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Retail Pro Garden Connect Integration Manual

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About Octopus Bridge

Octopus Bridge is an application that enables brick & mortar retailer to connect their POS/ERP system with their e-commerce website and online marketplaces.

The flowchart below shows Octopus Bridge linking POS data to online stores and marketplaces. It also shows the item information uploaded from POS/ERP to E-commerce and order quantity pushed back to POS from the e-commerce platform so that the stock can be in Sync.


Octopus-online-integration
 

After you sign-up with Octopus Bridge, you will be given the login details. Login details are your Username and Password. You can login to your account at http://gui.octopusbridge.com/octopus

Once you login to Octopus Bridge using your login details, you are automatically redirected to the Product Management tab where you will be able to see all the items uploaded from the POS.

Product Management

When POS items are uploaded into Octopus Bridge, they show up under My Products’ tab in the Product Management module. This is where a user can further modify the products before they are pushed to an E-commerce platform.

The top most item or the first item displayed in this page is the last item uploaded from the POS. Example shown below: The item with Product SKU number “7909510673809” is the last item uploaded from the POS.


My Products - Octopus





8. Archive Product: To archive a product, click on the product(s), you want to archive and click on the delete button below. 9. Select Item(s): To select one or multiple items, click on the checkbox in front of it.  

My Product 2




Edit Product

Clicking on Product SKU or Item Name will redirect you to ‘Edit product’ page. This is where you can edit products’ information that are linked from the POS to Octopus Bridge. You can perform the following actions in Edit Product page:

  1. Edit Product Name: You can create new product name to be displayed in your E-commerce platform. Make sure to click on the box to prevent over-writing Product Name from the POS.
  2. Create Parent SKU: Make sure to create a Parent SKU for creating matrix items.
  3. Create Product Description: If you want to create a new description to be displayed in your E-commerce platform, make sure to check this box to prevent POS description from over-writing description in your E-commerce platform.
  4. Matrix item attributes: If you are creating a matrix item, make sure to input Style Name and Style Value.
  5. Upload Product Images: You can upload up to five images per item in Octopus. Make sure to reload page after uploading image/s.

Octopus-edit-products

Publish Items to Shopping Cart/Marketplace

After you have updated an item under ‘Edit Item’ page, you can go ahead and publish this item to a specific Shopping cart or Marketplace. Under Product Management tab.

1. First you need to select which item/s you want to publish. The example below shows we are selecting three items.

2. Next, select which Shopping cart or Marketplace you want to publish the item. In the example below we are selecting Shopify as our shopping cart.

3. Then click on the Add icon on the right to publish. Once you are done, items can now be viewed under the Shopify 'bucket.

Publishing-Items-to-eCommerce-Octopus

Note: Only Shopping carts and Marketplaces that you signed up for, will be shown in My Products page.


Shopping Cart Module

Once you have selected and added your product items to a specific Shopping cart module or Marketplace module ‘bucket’, they will start appearing under the respective bucket. Images are shown below.

Marketplace Tab

Marketplaces

Shopping Carts tab

Shopping cart

Import Products

If you do have a point-of-sale system or want to quickly edit items by Exporting / Importing multiple items, Import Products is a great option.

1. Click Add New Template to start .

2. Click History to select a file previously uploaded on Octopus Bridge.

3. Click Import New to import a new template after it has been created.

4. Action:
  • Notify- you can type in your email to get notifications if modifications are being made in the file.
  • Modify- click to update files.
  • Delete- delete existing files from the list.
All-Import-Templates-Octopus

Add New Template:

You can view the past import activities in the channel by clicking on Import History.

1. File Type: Clicking this will create a drop-down box where you can select the File Type.

2. File Name: Type in the name of the file you wish to create.

3. Column Delimeter and Text Qualifier: Use only if file type is a text file.

4. Save file after choosing the file type and the file name.


Add-New-Templets-Octopus

POS Code Mapping

You can use POS code mapping if you want to map POS values to octopus bridge values. POS values are commonly in a coded format. For example, blk. You need to set blk into black which is more understandable for users viewing the website. You can also map multiple values at the same time using a spreadsheet format.

  1. POS Code Upload Format: You can download the excel format by clicking on the “POS Code Upload Format” link.
  2. Choose File: Once you have made changes in the excel format, select spreadsheet file to upload.
  3. Click on upload after selecting file.
  4. Select Field Name.
  5. Replace All Value: Click to replace value after selecting Field Name.
  6. Item per Page: Clicking this will create a drop-down box where you can select how many product items to be displayed per page.
  7. Search: You can search specific value using the search bar.
  8. Channel Value: Edit Channel value here.

