Item is available on the website

What does checking the "Item is available on the website" box do?

Is there then an export of data that can be done to upload to our website?

Please help as we are just re-doing our website and would ideally like to use the details from RMS to set up the items on our site.

anyone with experience linking the two, please help.

Chris

Reply to
chris allsopp
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I'm sure you'll get specific RMS functionality responses to your question, but I can tell you that I spent some time and money on a shopping card program (called Taber Pro) that use d this function. If you checked that box for items, the Taber software would upload all the pertinent info from the RMS database to populated the shopping cart. This included name, price, description and image, if I recall. So that's one function of that box.

But I can't recommend Taber to you as it is a very rudimentary product that hasn't had anything done to it's front end in what would seem to be many, many years. It looks like something from 1980,if there even was an online shopping cart back then.

Reply to
PRJ

Hi

Check out

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for an integrated solution or call +1 617

261 8443.

I can guarantee that checking the web enabled option enables products on to the webstore automatically - they can be synchronized in the background every hour if you want. PLUS you can set additional fields to control web special pricing, promotions, ratings, etc.

Dominic

Reply to
Dominic

Hi Chris more options at:

KosmosCentral:

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Newestech:
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With New West Technologies Web Integrator you can upload all your categories and products to the web for the items you have enabled the box for "Item is available on the website." The Web Integrator communicates with our Kosmos Web Service to populate the shopping cart database and at the same time downloads new orders directly into RMS.

Alex

Reply to
kosmoscentral

I'm confused after doing some extensive web research on a NitroSell and Kosmos. The results have been interesting, but I still don't know which solution to choose:

  • Kosmos looks a lot slicker, but NitroSell seems to have more street cred.

  • Kosmos does not seem to own anything - they use a third party shopping chart and a third party "Web integrator". What happens if either of these solutions cease to exist, or even are upgraded?

  • NitroSell seems to be do it all but "seem to be too good to be true"

  • Kosmos have a handful of customers - yet their website does not give any links. Do they actually have any customers? Can anybody give me some URLs?

  • NitroSell claims "over 500 hundred". They have a "showcase" but only list 20 or 30 reference sites, some of which are pretty cool, but what's with the 500 figure?

  • I found three NitroSell case studies on Microsoft, but none from Kosmos?

  • Kosmos use New West "award winning" web integrator

(if the New West Integrator is so good, why doesn't New West sell a webstore solution?)

  • NitroSell won an "outstanding WebStore for RMS" award from Microsoft, but this award is only referenced on the NitroSell site, not on the MS site. Did NitroSell really win an award?

  • Kosmos "sells through" dealers - however there is no indication of how many.

  • NitroSell "seems to have "just under 200 RMS Dealer Resellers". The only one directly referenced is POSitive (who seem to have won every award Microsoft ever issued.) Some news items on the NitroSell site do reference other dealers. Does anyone have any idea how many dealers NitroSell actually has?

  • Kosmos is a "one man band" - the site looks good, but a good web designer could make it look like this....

  • NitroSell is "backed by major international VCs". No details provided on thier website, but they appear to have a board with some heavy hitters.

  • Kosmos does not seem to attend any Microsoft conferences or partner events. Are Kosmos recognised by Microsoft?

  • NitroSell seems to attend every Microsoft partner event that Microsoft every runs. My research would indiciate that NitorSell are a major MS partner, Some senior RMS Dynamics Director (Dickstein?) in Microssoft seem to publically endorse Microsoft. The MS legal eagles would not have let this happen without some serious commitment?

  • According to these forums "Mickie" tried both solutions, but ended up choosing NitroSell, yet the relevant discussions make Kosmos appear a better choice. Why did Mickie choose NitroSell?

  • The NitroSell site does not indicate exactly how many offices they have but web searches seem to indicate three in the US, two in the UK and one in Ireland (does the internet even exist in Ireland? - isn't there bombs going off all the time there ?)

  • Kosmos indiacte one office on the West Coast and web searching does not show up any more.

