If you wish to use the eCommerce module of Service Suite, you must configure these settings.

The communication settings specify how you wish to receive orders from your customers, as well as the format you wish to receive your orders in.

In this example we will try to explain all the ways in which Service Suite is capable of sending purchase orders to you. If you are not familiar with the more technical terms such as FTP and SMTP server - do not be alarmed. As we have tried to make it as easy as possible to receive orders in Service Suite, you do not have to understand the meaning of such terms, as this is not necessary, unless you have special requirements.

You can define the communication settings by selecting the menu: "Communication", which will make the screen look like this:

As illustrated above we have not defined any communication settings yet. We will do this by clicking the link: "Edit settings" in the icon bar. Clicking this link will launch this dialog:

In this dialog you can select how you wish to be able to receive your orders. In most cases only the checkbox "Receive purchase orders via Service Suite" should be checked, but as we in this example wish to explain all the possibilities of Service Suite we select that we are able to receive orders via Service Suite, FTP, E-mail and fax. Besides this we wish to receive the orders in such a way that the order header and the order lines are contained in 2 separate files, as this is required when importing orders into our ERP system.

When we have selected these settings we press the button: "Next >", and the next step of the dialog will be displayed:

If you wish to receive orders via FTP you must have a public FTP Server on your network, that your customers installation of Service Suite can access and login to. If you do have such a server, you can enter the address of this server in this dialog, as well as the login and password that Service Suite should use to place the orders on this server.

When your customers choose to send their purchase orders via FTP, the file(s) that contains the order will be uploaded to this server in the specified directory.

When these values has been entered you press the button: "Next >", and the next step of the dialog will be displayed:

If you have selected that you wish to receive purchase orders by e-mail, you can here enter which e-mail address that those orders should be sent to.

The fields SMTP Server, login and password are rarely used and you should only supply those information's if you wish to allow your customers to be able to use your SMTP Server when sending their purchase orders. This is almost never necessary, and it is highly recommended that you leave those fields blank.

In this case we only specify which e-mail address to send the orders to, and press the button: "Next >" which shows the next step:

Here you must specify the filename that the orders you receive should have. If you have selected that you wish to receive orders via FTP, the file(s) containing orders will be uploaded to your FTP Server with the specified filenames. If you selected to receive orders via e-mail, the e-mail will contain the order in plain text, and the file(s) will be attached to the e-mail. If you have chosen to receive your orders via Service Suite, you can view your incoming orders by selecting "e-orders" from the menu.

As we in this example wish to receive the order header and order lines in separate files, we must define the filename and type of format for both the order header and the order lines. In the field: "Filename part 1" we enter "oh" and in "Filename part 2" we select: "Date (yyyymmddhhnnss)". The result of these settings will be that the filename of received order headers will be "oh" plus the date and time the order was sent, which means that the filename could be: "oh20040907162200.txt"

Here we also choose that we wish to receive the purchase order in the ordinary comma-separated file format. Below the order lines we enter "ol" and press the button: "Next >" which takes us to the next step of the dialog:

In some cases your ERP system might require that some text or codes, which identifies e.g. "Here starts the order header". In this step you can enter such text or codes. In this example we do not wish to include any text before or after the lines so we press the button: "Next >" in order to get to the next step:

Here we define which fields we wish to receive in our order header, as well as the position of the fields. The definition of this format is done in exactly the same way as with any other export formats in Service Suite.

It is recommended that you define the format in such a way, that it easily can be imported into your ERP system.

When the format for the order header has been defined we press the button: "Next >" and the next step will be shown:

In this step we define the format for the order lines in the same way as we did with the order header. When this is done we have completed the configuration of the communications settings, and we press the button: "Finish".

As the above illustration shows a summary of the settings is displayed.

In this example we have tried to cover all the aspects of the communication settings, by selecting that we are capable of receiving purchase orders in all possible ways, and that we wish the purchase orders to be received in two separate files. If you e.g. choose only to receive purchase orders through Service Suite, some steps of the dialog will be skipped.

As mentioned earlier it is possible to automate your order processing with Service Suite. Depending on your ERP system this might require a bit of technical knowledge about e.g. FTP servers and how orders can be imported into your ERP system. If you have any questions about automating the receiving process of your orders you are more than welcome to contact us.

If you have any questions about how to configure the communications settings in Service Suite, you are always welcome to contact us at: servicesuite@mamut.com