POS-Code-Mapping

Order Management

Order management tab is where you can view all the order details downloaded from your E-commerce platform. Click on View Orders and you will be redirected to the order management page.


Order-Management-Octopus

Order Search

You can search for a specific order with the following search criteria:

  • Source of Order: You can select the shopping cart/marketplace from where the order was placed
  • Order Status: Ordered/Shipped/Declined
  • Order No: Specific order number of shopping cart/marketplace
  • Username/email address: Customer’s username or email address
  • Date Filters: Sort order on a specific date period
  • SKU: Item SKU Number

order 2

All Orders:

Order Date: The date and time when the order was downloaded

Channel Mgr Order #: Each order, when downloaded into Octopus, is given an Octopus order number. This number is also pushed to the point of sale system for reference.

Marketplace Order #: This is the order number received from your website or marketplace. The number is prefixed by the platform abbreviation for easy reference. This number is also downloaded into the point of sale system.

Customer Bill To and Customer Ship-To Details are received from the website.

Total: The total amount of the order.

Status: Depending on where the order is coming from, it would be either in Pending/Processing or Paid status. Orders coming from marketplaces are marked Paid as they are already paid for. Orders coming from websites built on Magneto/Woo/etc might be marked as Processing depending on how the website is set up.

Tracking: This feature is only applicable for Offline POSs, such as RetailPro, RMS etc. Octopus Plugin updates the Tracking Number on our system generated by the Shipping company of the Merchant. It also works for the merchants, who uses Ship Station and Ship Work integration with Octopus.

Action: When orders are downloaded from website into Octopus, all items must match with items uploaded from the POS. For example, if an ordered item has a different SKU than what was uploaded from POS, the order will NOT be downloaded. In such cases, Edit link will show. This allows you to Edit the order and fix the SKU number so that it matches with one of the existing items. After the SKU has been fixed, the order would download during the next sync cycle. Orders not showing Edit indicates that the orders have been downloaded into POS and cannot be edited.

Page Tab: You can navigate to a particular page by clicking on that particular page number.

order management

Downloading Orders

Orders are downloaded automatically from the E-commerce platform to Octopus on a scheduled basis. You can also manually download orders from a specific E-commerce platform. Just click on the orders tab in the Shopping cart module you selected then click on the ‘Download orders from Shopify’ button.

download orders

Order Details

In order details page, you can view all the order information downloaded from the e-commerce platform to Octopus.

Order Details: Order details section contains the following information:

  • Order No
  • Order Date
  • Current Order Status
  • Billing Address
  • Shipping Address
  • Customer Contact Details

Order Summary: Order summary section contains the following information:

  • SKU
  • Identification number
  • Seller SKU
  • Description
  • Quantity
  • Unit Price
  • Shipping Amount
  • Tax
  • Discount
  • Grand Total

Order details

Logs

You will be able to View all the Octopus Bridge activities and errors in the ‘Logs’ tab.

1. You can search logs on a specific date period or search using a keyword in the search tab at the top.

2. You can export logs to a CSV in your local drive.

3. You can view Log details by clicking on the ‘view’ button on the right-hand side of the screen.


All-Logs
Log Details is where you can view the log activities or the error details in the channel.

Logs Details

About RetailPro

RetailPro offers independent retailers’ powerful point of sale features and controls not normally found in comparable systems. The multi-functional point of sale transaction screen can be used in both touch and click format. Either application makes an exceptional visual statement to your customers about the level of professionalism of your store.

RetailPro Software combines style and substance in the sales process. Not only is the system easy to learn and use, it performs a multitude of functions and controls for the smooth running of your business.

RetailPro has created number of integrated software solutions for businesses fields that are designed to complement our powerful RetailPro platform.

Many businesses using RetailPro have well-established business management software in place. Rather than having to reinvent the wheel and undo all that work, sometimes software integration is the best option. This approach allows our customers’ systems to work in harmony with RetailPro, with minimal disruption. Octopus helps achieve this goal. It allows a merchant to connect their existing system to online platforms.


Note: Make sure the images path has been defined correctly under Configurations Settings > Options Tab

Enabling Items for Web in RetailPro

In this screen, you can decide which Retail Pro items you want to upload in your web store. Only the ‘Web-Enabled’ items will be synched up with your website.