NitroSell "have some amazing technology" - multilingual support, multiple URL's from one RMS database, extendable product attributes, multicurrency support, out of the box SEO and market place integration, mobile commerce support etc etc, I have no doubt they have all this, based on what third parties are saying, but why is none of this mentioned on thier website?

Kosmos claim to have an oscommerce solution and if this is true, then thats the solution I want - ITS FREE! Thing is oscommerce is an open source solution running on UNIX. Will Microsoft really support having their POS solution web enabled by a company providing an open source solutio . This kinda stuff make me really worries me. Kosmos seem to be doing thier thing without any reference to Microsoft......

Finally, as a retailer what I really need is good support from my RMS dealer, so when all is said an done I want to know, which solution the majority of dealers are going with? So RMS dealers please reply to this post and let us know which one to got with - NitorSell or Kosmos?

CAN WE HAVE SOME CLEAR GUIDANCE HERE? I NEED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN KOSMOS AND NITROSELL. PLEASE RMS USERS POST YOUR EXPERIENCES!

I NEED TO GO WITH ONE OF THESE SOLUTIONS! I NEED AN ONLINE SOLUTION TODAY - IF I DON'T MOVE QUICKLY, TOMORROW I MIGHT BE OUT OF BUSINESS! HELP!

Reply to
RMS Retailer

There is just a field in the item table (Item.WebItem) that gets a value of 1 when the box is checked and a value of 0 when it is not. That's it...

Now, there are quite a few ecommerce integrations out there that can use that value to select the items to be uploaded, but that is all handled by the third party products - as far as RMS is concerned, it's just a checkbox...

Glenn Adams Tiber Creek C> What does checking the "Item is available on the website" box do? >

Reply to
Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt

I thought Kosmos used X-Cart, which is an open source cart solution but different from oscommerce...

You already have an RMS partner, right? If you are looking for support from them, why aren't you asking which product they support rather than opening it up to public debate? Every partner is going to make different choices about which e-commerce product to support because, as you have very thoroughly pointed out, there is no obvious best choice.

I've never used the Kosmos solution. I *have* used a different solution that was based on the New West web integrator. The New West product is fine; the e-commerce software that we used it with was not. I'm not a big fan of the work flow for completing a sale with the New West Integrator, but it's been at least 2 major versions since we used it and a lot of that is personal preference anyway.

The New West Web Integrator can be used to connect RMS to ANY e-commerce product. Someone has to develop a couple of web services to support the upload of product information and the download of sales information, but the Web integrator takes care of all communication with RMS - that's why Kosmos can connect a LAMP solution to a Microsoft product. I'm over simplifying this - there's more to an RMS/e-commerce solution than just a couple of web services...

We're currently supporting NitroSell. This is the first solution that I've been willing to deploy more than once. The only issue we have with them is that they have changed their pricing model and it is not exactly a slam dunk any more. I don't believe that there is another solution out there that can compete on ease and speed of deployment or on features, but the new pricing is a big step up from last year's. On the other hand, the new version that accompanied the new pricing was a major upgrade in terms of design flexibility, so it may be warranted.

There's no one right answer to this. Be aware that an RMS integrated e-commerce solution is not going to be as easy or as fast as you want it to be. No matter what platform you choose, the bulk of the work (and therefore cost) is going to be in designing the site, organizing your departments & categories, updating your items with consistent 'web quality' descriptions and taking pictures...

Best of Luck!

Glenn Adams Tiber Creek C> I'm confused after doing some extensive web research on a NitroSell

Reply to
Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt

On Mar 12, 3:50 am, "RMS Retailer" wrote:

