Announcing ECinteractive, is.D-force2 Version 9.0.0
This message covers the following timely topics:
What’s New In This Release?
Find Out What's Coming Soon And More
What’s New In This Release?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 — ECi is loading Version 9.0.0 on your live ECinteractive® and is.D-Force® 2 Web servers this weekend. The software update for this major release will take place between 9 PM CST Saturday, April 25, and 6 AM CST Sunday, April 26.
Since this falls within ECi's Standard Weekly Data Center Maintenance timeframe
(www.DDMS.com/support/massfax/dcMtceWindow.htm), it does not require any changes to your Site Maintenance schedule.
Version 9.0.0 includes several enhancements to help you compete with big box stores for Web orders and fulfill your customers' needs more efficiently:
Guest User Checkout Without Having To Register
One of the most often requested usability enhancements is to allow casual visitors to not only shop but checkout — without having to register an account. We have enhanced the Guest User features to allow them to check out using a Guest account, as long as you have enabled your guest account to use credit cards. (3293)
 Guest Checkout differs slightly from the login-authenticated version of the Checkout page:
- It requires an email address for subsequent order verification.
- Guest Checkout will only allow credit cards as the method of payment.
- Guest checkout requires a CAPTCHA response to verify the visitor is human (not a spambot) for security purposes.
- As you might expect, Guest Checkout also prompts for shipping and billing addresses, and provides space to specify attention, short purchase order (P/O) number, and long P/O.
The Order Management page of your Admin Control Panel shows a new sortable, filterable column of email addresses to indicate who ordered through Guest Checkout.
Guest Users may view their orders online — without being able to view other guests' order information. Order History prompts guests for their email address, order number, and bill-to zip code so that these fields can be verified against the backend system. The order record will display the same information as the Guest Checkout confirmation page, and the guest can print, select items to view, or add to the cart.
For details on how to set up Guest Checkout, see your online help or Guest User Checkout and Order History (pdf)
Register Me Enhancements and User Type Templates
 In tandem with the enhanced Guest User Checkout enhancements, you now have new options in Site Preferences to control how new customers open accounts with your business:
- Let users create an online account (it prompts for an existing account number to add a new user).
- Let users open both a backend and online user account (assuming the new user does not belong to a company with an existing account, this prompts for the information necessary to create a backend account, and an email will notify the dealer that new accounts have been added).
- Allow both methods (it prompts the user which method they wish to use) — Recommended!
- (Default) No automatic account creation (it directs the user to fill out the form, which generates an email containing all the information entered to both the prospect and the dealer, who is then responsible for adding this user to both the front-end and backend system.
In addition, you can allow the user to select a user type when they self-register, or simply use a default user type. The new User Types page in the Admin Control Panel allows the dealer to create templates to apply to new users, including (where applicable) location, G/L location, inventory location, printer ID, contracts/laundry lists, lock customer to selected catalogs, route, remarks, dropship, salesman ID, taxable district, discount type/percentage, up to 4 contract IDs, other customer settings, and a 50-character User Type description.
You can also customize certain headers and text fields associated with New User Registration in the Site Text admin page.
When a user who has not logged in attempts to visit the secure Checkout page on your site, the Login page prompts them as usual to enter their credentials before proceeding. Now, this page also gives them the new options to create an account that you have specified. The account registration page prompts them for user name, password, email, security question, and (if multiple are available) user type. Alternatively, your guests can choose "I do not wish to create an account today. Please take me to Guest Checkout."
For details on how to set up user types and Register Me options, and a walkthrough of your customers' experience, see your online help or User Types and Self-Registration (pdf)
Let Users Punchout Orders From JumpTech Barcode Scanners
 We have completed our first project to extend ECinteractive with punchout capabilities. This implementation handles punchout orders with JumpTech:
- Dealers who subscribe to Jump Technologies, Inc. (www.jumptech.com/partners.html) can provide their customers with barcode-enhanced catalogs (full-line or contract) or barcode labels for shelves or print & copy consummables. JumpTech maintains more than 100,000 office products from major wholesalers and buying groups, and lets dealers upload custom item images and details.
- Using a JumpCart™ barcode reader keyfob, customers can scan the barcodes for the items they want.
- Customers install JumpTech client software and configure it once to point to your site URL.
- Your customers simply plug the JumpCart into the USB port of the PC where JumpTech client software is installed.
- The JumpCart software client will prompt to save their username, password, and department number to log in to your site (using special encryption technology). On login, it automatically uploads scanned items into their shopping cart for review and checkout.
- The simplicity of the scan-dock-checkout process reduces order errors. It appeals especially to prospective customers who are decentralizing their procurement process, or who do not yet order online with you due to the number of clicks to place an order.
Note: Contact JumpTech by email sales@jumptech.com or phone 1-888-373-SCAN (7226) for Distribution Partner information (with direct link into ECinteractive/D-Force 2 site), Catalog-On-Demand, and/or a Sales Demo Kit. For technical support of JumpTech scanners and software, email support@jumptech.com or call 651.287.6000.
Because JumpTech uses a simplified form of the standardized cXML format, this project provides a template taking us one big step closer to handling other punchout systems for xml ordering and procurement (such as Ariba). (6906)
View Punchout Log of JumpTech Orders
From the AdminSite menu, you can open a new Punchout Log. This grid shows item and posting detail for XML ordering and procurement systems, including JumpTech.
You can limit to one or more of your ECinteractive/is.D-Force2 sites, punchout partners, customer users, process statuses, item departments, and dates. You can drill down to additional transaction step details and XML text. You can also see items currently being stored in a temporary cart that have not posted to your backend system.
For details on the Punchout Log, see your Admin Control Panel's online help. (9056)
Specify Saturday or Sunday System Maintenance Times
The scheduled maintenance page is designed to prevent logins when you perform back-end business system maintenance such as daily backups or period-ending procedures, and to notify your shoppers a few minutes before the site is scheduled to be down for maintenance, including Web server maintenance. Now you can specify different time and display page settings for Saturday, and different settings for Sunday, instead of just for Weekends. Weekdays settings remain the same. (8068)
Let Some Users View Budgets Without Editing
Now you can let shoppers view Budgets even if they are not privileged to edit them . If the customer's Feature Settings are set to Display the Available Budget, that amount is shown in the ‘My Account’ section of the left-hand navigation bar. If the current user is also allowed to edit budgets, the ‘Available Budget:’ becomes a hyperlink to the EditBudget.aspx page. Clicking the amount will show a callout with the available budget amount, the account and department information, and a PO number if applicable. (6443)
Let Users Search by Invoice
We've enhanced your Order History page so your shoppers can search by invoice number. (6421)
Additional High-Priority Solutions
This list is not exhaustive, and this release has resolved several defect reports that were prioritized due to development scope and/or customer demand.
For the complete list, see Program Updates
(www.DDMS.com/updates/searchresult2.asp?swversion=275&search=Search).
For more details about your Web storefront, see also ECinteractive FAQs
(www.DDMS.com/support/doc/ecInteractive.htm).
Find Out What's Coming Soon And More
In the next few months, the ECinteractive team has an aggressive schedule to release more hot priority features to make your Web presence more competitive and efficient. 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. Log into your Admin Control Panel for more details on the Home page.
To find out more about the ECinteractive family of products, see our ECinteractive Product Information (www.ecisolutions.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.ECiSolutions.com |
