Invoices page of your shopping site, so that if a customer selects invoices across several pages, their selections are saved when scrolling back and forth between pages. This prevents duplicate marking of invoices to be paid and duplicate payments. (7521)
• Corrected an issue in the Checkout page when the user changes department, so that Account, Department and Attention dropdown lists properly repopulate the Long PO Number field with the Blanket PO value returned from DDMS. (7523)
• Corrected an issue with multiple levels of approvers in the Order Approvals page, so a customer mid-level approver can expand, contract, and edit an order's line item detail. Previously, the next higher level approver would find the previously edited orders displaying as approved, even when the previous approver made no changes. (7661)
• Corrected an issue with the Order Management Page of the Admin Control Panel so that if you delete open or saved orders, it does not affect the display of "approver declined" or "successfully processed" orders. (7672)

This list is not exhaustive. To look up all changes in this release, use Program Updates (www.ddms.com/updates/searchresult2.asp?product=-1&swversion=244&search=Search).

For information and documentation about other features we've released, see also ECinteractive FAQs (www.ddms.com/support/doc/ecinteractive.htm).

How do I Set Up My "Down For Maintenance" Page?

Your Web storefront will be unavailable during these maintenance periods. You can schedule your site to be Offline for Maintenance by following these simple steps:

1. Log into your ecInteractive or is.D-Force2 site’s Administrative Control Panel.
2. (Optional) Click Site News, and then click Page Editor. Create or edit a Scheduled Maintenance page to include some text that will encourage your customers to log off before your scheduled maintenance period begins, so their work will be cached properly.
3. Click Global Settings, and then click Site Maintenance.
4. In the Time Settings box, check your Time Zone and Daylight Savings settings.
5. In the Automatic Scheduled Maintenance box, enter the appropriate times in the Time Off and Time On boxes, in the format HH:MM AM or PM, for JUST Weekend. (Leave the Weekday time fields blank unless you have set them up for your DDMS system maintenance such as backup and day-end.)
6. (Optional) Select your Scheduled Maintenance page, for JUST Weekend. (Leave the Weekday page field blank unless you have set them up for your DDMS system maintenance such as backup and day-end.)
7. Click the Auto Maintenance Mode On button. At the Are You Sure message, check your time settings. If they are correct, click OK.
8. Click the Update button. The changes are implemented within one minute.

NOTE: On Monday after the software update is complete, you may wish to return to these settings, and simply adjust the Weekend time off and on settings, so that your site is not unnecessarily shut down for maintenance on other weekends.

See also your online help (http://images.eci2.com/ecInteractive_adminhelp/Site_Maintenance.htm).

Find Out What's Coming Soon And More

Live Dealer Sites to Date: 332

Current Released Version: 7.4.2

Next Release Version: 7.4.5

Development Status: Quality Assurance Testing

Estimated Release Date: Mid-to-Late May, 2008

In the next few months, the ECinteractive team is releasing more hot priority features to make your Web presence more competitive and efficient in upcoming release versions tentatively slated as follows:

Note: items marked with an asterisk (*) are not new features in is.D-Force2.

• 7.4.5 (for release mid-to-late May 2008)
  Set Catalog Priority in Search Results (5785)
  S.P. Richards Enhanced Catalog and Search now in is.D-Force2 (7379)
  Multi-Department Ordering By Line now in ECinteractive* (3445)
  
• 8.0.0 (for release July 2008)
  Limit shoppers to a contract/laundry list (4539)
  Prefs for categories & lists in Contracts/Laundry Lists/Favorites (6425)
  Move Account News to Home Page (4437)
  Customize home page catalog category display order (3371)
  More home page catalog categories from your suppliers (6424)
  United Stationers Enhanced eContent and Search* (6907)
  Filter Enhanced S.P. Richards Subcatalogs (5175)
  Use HTML for email messaging (6431)
  Approval Order page redesigned like Checkout (6896)
  Let shoppers see their budgets even if they can't edit them (6443)
  
• 8.1.0 (Release date TBD)
  Let shoppers look up RouteTrak delivery signature (3085)
  Let shoppers use Coupons (3270)
  Let shoppers use Jumptech barcode scanners (6906)
  Streamline Item Management (6866-71)
  Rank Your Own Items in SP Richards Enhanced Content.* (5175)
  Approval redesign phase two
  
• 8.2.0 (Release Date TBD)
  Display competitive pricing information in ECinteractive (6900)
  Let shoppers update their machine meter readings online (6902)

As you can see, we have an aggressive development schedule for the remainder of 2008. We have made significant strides in implementing advancements vendors make in content. We continue working with our trading partners, our mutual goal being a better experience in searching and shopping for your customers. 

To find out more about the ECinteractive family of products, see our ECinteractive Product Information (www.eci2.com/products/ecinteractive/), where you can access a demo site, marketing tools, and color themes. You can compare Dealer Station® and ECinteractive features for both your Administrative control panel and your end-user Web storefront.

We hope this information is helpful!

Sincerely,

ECi Product Management & Technical Support
http://support.eci2.com