[ic] Admin Redesign?

[Grant]

--- Mike Heins <mike at perusion.com> wrote:

> Quoting Christopher J. Andre'
> (chris at tastingroom.com):
> > Hello All,
> > 
> > It's been less than a month, and my first client
> is already asking for a
> > redesign of interchange's admin interface.  Their
> request makes a lot of
> > sense really...they want less 'clicks' when
> managing orders and customer
> > information.  
> > 
> > To add even more credibility to my client's
> suggestions, I saw a
> > competitor's ecommerce demo. Their admin interface
> solved all the usability
> > issues my client mentioned....and then some.
> > 
> > If you want to see the order management system
> demo, you can view it here.
> > "nexternaldotcom"
> > 
> 
> Looks pretty good to me -- it may indeed be time for
> an overhaul in
> IC 5.5.
> 
> > Here are some of my observations when comparing
> admins..
> > 
> > 1. The links displayed immediately after logging
> into the interchange admin
> > are redundant. After logging in, you should be
> directed to the order page.
> 
> That is certainly a matter of opinion. 8-) In any
> case, you can
> do this by overriding the index page; or you can
> just have people
> go to this link:
> 
> 
>
http://demo.icdevgroup.org/i/demo1/admin/login?destination=admin/order
> 
> > Without a doubt, that is the admin's most
> frequented page.....
> 
> For some people, sure. But Interchange is used in
> many, many ways and
> is integrated with many, many, backend order
> processing systems. Most high-volume
> customers already have their own existing
> methodology for processing orders,
> and it is not web-based.
> 
> > 
> > 2. 'pending orders' 
> > On nexternal's demo site, it is possible to change
> the order status without
> > leaving the 'pending order' page.  The rest of the
> information to be entered
> > is done via a series of extremely fast loading
> pop-up scripts.  A new page
> > never has to load.  This eliminates LOTS of
> pointing and clicking, and
> > admins can quickly facilitate a large amount of
> orders and the entering of
> > all the corresponding tracking numbers.
> 
> This can easily be done.
> 
> > 
> > 3. 'active customers' 
> > Sorting of the customer list by ID isn't very
> useful.  I think displaying
> > this information below would be more useful.
> > 
> > Last Name	
> > First Name	
> > Email Address
> > State
> > Last Transaction Date	
> > Customer Type (able to change customer type by
> selecting from pulldown menu)
> 
> The "Customer Type" will be extremely
> implementation-dependent. Again,
> you can easily change the way these things are
> displayed in IC.
> 
> > 
> > 4 UPS label printing.  Nexternal has integrated
> with UPS so tightly that
> > customers don't have to use the UPS software
> anymore.  Labels can be printed
> > directly from the nexternal order management
> interface.  NO REDUNDANT ENTRY!
> 
> This is just a matter of doing the code -- I think
> someone has done some
> work along these lines, but I have never been asked
> to do such a thing;
> most of my customers are existing companies that
> already have a pick/ship
> process that they use.
> 
> > 
> > 5 Create Invoice, Create Packing Slip...
> 
> Now we are getting into the ERP aspect again --
> "Create Invoice" is something
> that Interchange would not normally do except on a
> custom basis.
> 
> > 
> > 6. Nexternal has a great email interface that
> allows you to easily slice and
> > dice your customer list, as well as print out
> postal mailing labels.
> 
> Not hard at all, assuming "slice and dice" can be
> defined.
> 
> > 
> > 7. Batch Processing
> > 
> > These are things that I am going to have to
> address in order to stay in
> > business.  Does anyone else out there have similar
> needs?  If so, maybe
> > these concepts would be a good addition to the
> community project list.
> > 
> > I'd also like to see some discussion about which
> of these requests are
> > plausible, and which are not...
> 
> They are all plausible -- it is just a question of
> doing the pages and
> code, after a reasonable definition process.
> 
> It is a lot of work. My guess is that I would be 50
> hours in by the
> time I got to see the light at the end of the
> tunnel, Perhaps the
> best use of the time would be a more flexible
> order/display listing,
> with defineable links for all of the columns. The
> individual popups
> and batching procedures could then be added in on a
> case-by-case basis.

In the near future I plan on digging into the UI and
tearing it apart until all I have is straight-forward
table editing capabilities, as well as access to
custom processes.  The table editing is
self-explanatory, and the custom processes would be an
organized list of links to different pages that I set
up to do specific things based on user input.  I'm
trying to move away from the
do-everything-for-everyone style of the IC UI and
others and toward something very simple and customized
to be exactly what I need and nothing more.  It seems
like it would be easy to set up and extremelly
flexible.

- Grant


		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail