ActiveStock

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2010-04-28T09:58:00.001+01:00

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ActiveDoc 1.0 Release

2009-11-20T22:22:00.002Z

It's here! The tool for creating a printable brochure of your Actinic sections and products is now available for download at www.activestock.co.uk. For just £75, you can produce a professional marketing brochure based on a customisable Microsoft Word template. There's also a free trial version that allows you to try it out before buying (it's limited to 20 products). Some more details are available on the ActiveDoc help page.

As always, please get in touch if you have any questions or comments.

'Sort By' function for long section pages in Actinic - part 2

2009-11-17T20:17:00.009Z

OK, so here goes on how to set up Actinic. First things first, create the dropdown list box at the top of your section list layout (e.g. 'Section page with section name at the top'). You might want to wrap the dropdown with a 'blockif' using a custom variable defined at section level, so you can choose for each section whether to sort or not. This example uses a variable called 'SortSection':


<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22SortSection%22%20%2f%3e">
<div style="float:right; padding-top:15px;">
<select id="sortoption" onchange="sortProducts()">
<option value="Sort">Sort by:</option>
<option value="12">Price Low-High</option>
<option value="21">Price High-Low</option>
<option value="az">Name A-Z</option>
<option value="za">Name Z-A</option>
</select>
</div>     
</actinic:block>

If you've studied the javascript file in Part 1, you'll notice that the 'value' attribute for each tag above is used in an 'if' statement to determine how the sorting behaves. You could, of course, add more sorting options once you're comfortable with how it all works.

Next we need to identify the element of the section page that contains the product list. This may be a <div> element, if you're using a css layout, or in the case of Actinic's default 'Product List with Horizontal Dividers' it may be a table. Either way, you will find it in the Overall Design tab in the List Layout Settings. The first element in the 'Start of List:' box should be given id='Product Table'. This allows the javascript to assign it to a variable and manipulate it.

Now we need to let the javascript find all the products so at the top of the product layout, we add a new div and set id="sort" (remember to also add a closing <\div> tag at the bottom of the layout). After that, the main <div> element containing the product layout needs a special id to include the Product Reference and Product Name variables, separated by a "|".

<div id="sort">
<div class="product_list" id="<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />|<Actinic:Variable Name="ProductName"/>">

The script now has the Product Name in a variable for sorting with. Next we need to dig a little deeper to expose the price. We do that by wrapping some elements around the price variable in your price layout (e.g. Standard Tax Inclusive Price) and setting their id. So, for example:


<div id="sort-<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />">
<div id="<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />|<actinic:variable name="TaxInclusivePrice" />">
<actinic:variable name="PreFormattedPrice" value="Product Price Including Tax" /></div>

The script looks for an element with id="sort-[ProductReference]" and then looks in the first child element and uses its id to determine the product price. Ordinarily, we could have done this in the previous step using the ProductPriceRaw variable, but unfortunately there is currently a bug in Actinic that means that when a product price is changed, the ProductPriceRaw variable for its duplicates is not adjusted accordingly, without using the 'Reset Duplicates' function.

Now, there is one further complication that we need to account for. Some products have their price defined by their components, for example in a dropdown list, and so no price element is displayed on the page for the script to use. To handle this, we set up a custom variable called "LowestOptionPrice" at product level and manually complete it for products where this is the case. (So a product with 2 options at £4.95 and £9.95 would have this variable set to 4.95).
We now need to use this variable in the id for an element in the attribute layout (e.g. Standard Drop Down Attribute):


<div id="Zsort-<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />">
<span id="<actinic:variable name="ProductReference" />|£<actinic:variable name="LowestOptionPrice" />">
<actinic:variable name="AttributeDisplayLabel" />
</span>

Notice the inclusion of the currency symbol (£) before the custom variable, as this would be automatically included in the 'standard' products and is handled by the script.

Finally, make sure the product-sort.js file is stored in your 'Site1' folder and is included in the <head> part of your main layout.


<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="product-sort.js"></script>

Use the preview in Actinic to check everything is working and that your preferred styling has been applied to any new elements. Upload when you're ready to go!

Disclaimer: this requires some reasonably advanced knowledge of how Actinic works and an appreciation of javascript will also help. I'm afraid I can't offer any support with this and if you choose to use it, it's at your own risk!

'Sort By' function for long section pages in Actinic - part 1

2009-10-22T16:14:00.005+01:00

This is something I have just completed for MumStuff and it works a treat! There were lots of little quirks within Actinic that had to be overcome and I thought I'd share how I achieved it. I'm also making the javascript functions available for free, but I'm not offering any guarantees that they will work with your site, so be prepared to tinker if that's your thing!

So, to start with, you can download the javascript file here: download
This contains lots of comments that hopefully start to explain how it works. I'll post Part 2 soon with some more details as to how to set up Actinic.

