Existing Database

[leonglass]

I am about to take on my first shopping cart and I want to use osCommerce for it. I have set up a couple of practice carts and am comfortable with most of the set up issues I think I wil face. I do have one question however. What is the easiest way to synchronise stock levels in the shop with the customers actual stock levels. I can see that I can create a new database and populate it or I can use a .sql file at installation to populate. How do I keep stock levels live and in sync with actual stock levels. Sorry if this is a well asked question and I missed the answer.

[usernamenone]

If I understand you correctly then here is the answer.

 

When you add stock to your product information you state how many of that item you have, then when you sell 1 of those items oscommerce reduces that stock by 1. When the stock level is 0 then the item dissapears but is still found under your categories and when you add more stock that item is then available for viewing and purchasing.

 

You can find more information on this subject in the documentation.pdf that can be found in the oscommerce download.

 

 

 

I am about to take on my first shopping cart and I want to use osCommerce for it. I have set up a couple of practice carts and am comfortable with most of the set up issues I think I wil face. I do have one question however. What is the easiest way to synchronise stock levels in the shop with the customers actual stock levels. I can see that I can create a new database and populate it or I can use a .sql file at installation to populate. How do I keep stock levels live and in sync with actual stock levels. Sorry if this is a well asked question and I missed the answer.

[leonglass]

Thanks for your reply but that is not what I meant.

 

If a store already has an established bricks and mortar business so already have an existing stock database how do I attempt to keep the existing db and the osc db in sync. I can see that they may well be in a position where stock for a certain item is low and someone on line buys it. Between being bought online and a staff member filling that order someone comes into the store and buys the last of it so there is no longer any in stock. This must be a problem that some of you have faced before.

 

Am I over complicating the issue expecting both to run on one db and it is really a simple matter.

[VectorSix]

This is one for the ages. I have the exact same situation, and there are several solutions depending on the technologies being used. Depending on how often you want to update this information there is really no easy/cheap fix. If it is a daily or live need, there will be some serious devolpment that will need to take place to get the two db's to talk either by using ODBC calls or using API's. This will require an experienced programmer/db tech. If you wanted to do it on a more manual daily basis, then you can export the info from your main db into a CSV file with PRODID and QTY and import them into Excel. Import the Excel file to Access and open a MySQL ODBC connection through Access to open your MySQL db. Then run an update query were PRODID=PRODID with the two tables. You may even be able to automate this process using some of the mySQL bulk load utility and schedule to pickup the CSV.

 

The next questions would be, what is the originating db and how often does the data need to be updated on the OSC side?

[leonglass]

This is one for the ages. I have the exact same situation, and there are several solutions depending on the technologies being used. Depending on how often you want to update this information there is really no easy/cheap fix. If it is a daily or live need, there will be some serious devolpment that will need to take place to get the two db's to talk either by using ODBC calls or using API's. This will require an experienced programmer/db tech. If you wanted to do it on a more manual daily basis, then you can export the info from your main db into a CSV file with PRODID and QTY and import them into Excel. Import the Excel file to Access and open a MySQL ODBC connection through Access to open your MySQL db. Then run an update query were PRODID=PRODID with the two tables. You may even be able to automate this process using some of the mySQL bulk load utility and schedule to pickup the CSV.

 

The next questions would be, what is the originating db and how often does the data need to be updated on the OSC side?

Thats pretty much what I was expecting to hear. A lot of development for something that may be of little use to a small company. After all staff filling the order can always debit the original db as they fill out an order and problems should be minimal.