This article is a general overview with instructions on setting up a webstore interface with Artisan. For specific instructions on Shopify, click here. For specific instructions for WooCommerce, click here.
Index
- Configuring Artisan
- Adding Items to Your Web Store
- Artisan Task Manager
- Upload Single Record
- Download Internet Store Orders
- Setting Up One Station for Online Orders
Configuring Artisan
Artisan offers users an option to integrate an online web store with Artisan. This is done with Artisan’s Internet Store Interface, which supports Shopify, WooCommerce, Zoey, and Magento web stores.
- The first step to integrating a web store into Artisan POS system is to obtain an API key. This allows us secure access to the web store’s data, which we can then safely push back and forth to and from Artisan.
- With the API Key generated by your web store, you can now configure the Artisan Task Manager. Artisan Task Manager is a service that runs on an interval specified by you, that synchronizes your desktop application with your web store.
- The next step is to enable the Internet Store Interface option. From “Program Options,” select “Optional Features.” Find “Internet Store Interface ” and set this drop-down box to “Yes.” (If you do not yet own this feature, call our Sales team at 877-723-7835 to purchase it).
Adding Items to your Web Store
Inside an item record, you’ll see a tab labeled “Internet Store.” This tab contains all settings required to add an item to your web store. Specifically, it contains several fields that you can use to customize this item inside of your web store. For example, fields like “Featured Product, Catalog Order,” affect where and in what order an item is positioned. “Additional Categories,” and “Related Products” allow you to designate which other categories this item belongs to, and what other items relate to this product. And finally, fields like “Brief Description, and Detailed Description” exist to further describe and customize an item’s appearance in your web store. They allow you to set the item’s title and description respectively.
To add an item to your web store, you’ll need to make sure the “Include in Internet Store?” option is set to “Yes.”
To learn more about these fields, click here.
Artisan Task Manager
As specified above, Artisan Task Manager is the service that synchronizes your desktop application with your Internet store on an interval specified by you.
To set how often you want your application to synchronize with your web store, look at the field labeled “Task Frequency.” Set this to the value that best suits your needs (its unit is set in minutes). After you have the Task Manager configured, you can click the green “Run” button to sync your web store with Artisan.
Optimize High-Volume Internet Store Uploads
To prevent high-volume quantity changes from overwhelming your Internet Store server or your upload bandwidth, the Internet Store Interface was enhanced in 4.5 to recognize quantity-only changes (such as sales and receiving, the two most frequent operations on Item Records) and avoid uploading all of the other details from the Item Record. In 4.6, we went a step further, and detect Items that typically have high quantities and skips uploads for smaller changes (unless the available quantity is very low, or 8 hours have passed since that Item was last uploaded).
Internet Store “Guest” Order Improvements
When customers place orders on your store without logging in, the Internet Store Interface will use this information to find or create a corresponding customer record in Artisan. If the billing information for the order includes at least a Last Name, Company, Email, or Phone Number, Artisan will find that matching information.
If none of those billing fields are available, Artisan will find or create a generic customer record, using the Sale Source Name from the download task (which defaults to “Internet”) as the Customer ID, and appends “Customer” (e.g., “Internet Customer“) as the Last Name.
Note: If customers do log in to the online store, Artisan will instead find or create a specific customer record, using a Customer ID constructed from the online store’s ID for this customer, prefixed by the Customer & Order ID Prefix from the download task (zero-padding the online store ID if it’s numeric and less than 8 digits).
Allow Internet Store Uploads to Exclude Categories
If you only want to upload some of your online store enabled items, you can provide a filter string to include or exclude certain categories. (Previously, you could only include categories.) You might want to do this to force certain items to upload immediately (by also using the “Upload ALL Records (Once)” setting), or to split items between multiple online stores, one per task.
In the Internet Store Interface, navigate to the “Categories to Include (‘!’ = Exclude)” field. Type an exclamation mark before whatever field(s) you want to exclude (with multiple categories separated by a comma). To exclude all fields, use a single exclamation mark at the beginning.
Upload Single Record (Once)
You may upload individual items through the uploader if you choose. This is best for testing purposes.
- Enter the item code you want to upload.
- Click the “Save” button.
- Click the “Run” button.
Download Older Internet Store Orders
If you missed some older orders from your Internet Store, you can download them by changing the “Download Orders Since” date. This date defaults to start after the last successful download.
Setting Up One Station for Online Orders
This section is under construction