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.
You can search for a specific item with the following search criteria:
If Product items are not shown after doing search, it means that the product item is not yet synced from the POS. Also, make sure that in searching items, you are using the correct Item SKU or Parent SKU. Example below shows that item is not yet found in Octopus Bridge.
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
Shopping Carts tab
Order Search
You can search for a specific order with the following search criteria:
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.
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.
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 Summary: Order summary section contains the following information:
The setting tabs is where you can enter the System 5 API details to connect Octopus to System 5. Make sure to secure your System 5 API details first before starting the integration. You can select the sync status to enable or disable if you want to automatically update items from Octopus to your E-Commerce website.
Note: System5 API credentials are given by Windward.
Setup the Style Names depending on the type of products you are selling. Style Name examples are Size, Color, etc.
Setup Scheduler Time to automatically pull product data from System5. Scheduler time is set by time intervals. It also shows when the next update will happen and as well when the last updated took place.
As there are many different price levels defined in the POS, here you can decide which price levels you want to pull for the purpose of the website. These price levels will be mapped with e-commerce platforms.
You can set up the Invoice Type by clicking the drop-down menu. Select between Work Order or Cash. The Invoice Sub-Type selected are shown in System 5. Department For Invoice is selected only if you are using a departmentalized system in the POS. You can consult Windward Support for more information.
Tender Type –Select the tender type by clicking the dropdown box. Choose between the examples – MasterCard, Shopify, Visa, Amex, Cash, etc.
You have the option to pull ‘eCommerce ready only’ items from POS or All. If All items are pulled, you can use Octopus to decide which items are to be sent to your website.
Inventory Department is selected only if you are using departmentalize system in the POS. You can consult Windward Support for more information. You can also import the Brand by selecting Supplier or Brand from System5.
SKU As: Each item must have an SKU on the website. You can decide which POS field to use as a website SKU.
After the initial product pull, you can define which attributes of an item should NOT be pulled from the POS again.
This feature is useful if you are using Octopus to manage your items. Please see the image below:
To access the System 5 POS panel, first, you need to hover your mouse to POS in the main menu > then click System 5.
Full Inv Update: Click this button to pull full inventory from the POS System. This button is used for the first time set up.
Delta Inv Update: To manually update/add items from System 5 click on this button. Octopus can also be set up to pull updates automatically.
Push Orders: To manually push orders from Octopus to System5 click this button. Octopus can also be set up to push orders automatically.
A eBay API Key is necessary to connect your eBay store to Octopus. Please follow the steps below to create an API key.
Connect Octopus to eBay
eBay Products
In Product Management, when an Item is selected to be published to a Marketplace platform, it is first sent to the specific Marketplace. SCM for each supported shopping cart, including marketplaces such as eBay, 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 eBay 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, eBay Product module shows only those items that are actively synchronizing with eBay.
Master Categories
From this page, you can search for any eBay category and save it to the octopus database by clicking on the checkbox adjcent to it.
Map Categories
When items are uploaded from a POS into Channel, they are uploaded with POS Department & Category structure. At the Channel level, it’s called Source Categories.
POS Category structure may or may not be the same as eBay Categoy structure.
This option allows to map POS category structure to eBay Categories so that POS items are placed in the right category when loaded into eBay platform.
You can manually download orders from eBay on a specific date period. Just type in the ‘Date From’ and ‘Date To’ then click the Download Order button.
Categories tab is where you can add categories, assign categories to products and map categories with POS categories. It has four subsections: Master categories, Map categories, Update Product Categories, and Ebay Category Fields.
You can search for a specific category and set certain categories or subcategories in the Octopus. Once you select and click in the box, the category will be added to Map Categories section under Ebay categories.
Before items can be published on ebay, we must map source department/category structure to that of ebay category structure. Some ebay categories have unique requirements. So, they must be met before items can be published.
1. Source Categories: Left hand side shows POS category structure.
2. eBay Categories: Right side shows Ebay categories added from the Master categories.
3. You can show number of entries by clicking on the drop-down menu.
4. Click on the Mapped Categories drop-down menu to select Unmapped Categories. This will show a list of all Source Categories that need to be mapped with ebay. For each Source Category on left hand side, choose an appropriate ebay Category from the drop down.
1. You can search product item by typing in Name, SKU and Parent SKU.
2. Select Category available categories on the drop-down menu then Click Update Products Category.
3. Check the box to select item/s to update.
Shipping Profile- Master Settings
In this page, you will be able to:
Return Policy Profile- Master Settings
Here, you can set the return policy.
Here you can select the eBay product listing template. Just enter your template name, select your relevant product category and check the box and then press on save template button.
Custom Rules
In the Custom Rules tab, product-specific rules should be defined before the items are set up to sync with eBay. Once done, all items synchronizing with eBay will inherit these rules. rule(s) set here will be applied to all the products being uploaded from Channel to eBay.
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.
Going forward, before an item is sent to eBay, this rule will combine the fields to create a unique name. If left blank, Custom Title 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 eBay, the quantity of the item will be shown as 40.
Extended Description: This custom rule will be used to used to add extended description to the products.
Payment Instructions: This custom rule will be used to add Payment instructions for the customer.
SKU pre-checking: Select this rule, if you want to check if the SKU already exists in eBay before creating a new product. This will slightly slow down the process.
Currency Type: Use this custom rule to select your Currency Type.
Country: Use this custom rule to select your country.
Item Location: Select this custom rule to select default item location.