Web Order Interface

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Revision as of 13:01, 14 February 2011

The Web Order Interface (WOI) allows you to configure FTD Mercury so orders placed on your Web site are automatically converted to incoming orders in FTD Mercury. When an order from your Web site is sent to your email address, FTD Mercury retrieves that order and translates the email message into an incoming FTD Mercury order. You can then attach the order in Order Entry or Point of Sale.

How the Web Order Interface Works

The FTD development team has created a custom conversion program to work with your Web site and FTD Mercury. When installed, this conversion program allows FTD Mercury to interpret data from orders placed on your Web site and bring them into FTD Mercury.

To set up your system, you will give FTD Mercury the information it needs to access the Internet and your email account. The information your system will need is your Internet connection information, as well as the information for the incoming mail server for your email account and your email login and password. You provide this information so that the system can automatically connect to the Internet, access your email account, and retrieve the orders.

You will also configure your system so that it knows which orders to retrieve from your e-commerce email account. It is recommended that you only use the email account for orders. The system must know which messages are orders, and which are not. You will specify the subject line for the orders that are sent from your Web site to the email address. FTD Mercury only creates orders from email messages with this subject line.

FTD Mercury will be set up so that it automatically connects with the Internet and logs into your email account for a given time interval. The email messages then are translated into incoming orders in FTD Mercury. You will treat the orders just like regular incoming orders, and process the order as normal.

After the orders are retrieved from your email account, they are deleted from your email account. Therefore you will use Order Entry and Message Center to track your orders. If there is an error with an order, the order is sent to an alternate email address (you will specify this address during the setup process).

When a message is created for an order from WOI, FTD Mercury prints a copy of the message to your Mercury printer.

Once WOI is configured, you will need to process orders in FTD Mercury.

Requirements for Your Web Site

Your Web site must meet a certain number of formatting, encryption, and setup requirements before you can set up the Web Order Interface. FTD provides your Web site designer a list of these requirements so that he or she can make modifications to your Web site if necessary. See Web Order Interface Web Site Requirements for a list of these requirements.

Setting Up the Web Order Interface

This section walks you through the Web Order Interface configuration process. It consists of the following steps:

• Before You Begin
• Step 1: Confirm that the License Key is Valid
• Step 2: Set Up Your Mail Server Information in Mercury Administration

Before You Begin

Before you set up the Web Order Interface, you should clean out the inbox of the email address that receives Web orders. If you have order email messages in your inbox that have already been processed, you should delete these before setting up the Web Order Interface; otherwise these email messages will be processed in FTD Mercury and will result in duplicate orders. Orders that are not order-related will be forwarded to your Error inbox (which you will set up later), so you should also delete these before beginning.

Step 1: Confirm that the License Key is Valid

After you purchase the Web Order Interface feature, the Mercury Technology Assistance Center sends you a General (GEN) message that enables the features on your system. The first step is to make sure that the GEN message has turned on the features for you.

To check that the module has been enabled:

1. Double-click Mercury Administration on your desktop.
2. Double-click the Security folder.
3. Click License.
4. Ensure Web Orders is Valid.

Step 2: Set Up Your Mail Server Information in Mercury Administration

After confirming the license key is valid, you must complete the incoming and outgoing mail server information in Mercury Administration.

You must enter your incoming mail server information in this screen so that Web orders can be retrieved from your email account. Your incoming mail server is the server that your Internet service provider (ISP) uses to manage your email account. If you have multiple email accounts where Web site orders are sent to, you can set up multiple incoming mail server accounts.

The outgoing mail server information is required because if there are any errors associated with Web order email messages, the email messages are sent to your error email address (which you will indicate in this screen).

To access the Mail Server screen in Mercury Administration:

1. Launch Mercury Administration.
2. Double-click the Communication folder.
3. Click MailServer.

To complete this screen, you will need the help of your ISP’s technical support department.