[ic] Interchange, Is it right for me?

interchange-users@lists.akopia.com interchange-users@lists.akopia.com
Mon Jul 9 07:48:02 2001


On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 02:25:11AM -0400, Doug Alcorn wrote:
> i'll take a stab at this.  i would like to preface, that this seems
> like a fairly large project to me.  others might find it easier and
> have simpler solutions.  standard disclaimer, ymmv.
> 
> "Jason Osborne" <jason@sohonetworks.cc> writes:
> 
> > They do not want an e-commerce site that allows customers to
> > purchase their product online because the sales reps in the company
> > manipulate the price for each customer to sell them the
> > product. They do however need a system that integrates a payment
> > gateway, accounting software such as quicken, an inventory system,
> > and a shipping system together. They want an easy to use intranet
> > site that allows the rep to enter the price for a product that the
> > customer has agreed to pay, insert the customer's information and
> > authorize payment via credit card and online check, allow the
> > customer to visit their site and check the status of the shipment,
> > keep inventory current, and print shipping labels for ups.
> 
> This seems like a tall order.  IC isn't designed for inventory
> management.  In fact, there are only hooks for inventory checking in
> the 4.6 demo.  Probably the best/easiest thing to do is synchronize IC
> with an external inventory management system periodically.  what i
> mean is to have the inventory software export a file daily (or twice a
> day or whatever) that IC can use to update it's inventory levels.
> Also, use your external accounting software to decrement your
> inventory levels.  Again, IC doesn't really have the "right stuff" for
> doing honest to goodness inventory managment.


...much deleted...

ic, no matter what version, is not going to do this with a [tag]
vocabulary.  It is, however, just perl and database, so I'd say
it has **exactly** the "right stuff" :-).  It is perfect glue-ware.

How much glue (and if it is even possible) depends on the type of 
infrastructure you already have in place internally and the quality
of your back end processes and infrastructure.

You might easily get the software for free, pay six figures for 
integration, and come out quite nicely.  :-)

cfm


-- 

Christopher F. Miller, Publisher                             cfm@maine.com
MaineStreet Communications, Inc         208 Portland Road, Gray, ME  04039
1.207.657.5078                                       http://www.maine.com/
Content management, electronic commerce, internet integration, Debian linux