[ic] Preparing Orders

[Michael Stearne]

Jon wrote:

>>>It's not so much the printing or sending to the printer, but the
>>>preparing and presenting the data on the packing slip or mailing
>>>labels.  Is there a module or similiar to  get the particular data for
>>>an order out of  IC.  Speciaifcally, when viewing an Order a button  or
>>>something saying "Click here to Print Packing Slips and Label".  Maybe
>>>something that could expect a certain type of label or packing slip
>>>format.  I realize this is difficult to do in HTML because you do not
>>>have exact control over placement of text on an HTML page.
>>>
>>>I am just wondering what others do.  How do people get an order from the
>>>IC administration screen to a sealed box ready to be shipped?
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>
>    If you're looking to create shipper specific labels then wouldn't you
>want to use the shippers software so it fits their requirements ?
>I can tell you what I plan to do with UPS if that is what you want.
>  
>
I was actually thinking about UPS.  I just applied for their online 
tools kit.  They said they have some kind of XML interface, but I don't 
know exactly you get back when you make a request.  From that data I get 
back I was thinking I could create a PDF label out of that.  But, their 
labels have barcodes and I am pretty sure they won't be returning data 
to generate a bar code, so I am not sure what I will do.  I would use 
UPS's WorldShip program, but it is a Windows GUI application.  I would, 
one, like to not rely on a Windows workstation and, two, do everything 
transparently to the worker.

The idea is to have 2 buttons on a view order page.

One button that says "Print shipping label for this order".  That would 
call an external Perl script, make the interaction with the XML 
interface to UPS, parse the returned data,create a PDF, and send the PDF 
to the printer via lpr.  

The second button would also call an external script, query the DB for 
this order, create a PDF for this order (probably using an HTMLDOC 
http://easysw.com/htmldoc) template and send that packing slip to the 
printer also.

Michael

>Jon
>
>
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