We only publish a few sites on our case studies...not every customer is referenced on our show cases. The award is real! It was provided to us during the RMS roadshow last year which was geared toward various add-on solutions for RMS...We were invited to attend and were provided an award in our area of specialization in appreciation by Microsoft. I think the number of resellers we have is around 180...we get new ones all the time but that's what it was last time I checked. Most RMS resellers are resellers of ours as well, however not all are. Obviously we can not provide the names of our VCs for confidentiality purposes, however I will say that Ireland is a lot different than the U.S. in this and many other areas. The Irish government gives incentives for investing in Irish companies that are expanding globally. As for the maintenance of our main web site, you are correct it is in need of an update. unfortunately or fortunately (depends on how you view it) most of our resources go into the product...Of course there is internet in Ireland and a quick review of current events and history should indicate that the violence you refer to has been over for more than a decade. We do offer all of the amazing technologies we refer to and can show them; all you need to do is contact us directly...We have our main US office in San Diego (formerly it was in Boston), 2 remote sales offices (one in North Carolina and the other is Seattle), another one outside of London and the company is headquartered in Cork, Ireland. We don't publish the addresses because we just don't have the need to...we are primarily a we bases business so anyone that might need our address info can obtain that too by direct contact. The old Boston number is our main US number, and it gets forwarded to NC for the time being. Give us a ring

617-261-8443 if you want to hear / see more.

Regards, Todd Jensen ( snipped-for-privacy@nitrosell.com) NitroSell

Reply to
geoff

Kosmos owns the Web Service piece which is needed to communicate with the web store and Newestech's Web Integrator. Without the Kosmos Web Service there would be no inventory and order updates to download or upload to RMS. With our solution you own it 100% and with the proper hosting LAMP solution and Zend Optimizer could host anywhere you choose.

We chose X-Cart for our solution because it's support by a major company and has security/mod upgrades on a monthly basis. Just check out the X-Cart Gold feature set here:

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Our solution grabs data from the Web Integrator and populates data to X-Cart an open source software cart via XML. This allows for communication between a Windows and Linux server and has nothing to do with what Microsoft will allow.

I would like to state that Kosmos is a Full Service web development company located downtown Portland, Oregon. Our focus is entirely on the web and not RMS, our staff local and abroad is well over 20 and not a one man show. We currently have outgrown our current office and are in the process of relocated to a larger facility.

We feel that having our fingers in too many cookie jars would only dilute our effectiveness as a full service web development company, and that's why we leave all the RMS support to Newestech and our RMS resellers. New West Technologies are staffed with experts when it comes to RMS and that's why they are supporting the Web Integrator, the communication between the RMS database and uploading it to our Kosmos Web Service. We on the other hand are web development experts that focus on online solutions and all advanced programming associated with websites and updates to our Web Service. Just view our website and portfolio for more information, we've developed intranets, extranets, corporate branding, logo design, search engine software and tools

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along with extensivesecurity programming online. If it can be done online we assure youour staff can accomplish it. Here is a portfolio of clients
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review the comments on the left to see which ones have RMSintegration.

You don't have to go through a dealer and can contact sales directly too:

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Thanks for your reply's

Alex

Reply to
kosmoscentral

As a retailer I also don't know which one to choose. I have read through the forum and it seems like the people who post for nitrosell and kosmos are constantly bickering. It's really funny.

It seems nitrosell is the best product. The only thing you have to be concerned about is their pricing. It is SKY HIGH. I think it's over

300 a month. Don't forget that if you go over a "X" amount of bandwidth you will be paying more. Also keep in mind that you never own the product. They can raise the rent (like a landlord) and you have no say. I see more resellers supporting nitrosell now. My guess is for two reasons...the product is better and more importantly the RMS reseller incentive is better.

Kosmos central does not seem as well integrated and it seems the setup will be more complicated. The beauty with this product is that it is yours and you own it 100%!! Which means you can customize as you like and host where you like. You can have kosmos host for you at half the price of nitrosell or you can host it yourself (depending on how much you sell).

RMSretail, you have to decide if nitrosell's 5th ave rent is worth it. I say NO. If you have the patience and the know how, own your building and you can do what you want.

Reply to
willl0w

Guess that depends on if you have a full-time IT department. When you OWN it, you OWN it.....if you know what I mean.

There is a constant battle between having all control and being limited in what you can do with your website. All control may mean more time spent working through issues and coding/installing/updating..say if you buy KOSMOS (or other) and have it installed on another ISP or your own server.

Having a subscription means installing small apps locally and then having it just work remotely.....no worries.

It's working OK for us and I'm kinda a control freak.