ActiveDoc progress

2009-10-22T16:04:00.003+01:00

ActiveDoc, the new tool for generating a printable brochure of your Actinic products, is currently under beta testing and will soon be ready to go. Like ActiveStock, it will be licensed on a one copy per website basis and pricing will be a once-only affordable payment.

A new feature that will be incorporated prior to release is an image checking service. This will read all the image filenames and paths from your Actinic database and check that these actually exist on your PC's file system. It will output the results into a text file for you to examine and take any actions, if necessary.

Actinic User Conference 14th October 2009 - review

2009-10-16T11:10:00.003+01:00

Lots of interesting chatter on Actinic Community, blogs, Twitter, etc. about the conference on Wednesday.

It was a useful day and I'm sure every attendee came away with plenty to think about. I was a late call-up to the Customer Panel and was only too happy to talk about how we've used Actinic as MumStuff.co.uk has grown up (with my wife's permission, of course!!).

Most of the chat has centred around the new features list for V10. Obviously, the real time stock control is of interest to me as it performs essentially the same function as ActiveStock. However, I have yet to have it confirmed that the option to allocate stock to PSP-Pending orders or not has been included. This is something that ActiveStock customers requested early on in its development and something I put a lot of effort into solving.

The Feefo review partnership has also caused a lot of discussion. We implemented Soapbox reviews from Codepath last year and have been very happy with it - we're convinced customer reviews increase conversions and generally add to the look and feel of the site. Whether a truly independent 3rd party review database is what merchants really want, I'm not so sure - we'll have to wait and see.

For plug-in developers, I'm sure the announcement about the API was good to hear. But it's very early days and there's no real indication as to what format it will take - just an interface to the Access database or integration into the core Actinic user interface?

In the customer panel I was asked about E-mail newsletter software and recommended Tecmail from Teclan. Its integration with Actinic was the main reason we went with it on MumStuff and it works well - you can find it here: http://www.teclan.com/acatalog/E-Marketing.html

Finally, I had a number of interesting conversations (I guess that's the main point of these conferences!) and these certainly influenced where I might be focusing my attention next:

ActiveDoc (the brochure creation tool) gained quite a bit of interest so I'll get that completed asap
Using Excel for custom invoices - something we do at MumStuff but I hadn't yet considered it as an 'ActiveStock' product, but I will do now
A few other ideas that I'll progress when I can

As always, please get in touch if you'd like to discuss any of my products, custom development or business services.

Actinic User Conference 14th Oct 2009

2009-10-12T21:48:00.002+01:00

Looking forward to this as it will be a chance to put some faces to names. I've also been asked to sit on the Customer Panel (representing mumstuff.co.uk) to answer some questions about how Actinic has been put to good use on that site. If I don't get a chance to fully answer some questions, I'll post some info here after the event.

Creating a brochure of your Actinic products

2009-09-30T11:26:00.004+01:00

Sorry the blog has been quiet recently, but everyone needs a holiday!

Development on the core ActiveStock program has taken a bit of a back seat as I've been working on a new product. "ActiveDoc" is a tool to create an MS Word-based printable catalogue of your Actinic products. It uses a Word 2007 template with a simple table layout and some styles, extracts the sections, products and options from your database and creates a new document for you. You are then free to add a front page, a table of contents and set up the various styles as you see fit. It will hopefully be ready for beta testing in a week or two.

If you want to know more, please get in touch.

New ActiveStock website

2009-08-10T23:24:00.002+01:00

A brand new website dedicated to ActiveStock is now in the public domain! Find out about the products and the services that are now being offered here: www.activestock.co.uk

Version 1.2 now released!!

2009-08-10T23:21:00.002+01:00

The long-awaiting version 1.2 has finally been completed! Here are the release notes:

Release Notes v1.2

Additions to previous release (v1.1) - 23rd July 2009

The PSP Pending order handling option is now managed via a tick box in the Settings tab of the application
ActiveStock now includes the option to trigger Actinic's order download function
A scheduled option has been added to run the process of order downloading and stock file uploading in the background
The Settings tab includes the option to manually set the path to the online store (acatalog) folder required by the ftp server to upload the stock file. This may be necessary when this setting is not available in Actinic's network settings or the website is hosted on a Windows server where a relative path may not work.
The testscipts.pl code has been modified to prevent errors when running on a Windows server where scripts are not necessarily run in the cgi-bin folder.

Version 1.2 nearly ready!

2009-07-16T13:29:00.003+01:00

I've been continuing my custom development work for a client but am now just about ready to release version 1.2. This will include a scheduler for order download and stock data upload. The code is now in testing at www.mumstuff.co.uk and should be made public next week. I'm also in the process of setting up a dedicated website for ActiveStock and so the link to the download page will shortly change.