  • Through Checkbox, you may select the Departments/Categories and the Items to make them ‘Web Enabled’.
  • Once the Department/Categories/Items are selected, click ‘UPDATE WEB ITEM’.
  • A POP-UP will appear with a message “Inventory updated successfully”; Click ‘OK’.
updated-web-item

Manage Inventory/Orders

Once the installation is complete, the Downloading, Uploading and Removing of items and orders becomes automated using the Scheduler.

If a sync is needed before the next scheduler run, you can use these buttons to ‘Upload’ products and ‘Download’ web orders manually.

inventory-orders

Connect Octopus to Garden Connect

  1. Go to https://gui.octopusbridge.com/octopus
  2. Login using user octopus account credentials.
  3. Once you have logged in, go to shopping carts/Garden Connect.

Garden-Connect--1

  1. Click on settings and enter the following information:
  1. Server: Enter the FTP host name.
  2. Username: Enter the FTP username.
  3. Password: Enter the FTP password.
  4. Port: Enter the FTP port name.
  5. Product Folder: Enter the value Products in this field.
  6. Order Folder: Enter the value Orders in this field.
  7. Sync Status: Set Sync status to Enable.

Garden-Connect--2

Garden Connect Product Module

In Product Management, when an Item is selected to be published to an eCommerce platform, it is first sent to the specific Shopping Cart Module (SCM). SCM for each supported shopping cart, including marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, gives users the ability to define shopping cart specific rules.

These rules may vary based on the eCommerce platform that you are using. For example, Items being sent to Garden Connect may have a different Product Name, Prices, and Quantity as compared to items being sent to eBay.

Whereas Product Management module shows all the products uploaded from the POS, Garden Connect Product module shows only those items that are actively synchronizing with Garden Connect.

  1. Hover your mouse to the Shopping Carts tab.
  2. Select Garden Connect under the drop down menu.
  3. Click on Garden Connect products.

 

Garden-Connect--6

All Garden Connect Products:

  1. This screen shows items that have been enabled to sync with Garden Connect and should already be in sync. To manually publish items to Garden Connect, Select All Pages and Publish.
  2. You can also use CheckBoxes to select a specific item to publish.
  3. Product SKU: The dot is an indicator if a product is successfully synchronizing with the website. Green means successfully added while red means it is not successfully synced. If Red, you can use the Log files to troubleshoot.
  4. Add Product to Garden Connect: This button allows you to add products to a Garden Connect website.
  5. Search tab: This tab allows you to search for a specific item by entering the product SKU or keyword.
  6. Item per Page: Clicking this will create a drop-down box where you can select how many product items to be displayed per page.

Garden-Connect--5

Map Product Attributes

Merchants using various POS systems may use any of the fields within a POS while creating items. Map Fields option allows a merchant to map Garden Connect product fields with their own POS product fields.

For example, Garden Connect website Product Name (Title) can be mapped with any of the POS data fields provided in the pull-down menu.

This also provides an option NOT to send certain POS data to Garden Connect website.

Some fields, such as, SKU and Quantity are mandatory and are automatically updated in the website.

  • The left-hand side shows the Garden Connect fields.
  • The right-hand side shows the POS fields.

Garden-Connect--3

Custom Rules

In the Custom Rules tab, product-specific rules should be defined before the items are set up to sync with Garden Connect. Once done, all items synchronizing with Garden Connect will inherit these rules.rule(s) set here will be applied to all the products being uploaded from Channel to Garden Connect.

 

Garden-Connect--4

 

Custom Title: This feature allows you to create a search engine-friendly Product Name by combining multiple fields. For example, you may want to use Product Name and Brand fields from POS to create a unique eCommerce product name, resulting in Product Name by Brand.

  • Click on Add Fields.
  • Select a field, such as Product Name
  • Enter Separator, such as, By
  • Click on Add
  • Once again, click on Add Fields
  • Select another field, for example, Brand
  • Remember to remove the ‘Enter Separator’ from before
  • Hit Add

Going forward, before an item is sent to Garden Connect, this rule will combine the fields to create a unique name. If left blank, Custom Tile does not apply.

Safety Net Rule: The quantity inserted in this box is reduced from the Product Management stock. For example, if a Product Management item quantity is 50 and you insert 10 in the ‘Enter Value’ field; in Garden Connect, the quantity of the item will be shown as 40.

Out of Stock Rule: Select this checkbox if you want to delete products from Garden Connect when the stock reaches ‘zero’. If an item has been deleted, it will delete any custom work you may have done at the Garden Connect level.

Sales Price Rule: You can select either a specific sale date or set a sale price.