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RetailEdge provides an integration tool to manage data flow between a Modern Retail website and RetailEdge.

 

Modern Retail Integration

 

If you have a Modern Retail website (www.modernretail.com), RetailEdge can be used to:

 

1.  populate your website with your RetailEdge inventory

 

2.  provide information about product availability and quantities, and

 

3.  download sales information.

 

Integration Set Up

 

To Setup the RetailEdge/Modern Retail integration:

 

1.  Edit your workstation by choosing Workstations from the Tools|Settings menu item.

 

2. Modify your workstation and press the Web Integration tab.

 

3.  Choose Use Modern Retail Web Integration.

 

4.  Press the Edit Modern Retail Settings button.

 

You will then see the following options:

 

Modern Retail Server tab

 

MR Web Server Address (URL): This should be set to: https://retailedge.modernretail.com/services.aspx.

 

Store ID:  Assigned by Modern Retail.

 

User Name: Assigned by Modern Retail.

 

Password:  Assigned by Modern Retail.

 

Product Timer:  The number of minutes between Product Requests (uploading Inventory Item information and quantities).  This can be set to 0 if you want to perform the Product Requests manually.

 

Sales Timer:    The number of minutes between Sales Requests (downloading Sales Information to RetailEdge). This can be set to 0 if you want to perform the Sales Requests manually.

 

RetailEdge Reference Fields tab

 

Reg ID:  The Register ID that will be used for Modern Retail sales posted into RetailEdge.  Typically this would be the same ID as the Workstation Setting you are using.  However in order to differentiate your web sales from your in-store sales it can be useful to create a separate register in your database and use this workstation ID for sales posting.  

 

Pmt ID:  The Payment ID associated with sales coming from the Modern Retail site.   You might for instance create a payment method called MR-PMT.  This allows you to differentiate the payment methods at the end of the day and reconcile your drawer.

 

Clerk ID:  The Clerk ID assigned to the sales from Modern Retail.  You don't need to assign a Clerk ID to sales if you are not tracking clerk sales in RetailEdge, but it can be helpful for future reporting purposes.

 

Default Margin: RetailEdge can accept sales with items that are not in RetailEdge's inventory.  These sale items are imported as non-stock items.  RetailEdge uses the Default Margin setting to calculate the cost of the item.

 

Promotion Code: To help you better track sales in RetailEdge you can assign a promotion code to the Modern Retail sales.  This can help you track the effectiveness of web promotions.

 

Export Filter Field:  RetailEdge uses the values placed in the Export/Report Code or User Fields 1-5 to determine which items are to be uploaded to the Modern Retail site.  You can use any one of these fields.  These fields are filterable in RetailEdge's inventory Manager and reports to allow you to easily see which items in your inventory are designated to be uploaded to Modern Retail.

 

Filter Value:  This is the value that you have placed in the Export Filter Field in your RetailEdge inventory above to designate it as an item to be uploaded to Modern Retail (i.e., WEB, MR, W, etc.)

 

Discount Price Field:  Items in Modern Retail's inventory can be placed on sale by RetailEdge.  RetailEdge will upload the price level specified in the Discount Price Field (RetailEdge Price 2 – 5) to update the Modern Retail Sale Price.

 

Shipping Stock #:  This is the Stock Number of the item that you use for shipping in RetailEdge.  RetailEdge will use this Stock Number for shipping on Imported Modern Retail sales.

 

Sales Date Options: Today's Date or MR Sale Date.  This allows you to choose the sale date for the Modern Retail sale as it is posted into RetailEdge.  Since sales are not processed (available to be downloaded to RetailEdge) until they are marked as Shipped in the Modern Retail Store Manager, you might not want to use the Modern Retail sale date for the date that gets posted in RetailEdge as this can make credit card reconciliation more difficult.

 

The Modern Retail settings are setup per workstation.  Typically you would only setup the integration on one workstation.  However you might want to setup different settings on different workstations if, for instance,

 

•you were running multiple websites or

 

•you wanted to post different items to the website at different times by setting different Filter Values on different workstations or

 

•you simply want the redundancy of having different workstations making the requests to the Modern Retail site.

 

Since RetailEdge's web integration is built into the program, RetailEdge needs to be running on the workstation you have set to use Modern Retail Settings.

 

Uploading Inventory Information

 

RetailEdge will transfer the following inventory information to Modern Retail's Inventory.

 

 

Once an item is edited in the Modern Retail Store Manager, the only fields updated during future Product Requests are Price, Sale Price and Quantity.  If an item quantity either due to sales on the Modern Retail site or due to Product Requests drops below 0, then the item will be marked as unavailable and will not longer be shown on the site.

 

Departments and Vendors are not uploaded to the Modern Retail site.  Categories and Departments for items for a website and for a retail store can be significantly different. So you have the flexibility to assign different Modern Retail Categories (similar to a RetailEdge vendor) and Departments from the ones in your RetailEdge inventory.

 

RetailEdge items that are associated with a matrix can also uploaded to the Modern Retail site and the items combined with each other (if desired) to allow them to be displayed as one item with multiple sizes and attributes  (color, etc.)

 

Web Integration Status

 

The status of the Web Integration is shown on the Status Bar at the bottom of the RetailEdge main screen.  If you have set the Modern Retail settings to Manual, the Product Requests and Order Requests can be started by double-clicking the Web Integration text on the Status Bar to initiate the process.  RetailEdge will give you the option of Run Order Request, Run Product Request or Run Product AND Order Requests.  RetailEdge will display Active when the upload and download process are occurring as well as the timestamp of the last posting.

 

Web Integration Log Viewer

 

RetailEdge has a Log Viewer that can show the status of the Product and Order Requests.  This can be a useful tool if there is a problem with the communications between your Modern Retail site and RetailEdge.   The Log Viewer will list each step of the communication.

 

A typical Product and Order Request will consist of the following steps:

 

Product Request

•Getting Items

•Getting Items – Complete

•Submitting Request

•Response Received

 

Order Request

•Submitting Request

•Response Received

•Parsing Response

•Posting Sales to RetailEdge

•Submitting Request (to tell Modern Retail that the order has been posted)

•Response Received

 

The Log Viewer can be accessed by choosing Web Integration Log Viewer from the Tools menu.