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eCommerce Integration

Catalyst can offer a full integration with Platinum Software for third party e-commerce web developers. This integration is both modular and comprehensive.

This is a brief and simplified overview of what can be achieved using existing software available from Catalyst combined with our on line data server. Costs for the software and service are broken down according to what features are required and the volume of data storage and transfer required.

What this means in practice is that we can make available on the web a standardised XML interface to pass information into and out of a customers local copy of Platinum Software.

Your Business on the Web

The web offers huge trading possibilities, it does this with no customer facing staff and operates around the clock. The attractions are obvious.

The downside to the web is often that the products which sell on the web are not linked to the back office systems required to ship the goods efficiently. Broadly this product is intended to take the pain out of web trading by providing a seamless interface saving the need to re-key web orders into Platinum management software running in your office.

The stock and customer information is securely, reliably and consistently available in a web location. This information can then be used by the web developer to populate the web site with stock and customer information. This information is automatically refreshed once per day with the option to manually request a web update at any time.

What can be done?

• Stock Details - Download stock information and pictures including analysis which can be used to code where on the site a stock line should appear. In short this is that base product information for the web site.
• Customer Details - Download existing customer information so that orders can be allocated to customers.
• Real Time Stock Quantities - If the client elects to use our "web daemon" interface to a local enquiry server real time stock levels can be found. Have your web site show your actual Free Stock Quantities - Book in new stock and see the stock immediately appear on your web site.
• Customer Orders - Downloaded (optionally in real time, see below) directly into the Platinum Sales Ordering suite of your desktop DMS to enable orders to be processed with the minimum of effort.
• Push Ordering - Again using our "web daemon" interface, once an order is placed on your web site, it will be "pushed" to your Platinum Sales Ordering suite keeping your desktop DMS up to date and allowing you to provide a fast and effective service to your customers.

What are the alternatives

Obviously standard Platinum reports can be used to provide stock information to populate a web site. These will not however automatically upload the information to the web. Likewise it is possible to report on and export customer information. The advantage to our software in this area is that it is completely automated and very reliable.

Without our specialist interfaces we suspect it is impossible to perform stock level “look up” or download orders directly into the Platinum order processing suite whilst automatically creating new customer records as appropriate.

Charging

Why do we charge? Essentially we charge because what we are doing sounds simple and easy but it is of course, not! Catalyst have to pay for the web servers and bandwidth that are required to run the system. We monitor the smooth running of the system and can even detect when a vital PC is switched off in your own office. The system is intended to run 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year. Obviously in all systems a fault cannot be 100% guaranteed to occur but we have spent considerable time and effort to ensure the reliability of the system and in the unlikely even of a failure it’s ability to restart without loss of information. We have invested considerable programming time in devising and developing software to make it all happen.

In Summary

This is an incredibly web integrated, secure and reliable solution for users of our software who want to run an e-commerce web site. Our aim is to maximise reliability and minimise user input thus making it very staff efficient thus an incredibly cost effective solution to a tricky problem.

Getting Started

How do we move forward?

• The costs of the service will need to be agreed.
• We will require your written persmisson to allow a third party access to your data.
• Your web developer will need a copy of our interface details, they should subscribe to our developer RSS news feed http://www.catalyst-uk.com/feeds/development to be kept informed about any changes to our specification.
• The will need to apply for their password to the documentation area of our server by emailing support@catalyst-uk.com stating the company they are acting on behalf of.