Custom development

2009-06-23T22:17:00.002+01:00

Core development of the ActiveStock program has taken a bit of a back seat over the last few weeks as I have been concentrating on some custom development for a client. This has involved incorporating ActiveStock into their automated order processing, including integration with Sage and their fulfilment house's Warehouse Management System. Once this is complete, I will return to developing the scheduling for order downloads and stock data uploads.

In the meantime, if you have any custom development requirements related to Actinic stock management or order processing, I'd be more than happy to discuss them with you so please get in touch.

Next developments....scheduled order downloads and stock data uploads

2009-05-20T22:35:00.002+01:00

Now that the Live Stock Level Display javascript add-on has been released, I'm concentrating my efforts on providing a scheduling option for ActiveStock. This will allow you to set a time interval for an order download schedule. If orders are found, they will be downloaded before the ActiveStock file is refreshed from the Actinic database and uploaded. If no orders are found, the stock file will upload in the background without any user interaction. This effectively automates the whole process and any off-line changes in the Actinic stock levels (due to MOTO orders, cancellations, deliveries, etc.) will be picked up and sent to your website seemlessly.

I've sorted out the code for most of this - just need to package it all together and do some testing before it gets released as ActiveStock 1.2....

ActiveStock Live Stock Display Add-on now launched

2009-05-20T21:39:00.002+01:00

The javascript add-on to show live stock levels on your website and replace the Add to Cart button with an Out of Stock message is now available at the download page (see the links to the right of this page). The digital download file contains a new perl script and the javascript file which work with the V7, V8 or V9 version of ActiveStock and Actinic. A comprehensive help file is also included, but if you want to read this in advance you can download it from here. (If you run Windows Vista, check out the post below about permissions for help files...)

As ever, your feedback is most welcome!

ActiveStock v1.1 now released!!

2009-05-13T22:37:00.003+01:00

The new version of ActiveStock is now available for download from the download page on the MumStuff website (see link in the right hand panel). Here are the release notes for this version (also available in the help file):

Additions to previous release (v1.0) - 12th May 2009

ActiveStock now provides the option to allocate stock to PSP pending orders or not, either by reading the corresponding record in the Actinic database for v8.5.2 and above or via a simple settings file ("psp.txt")

In v1.0, ActiveStock assumed that the Actinic site folder was always the default 'Site1' folder. Now the installation process allows the user to choose a different folder if necessary.

The installation process now edits the Actinic template script files rather than the generated files - this removes the possibility of Actinic overwriting the ActiveStock modifications when performing a 'Publish to Web'

As ever, please get in touch if you have any problems with installing or using ActiveStock.

Stock control for PSP Pending orders

2009-05-05T16:53:00.002+01:00

ActiveStock was originally designed to deduct the order quantity from stock as soon as the order was 'completed'. In Actinic terms, this means after all customer details have been collected but before payment has been taken. So, of course, orders that are cancelled at the payment stage (in most cases, at the Payment Service Provider's pages) would still be reducing the stock. For some users, this is not a problem as they would like to have the opportunity to speak to their customer and perhaps reinstate the order. For others, though, it is important that stock is not reduced until payment has been taken. So I investigated how to provide this option in ActiveStock and now have a working solution (it is installed on the MumStuff site so that PSP-Pending orders do not affect stock levels).

It works by including a flag in the uploaded stock file that indicates whether the "Allocate stock to PSP Pending orders" option in Actinic's Business settings has been ticked or not. The order script then reads this flag from the file before deciding whether to immediately deduct stock when an order has been completed or wait for an authorization call-back from the PSP. I have been able to test this with Worldpay and PayPal (the 2 PSPs used for MumStuff) but, of course, I cannot test it for all PSPs so I would like some feedback from other users as to how this solution works for other PSPs.

I will shortly change the download to include this new development as well as making the installation process more flexible. This will allow you to pick the 'Site1' folder and also the installation will modfiy the template script files (OrderScript.pl, ActinicOrder.pm and ShoppingCart.pl) rather than the generated files, thus avoiding the possiblity of Actinic overwriting ActiveStock code for things like network setup changes.

Showing live stock levels

2009-05-05T09:50:00.002+01:00

I have now tested the code for showing live stock levels on V7, V8 and V9 and will soon package it up for download. It will be available as an 'add-on' to the standard ActiveStock package. It will simply be provided as a zip file containing a perl file, a javascript file and some detailed instructions. The changes requred within the Actinic templates are minimal, but there are a lot of options for how you use the javascript. You may want to show stock levels or stock 'status' (e.g. 'Limited Availability' when stock<5), or you might only want to remove the 'Add to Basket' button when a product goes out of stock and not show stock levels at all. With a little bit of javascript knowledge, all these options (and many more!) can be implemented. Of course, I'll offer help where I can with requests about making it work to your requirements.

Check back soon to see when it has been released!

ActiveStock test site now open!

2009-04-18T20:31:00.004+01:00

You can now see ActiveStock in action on a V8 default site at this URL:

http://activestock.mumstuff.co.uk

This includes the latest addition - ajax code to display real-time stock levels and to replace the Add to Cart button (or, in the case of the Stationery page that runs multiple products with one Add to Cart, the Quantity box) with an Out of Stock message when a product's stock level is reduced to zero.

Please feel free to place orders (I won't be delivering anything or chasing you for payment!!) to see it working.

Since you may be tesing it when I'm not available to refresh stock levels from my PC, I've also added the facility to allow you to replenish stock for yourself. To do this, you should enter a URL similar to the following into your browser:

http://activestock.mumstuff.co.uk/cgi-bin/addstock.pl?ref=ST0001&qty=2

This will add a quantity of 2 to the current stock level for the product ST0001 (product references are displayed on the page for most products). However, please be aware that this may cause some unusual behaviour if other testers are simultaneously placing orders or updating stock! But hopefully it will allow you to give it a thorough try-out.

Please come back here to leave me some feedback, or send me an e-mail!

Directory Permissions in Windows Vista

2009-04-15T13:37:00.002+01:00

When performing an upload of the stock file, ActiveStock first writes the file into the directory "Program Files | ActiveStock". If you are running Vista, it may be necessary to adjust the permissions for this directory to avoid "access denied" errors during the upload operation.

Actinic network settings for use with ActiveStock

2009-04-13T22:56:00.004+01:00

Currently, ActiveStock uses the network setup field 'Path from CGI-BIN to Online Store Folder as viewed by the FTP Server' to find the correct folder when sending the stock file by ftp. If you have left this blank (which is often the default), then you may get a 'null' error when trying to upload your stock file. Please enter an appropriate value in this field to get round this error. Possible entries are '/public_html/acatalog/' or '/httpdocs/acatalog/'. Just look at the value entered in the 'Path from CGI-BIN to Online Store Folder' field and remove the '..' at the beginning. Please make sure you leave the '/' at the beginning and end of the entry.

(Note: some users have reported that an extra '/' is required at the begining of this field, so try '//public_html/acatalog/' or '//httpdocs/acatalog/' if you are still experiencing problems.)

Help file in Windows Vista

2009-04-12T12:43:00.003+01:00

Some users have had problems reading the help file after downloading it from the links provided here. You may need to 'unblock' the file so that you can open it. The screenshot on the left shows the 'Properties' for the file - right-mouse click and select Properties, then click on 'Unblock' at the bottom.

Q&A: Can I still set Maximum Order Quantity for products?

2009-04-03T21:24:00.002+01:00

Yes, the modified perl scripts for ActiveStock look at the stock level and the value of "Maximum Order Quantity" for each product and only allow a customer to add up to the lower of these 2 values to their basket. However, please be aware that these 2 scenarios are covered by the same Actinic error messages (in Design Text Go To -1,59 for the error message on the cart page and -1, 60 for the Product page error), so please choose the wording carefully!

Q&A: Could ActiveStock manage stock levels from a common source on more than one website?

2009-04-03T21:12:00.002+01:00

Yes, this could be possible. If the websites are running on the same server then it should be fairly straightforward - all the sites would be able to directly access the uploaded stock file. Of course, they would also have to share the same off-line (i.e. Actinic) stock data source for uploading changes to the stock levels.

If the sites are on different servers then some more involved customistaion would be required so that one site acts as the master and the others issue http calls to the master site to read from and write to the stock file.

Q&A: What happens if your Actinic installation isn't in a "Site1" folder - how does ActiveStock know where to look?

2009-04-02T23:37:00.003+01:00

You're right, ActiveStock is expecting the Actinic installation to be under the My
Documents/Actinic v9/Sites/Site1 folder. It only uses this during installation to take
backup copies of the relevant perl files before creating the modified versions. The best
way around this is to create a Site1 folder temporarily and copy the ao000001.pm,
ca000001.pl and os000001.pl files from your 'real' Site folder in there before running
the ActiveStock Setup file. That should work fine.

ActiveStock on the Actinic Community (click here for link to thread)

2009-04-01T22:52:00.003+01:00

There has been some recent discussions on the Actinic Community forum about ActiveStock. It was good to get some initial feedback, especially from some very experienced Actinic desigers / developers / users.

Also some good pointers for where I should focus my development effort!

I'm now working on a method of dynamically replacing the Add to Cart button with an "Out of Stock" message as soon as a product goes out of stock. I've got this working on a test site and it will soon be up and running on MumStuff.co.uk. The method will also allow live stock levels to be shown in the product pages (although this isn't something we plan to do on our site).

Check back soon for an update on this!