Even Microsoft is requiring subscriptions these days---and you DON'T OWN IT.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Reply to
Mickie

I chose Nitrosell because I needed QUICK. I was afraid of the THREE applications (RMS, New-West integrator, X-Cart) all having to work together especially with separate upgrades happening. What if one program had an update and suddenly the system is broken? I was afraid of that.

To be fair, I never used KOSMOS, just compared them. I still MAY use them for my third website because Nitrosell does not have an AFFILIATE function.

Ha Ha. Ireland is THRIVING. LOW unemployment and lots of high tech companies have moved there. and few bombs.

They have a INTERMEDIATE table editor called the "PAM" in between the Website and the RMS database. It is great for doing MASS CHANGES to many items at once and also to add specialty fields for yourself or your website.

Reply to
Mickie

I am about to deploy a Nitrosell website and the time and effort it took to create an excellent looking, easy to navigate website was incredible.

Obviously the pricing is an issue but we wanted our website to be as accessible and easy to maintain as possible and the Nitrosell package seemed to be the best one out there.

I'd highly recommend them.

" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" wrote:

Reply to
BMac

I am still looking for a solution to just DISPLAY my items on a website. I don't want to sell online - just get items onto a good looking website in an RMS-integrated manner.

Kosmos and Nitrosell seem like overkill to me.

Any ideas?

Reply to
Jason

If you are going to go through the effort of getting all your items onto a web page, you might as well sell them.

Unless you just don't want the money....

:)

Seriously, if you have all the item names and pictures already in your SQL database, just hire a freelancer off e-lance.com or somewhere to program a script that calls the item name and picture to your site, without a shopping cart.

Jas> I am still looking for a solution to just DISPLAY my items on a website. I

Reply to
Mickie

I am not in the US or Europe where buying online is common. Also, I am trying to make items viewable to my export customers who all have different pricing and issues. Trust me - I have a legitimate reason for needing this without selling online.

It's easy enough for me to run a query to get the required display data (and picture name) into an Excel or csv text file. I guess I could just get a programmer to do something with that. I was hoping to get a little more flexibility that a cart system offers. I just need to get the data from my system into a database on my web server in a way that a cart can use it.

Note: My web host has free cart software (AgoraCart, CubeCart, osCommerce, phpShop, and ZenCart) and free MySQL databases. The MySQL tools for text file import seem pretty good. I need a simple bridge just to bring in the product information.

I'm pretty good with web development, and a bit of a control freak. What I need is reall bare bones. Anyone else out there roll thier own solutions yet?

Reply to
Jason

Try setting the location of the Pictures up as a read only FTP site. Then append the FTP info in front of the picture name when you upload to your website. That way the site will always pick up the must current image and you don't have to transfer the actual images, just reference them.

Reply to
TomT

Jason, there is a one way version of the Web Integrator that I'm aware of, maybe you should discuss that option with Kosmos and Newestech? If you only need to upload your inventory and images and not need the download of orders, why not see if that's an option?

A. Duck

Reply to
gangreen2

I already have a website, and have the ability to import to it all of the stock records from RMS.

I need to know how.

Ideally, this will be coding them up as a "Webitem" and then running a report, and then exporting from here.

I will also be able to use the reports to see the sales and stock for the webstie

Any idea how I can integrate the column in to a standard report such as Master Price List? I added the following column, but it doesn't like it:

Begin Column FieldName = "Item.WebItem" DrillDownFieldName = "" DrillDownReportName = "" StoreIDFieldName = "" Title = "WebItem" VBDataType = vbBoolean Formula = "(Item.Webitem)" ColHidden = True ColNotDisplayable = False FilterDisabled = False ColWidth = 1605 GroupMethod = groupmethodNone ColFormat = "" End Column

Reply to
Chris Allsopp - Connaught Hous

Begin Column FieldName = "Item.WebItem" DrillDownFieldName = "" DrillDownReportName = "" StoreIDFieldName = "" Title = "WebItem" VBDataType = vbBoolean Formula = "(Item.Webitem)" ColHidden = True ColNotDisplayable = False FilterDisabled = False ColWidth = 1605 GroupMethod = groupmethodNone ColFormat = "" End Column

Reply to
CptSoft

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