Catalina Technology: Extending Dynamics SL with Ecommerce, Web Services, and Mobile Applications

Order Central™ is a full featured B2B and B2C shoppnig cart system that integrates, in real-time, to Dynamics SL.

B2B, B2C, or both, even multi store — Order Central can be configured as a B2B (Business to Business) or a B2C (Business to Consumer) type of site. It could also be configured as a hybrid of the two.

A B2B ecommerce site is a site that has customers with logins tied to them. People given permission to access their customer account, can login and review orders, see specific customer based pricing, and place orders against their customer account.

A B2C ecommerce site is a site that allows consumers to browse and purchase products without requiring them to have a customer account in Dynamics SL. Order Central will allow you to show default customer pricing, based on rules that you set, for any consumer who browses the site. When they checkout, Order Central can be configured to allow the customer to setup a customer account (dynamically creating a customer in SL) or Order Central can be configured to also allow customers to checkout completely anonymously. If a customer is registered in the checkout process, the customer can then come back at a future date and check their order and shipment status.

Multiple Storefronts — Order Central™ allows you to create as many storefronts as you would like. This allows you to create custom branded stores for different needs. You could create a B2B site, a B2C site, and even a Wholesale site. You could even host websites for your resellers and dropship for them. Creating a custom branded site for each of your resellers. The possibilities are really up to you.

Each storefront can have it's own user login database, catalog, and look and feel. Each storefront can be configured centrally or can be completely customized to suit that stores needs.

Advanced Product Catalog — Help your customers find products and get information on your products by utilizing the advanced catalog features of Order Central™.

1. Multiple catalogs: You can setup many catalogs in a single Solomon® installation. This helps you target your audience by presenting a specific subset of products, with their own category structure and product descriptions. By doing this, you can show your customers a branded catalog and website.
2. Multi-Language: The advanced catalog can be displayed in multiple languages. An Order Central® installation can be configured so that each item, in the product catalog, can have one or more languages assigned to it. Each element of a product item (product name, description, image, etc.) can then be presented in the proper language for the user.
3. Extended product details: Don't be restricted to the limitations of field size in Solomon®. The advanced catalog has the ability to create large formatted text descriptions of your products. These descriptions can either be stored as plain-text or as HTML for a richer purchasing experience.
4. Multi-Level categorization: Categories are an easy way for your customers to find your products. By simple browsing a multi-level structure, they can "drill-down" to the item they are looking for. These category levels can have an unlimited number of subcategories under them and a product can be assigned to as many categories as you would like.
5. Attach product images and documents: Product images (thumbnails, regular, and large) can be tied to a product or category. You can also attach documents (such as spec-sheets, manuals, or brochures) to a product or category so your customer can download them.
6. Product configuration: Product options can be created to allow the customer to easily choose their product. Unlimited options, such as size, color, material, etc., can be assigned to a catalog item. The combination of the option choices will determine what Inventory ID will be added to the order.
7. Product Grouping: Group multiple products on a page for easy selection of what the customer needs.
8. Up/Cross-selling: Link like products to a product or category. This allows you to suggest accessories or to profile a preferred product.
9. Full-text searching: Choose which fields in the catalog you would like searched. By using Microsoft® SQL Server's Full-Text Searching, you can change how the search operates without any programming necessary.

Multi-Currency — Utilize your Dynamics SL multi-currency module to manage currency on the web site. Order Central is aware of the Customer's currency settings and will use the appropriate currency and symbols depending on the customer's setup.

Tight, Real Time Integration with Dynamics SL — Order Central™ is very tightly integrated with Dynamics SL. Order Central™ is not a shopping cart that works with many ERP systems. It has been built from the ground up to work with Dynamics SL. Unlike other shopping carts out there, Order Central™ knows the internals of Dynamics SL and will maintain the business rules that you spent so hard to setup.

Customer Pricing — Order Central™ follows the sales price model in Dynamics SL. You dont have to maintain two separate pricing rules for your internal SL use and your website. you set it up in one place (Dynamics SL), and maintain it there.

Dynamically Create Customers in SL — When using Order Central in a B2C setup, customers may be visiting the website, and your company, for the first time. Order Central has the ability to create new customers, with default settings, terms, and pricing, so that you can then maintain that customer history in the future.

Order Queuing — Don't be worried about your Solomon® system getting overloaded by the possibility of high volume order entry from the web. Order Central® can be configured to queue up orders and send them to Solomon in a load balanced manner. This allows orders to be placed even if Solomon® is busy with other tasks.

Order History and Shipper Status — You can search the Order Central® system by order number, purchase order number, order date, specific part number, or a custom defined field. Order history is also available online. For each order, Order Central® displays order number, customer PO number, item, and item shipment information. Multiple shipper information is available for orders containing multiple items with shipment schedules or separate ship from locations. A user can even copy an old order or add certain items, from an old order, to their cart.

Outbound email — Order Central® has had a powerful email template system since its first release; but has recently been enhanced with a complete queuing system that improves website response and can be used as a batch emailing system for customer service emails and Solomon order step progress:

1. Add email jobs from Solomon order steps
2. Send shipment confirmations or order backorder notices
3. Inform your customers of specials or new products
4. Send special promotions emails
5. Remove the need for additional 3rd party promotional email software

Customer Data Export — Customers can export order detail and invoice data as PDF, Excel, or other file formats. PDFs can be printed or stored electronically. A customer can import data into their backoffice system using one of the standard formats or custom transformations can be applied.

Create Email Forms — Order Central™ includes a powerful email template system that allows you to create website email forms for product returns, customer support and sales inquiries. No programming knowledge necessary, just fill in some fields and upload the file.

Website Survey System — Order Central™ now has a fully-featured Survey system. Increase customer feedback and service by adding general surveys on your website or dynamically add questions to the checkout process.

1. Web Administration interface for creating and editing surveys
2. Web Administration interface for viewing survey reports
3. Unlimited number of surveys, questions and responses
4. Integrate surveys with Solomon orders and customers

Shopping Cart — Order Central™ provides all of the standard shopping cart features such as: add to cart, remove from cart, update quantities, etc. Additional capabilities include:

1. Save shopping carts for future use: Customers sometimes take longer than a single session to create an order. This might be because they are purchasing for multiple people or simply get pulled away for a little while. Saving shopping carts allows the customer to build an order and save the cart if they want to come back to it. You can save as many carts as you would like and name them with descriptive titles so that it is easy to call them back in the future.
2. Order Templates: Similar to the shopping cart save feature, a user can also create lists of items they frequently purchase. Each of these lists can then be saved for future use. This is particularly useful for purchase managers who purchase the same types of things over and over again. Creating a project based purchase list will allow that purchaser to easily generate an order with the specific products they need.
3. Add an item directly to the cart: If you already know the part number you are looking for, there is no need to waste time searching for it. Simply go to the shopping cart and enter the part number there. The shopping cart will then search for the part to see if it exists. If it does, it will automatically add it to your cart.
4. Add line item notes and other line item fields: Solomon® has many additional line item fields besides Inventory ID and quantity. Configuration allows you to open additional fields to your customer. Fields such as line item notes, Project ID, etc., can be included for each line item in the cart.

Built on Catalina Technology's SL Web Services — Catalina Technology's ctAPI web services for Dynamics SL provides an enterprise ready solution for accessing your Dynamics SL back office from any application that can connect to a web service. Because of this, Order Central allows you to be able to extend your shopping cart to any other system that can make calls to web servcies.

This makes Order Central™ a very extendable and customizable system.

Customer Unique Catalogs — You can present each of your customers with their own catalog. This is especially usefull if your customers have contracted catalogs or if they can only purchase from an approved product list.

Advanced security features at both the page and the component level — Set privileges for any page or component in Order Central®. By using a simple security tool, you can limit what customers can do on your site. You can hide or disable buttons, secure certain pages, or lock-down features depending on the user's privileges.

Examples of using security would be to allow certain people to see pricing, place orders, or check order status. If the user is only allowed to see availability, you may not want them to see pricing or to be able to create an order.

Multiple Users per Customer — Order Central allows you to have multiple users per customer. The system will track each user's purchase so that you know what buyer is purchasing what for the customer. This is also important for your customers if they want additional departmental purchasing reporting.

Examples of using security would be to allow certain people to see pricing, place orders, or check order status. If the user is only allowed to see availability, you may not want them to see pricing or to be able to create an order.

Order Templates — Order Templates are a way for customers to store an order for future reuse. By saving a cart for future use, the user can name the cart with a usefull name for use later.

Highly Customizable — Order Central™ is built on the Microsoft .NET framework. By using tools such as Visual Studio, you can completely customize the look and feel, as well as functionality, of your shopping cart.

Order Central utilizes server side controls to make it easy to "drop" functional onto a page for use.

Sell Digital Documents — OrderCentral has the capability to securely sell digital download products on your site. eg: software, digital books, music, movies and more.

Host your Store externally — Because Order Central uses Web Services for it's connection to Dynamics SL, this allows you to host your website at an external hosting environment. This provides you a high level of security and scalability that is required in these modern days of ecommerce.