Announcing Version 7.4.5 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 7.4.5 of ECinteractive™ and is.D-Force® 2 onto your live Web servers Saturday, June 14, 2008 — between 9 PM and 7 AM Eastern Time. This release includes the following new features:
Prioritize Your Site's Catalog Providers
 To help eliminate duplicate search results, and speed up retrieval of items, ECi introduces a new ranking index. All the Web catalog content providers are assigned a default rank, with your dealer-customized site-specific catalog at the top. (5785)
The default rankings for ECinteractive sites are shown at left: first your site-specific custom catalog items, then the catalog you specify in Global Catalog Group Management under Global Settings, then the remaining content providers in the order shown.
For is.D-Force 2, the default ranks are your site-specific custom catalog items first, then is.group.
How it works. This ranking determines which unique item SKU is used when global and custom catalogs have the same SKUs in common. For example, if ABC1234 is in both S.P. Richards and United Stationers catalogs, and S.P. Richards is ranked higher than United, your site will display the S.P. Richards categories, product details, and image(s) for that common item. If your custom catalog has ABC1234, and your site name is ranked highest, the site will display the content you entered for that item. Adding new custom catalog items will update this catalog combination index immediately, while other changes will be updated daily outside normal business hours.
How to Do It and Why. A new Admin Control Panel page from the Site Customization menu, Wholesaler Priority Management, allows you to edit those provider rankings. We recommend reviewing the rankings to be sure they match your preferences.
Exception. If your site uses the S.P. Richards Enhanced Search feature, this ranking will not affect Browse categories, Search results, or product detail, since a third-party content repository provides that information. However, the wholesaler priority ranking still drives which content is displayed in MyFavorites, Contracts, Laundry Lists, Web Specials, Preferred Items, and Product Showcases.
Let Users Shop for Multiple Departments by Line
In your back-end system, do you have Customer accounts set up with multiple departments? Just for them, the ECinteractive Admin Control Panel has a new option, previously exclusive to is.D-Force 2.
 In the Features page of Customer Settings, you can check the box to Allow Multi-Department Ordering.
Those users can specify a different department for any line item in the shopping Cart (as shown below) and in QuickOrder. On your back-end system, the resulting order splits into separate tickets for each department. (3445)
Other Changes
For information about all changes in this release, see Program Updates (www.ddms.com/updates/searchresult2.asp?swversion=247&search=Search).
For information and documentation about enhancements we've released, see also ECinteractive FAQs.
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:
- Log into your ecInteractive or is.D-Force2 site’s Administrative Control Panel.
- (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.
- Click Global Settings, and then click Site Maintenance.
- In the Time Settings box, check your Time Zone and Daylight Savings settings.
- 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.)
- (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.)
- Click the Auto Maintenance Mode On button. At the Are You Sure message, check your time settings. If they are correct, click OK.
- 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
Dealer utilization has gained considerable momentum over the last few months.
Transaction Volume: $4.4 million in April, up from $3.6 million in March
Live Dealer Sites to Date: 288
Current Released Version: 7.4.5
Next Release Version: 7.4.6
Development Status: Quality Assurance
Estimated Release Date: Late June 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 (*) do not apply to is.D-Force2.
- 7.4.6 (for release late June 2008)
S.P. Richards Enhanced Catalog and Search now in is.D-Force2 (7379)
- 8.0.0 (for release late 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)
Filter Enhanced S.P. Richards Subcatalogs (5175)
Use HTML for email messaging (6431)
Approval Order page redesigned like Cart with QuickOrder fields (6896)
- 8.1.0 (Release date TBD; due to expanding scope of United Enhanced Content, it has been rescheduled)
United Stationers Enhanced eContent and Search* (6907)
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
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