ECMS Module
From NewHaven Software Wiki
Contents |
Overview
For a high level overview of order importing with CMS please see our eCommerce Integrations article on this wiki. This article will focus on the details and capabilities of CMS's eCMS Module.
Connecting CMS to Your Website(s)
CMS’s optional eCMS module is used to securely connect CMS to the website(s) of your choice. eCMS uses “Plug-ins” to support the specific needs of each cart. Plug-ins are available from NewHaven Software (one comes with your purchase of the eCMS module) or we can provide API documentation if you’d like to write your own.
The eCMS module provides a single and simple interface in which you can control and schedule the communications between CMS and your sites. For PCI compliance, the eCMS Module will enforce the use of secure connections. See our network diagram and data flow diagram for more clarification.
Here is a list of the high level capabilities of the eCMS module.
- Settings - CMS can store login credentials and assorted settings to facilitate communication directly between CMS and your cart.
- Order Downloads - CMS can connect to the web service hosted with your cart to download orders directly into CMS’s database.
- Download Confirmations - CMS will communicate a list of successfully downloaded orders to the cart so the orders are flagged as downloaded (for carts that support this). Regardless, controls are in place in CMS to protect against processing of duplicate orders.
Status window is displayed during site communications to show the progress of each action and notify you of any processing or connection errors. Even for large amounts of data, this view is scrollable and exportable. Text effects like colors and bold are used to help attract attention to processing exceptions and more noteworthy events.
- Product Uploads - Product information including
- product code/sku
- pricing (normal, sale/scheduled)
- descriptions
- size/color attribute options
- active/discontinued status
- availability, stock levels, date expected back in stock
- weight
This includes both the creation of new products as well as updating existing. In this way you can use CMS to be the master product list for all channels although some cart specific information, such as categories and images, will need to be maintained in each cart. This upload system prevents the need to dual enter product information both in CMS and on your site(s).
- Order Status Uploads - Updating the cart with information about status changes to the order including tracking numbers for shipments.
- Catalog Requests - If you accept requests for a physical catalog on your site, these can be imported into CMS as part of the eCMS communications. Once imported they flow into CMS’s robust catalog fulfillment system making the management of mailing catalogs a breeze.
- Scheduling - You can configure CMS to automatically connect to your carts at the interval of your choosing (in minutes.) You can set this connection interval both for order downloads and a separate interval for product/inventory uploads.
- Timeout controls - You can tell CMS how long to wait for a response from your site before it reports it is non-responsive and times out.
- Products Assignments to Stores - You can choose which of your products should be available online and, if you are running multiple stores, which stores the product should appear on.
Supported Plug-In's
CommerceV3 (CV3) - All versions of CMS
This was the first plug-in built for eCMS and we have a long-standing relationship with CV3 and were their first integration partner. This CommerceV3 Plug-in allows CMS to communicate with your store on order downloads, product/inventory uploads, and order status uploads.
Magento - CMS 9+
We have also written a Plug-in for Magento 1.x that works with our eCMS module. This Magento Plug-in allows CMS to communicate with your Magento store for order downloads, product/inventory uploads, and order status uploads. (Catalog requests do require that a third party extension be added to Magento.)
Magento is an open source solution available in different editions to suit your needs and budget. You can host it on your own web server and use the free Community edition or use their more expensive Enterprise hosted edition. Whichever edition you choose, the CMS Magento Plug-in, working with our Magento extension, will handle the communications with your Magento site.
Magento 2.x is not yet supported but we are currently researching our integration options with the intent of supporting it in the future. As of now there is no end of life date on Magento 1.x and they say they will give at least 18 months lead time on the end of life. See this page for more info.
Volusion (beta) - CMS TEN+
Generic File Based - CMS TEN+
If your eCommerce solution does not provide a web service that CMS can connect to, you may still have automation options available to you. With our generic file based plug-in, CMS can connect to FTP to download a file of your orders and import them if they are in our XML format. If they are not in our XML format, a custom transform (XSL) can be written to convert your site's XML into ours and it will work in conjunction with the plug-in so the import is a one step process (and can be scheduled). Likewise, the same can be done for posting order status updates back to FTP, for example.
CMS can be configured to look for files with a particular naming convention (using wildcards) in the FTP directory. CMS will not, however, remove those files from FTP so you will need to develop an outside process or procedure to clear these to minimize PCI implications.
CMS can also be configured to post order status files back to FTP either in CMS's XML format or use a local transform (as above) to convert to your site's expected format.
Amazon - CMS TEN+
Intro
Working with Amazon and their Marketplace is a bit different than orders from your own website and it will be helpful to articulate those differences up front to ensure you get off on the right foot.
The main distinction is that the buyer is a customer of Amazon, not yours. This is evidenced in a few different ways.
Effectively you are dropshipping for Amazon, and Amazon is your customer. As such, all orders imported from Amazon are attached to your Amazon customer record in CMS.
You are also not receiving any payment with the order. The order has been prepaid by the customer to Amazon. The order comes into CMS, by default, unpaid. You may, however, opt to enable a setup option to automatically mark these orders as paid.
Orders are Multiships - In CMS terms this means that the recipient is not the same as the buyer (Amazon is your buyer). You have related options in CMS to determine:
- if you want to create customer records for these recipients (see the option)
- if you never want to treat these orders as multiship (see the option)
- tag recipients with a recipient code so you may include or exclude them from mail list filters (see the option)
Note that these options are system-wide and not specific to Amazon.
You’ll want to be clear on what your arrangement is with Amazon and if you are allowed to market to those customers as your own. It appears not all of our Amazon merchants have the same arrangement. Knowing this will likely govern if you’ll want CMS to create customer records for these recipients.
The Amazon Plugin (beta)
The module we have in place for Amazon today facilitates the import of orders and upload of order status back to Amazon (needed to ensure you get paid.) If you're managing Amazon orders manually today this import/export tool will save you a great deal of time. To use this you'll need an Amazon Professional account (vs the Individual account) which is currently $39.99/mo. The Professional account allows you to import and export files, facilitating the order imports into CMS and the upload of order status back to Amazon.
The module also offers the option of whether or not to set the orders as paid when imported. Technically you are not receiving payment with the order but we'd still suggest using the feature to set them as paid (using a user-defined payment type such as 'Amazon Paid'.) You can reconcile unpaid orders directly in Amazon's Seller Central interface.
This is the list of expected fields for the Amazon BASIC Import (using Mapforce/File Transform plug-in) order-id order-item-id purchase-date payments-date buyer-email buyer-name buyer-phone-number sku product-name quantity-purchased currency** item-price** item-tax** shipping-price** shipping-tax** gift-wrap-price** gift-wrap-tax** ship-service-level recipient-name ship-address-1 ship-address-2 ship-address-3 ship-city ship-state ship-postal-code ship-country ship-phone-number gift-message-text delivery-start-date delivery-end-date delivery-time-zone delivery-instructions
Amazon Phase II
The reason we're still in beta on the above module is that we view it as a stepping stone to the ideal solution. That solution is the use of Marketplace Web Service (MWS). With MWS, CMS will be able to communicate directly with Amazon to upload and download data, instead of importing/exporting files. All of what was covered above still applies under the MWS solution, it will just be that more efficient. It also opens the door for us to pursue additional levels of integration including inventory management and shipments to Amazon for Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA).
