Details

Written by: Mariana Cherneva

Category: OpenCart integration

Published: 24 November 2020

Hits: 1212

The handling of the products in relation to the OpenCart nodes is bidirectional. It is not only possible to fill the site with the appropriate connector, but also to take the products present on one site and then eventually publish them on another.

The product download may be complete with all data and images, or it may be an update of only some restricted data, such as stock availability.

 

The execution of the connectors can be activated in interactive mode, by clicking on the appropriate button, or be started automatically by a scheduled procedure.

Product import configuration

The product import configuration can be reached from the menu:

eCommerce >> OpenCart >> Product import

To create a new configuration, select the Add button and fill in the fields as follows:

• Configuration name: enter the desired name
• eCommerce platform: select eCommerce OpenCart
• Web Server for image storage: select a web server from those available. To create a web server node, please consult the appropriate guide.
• What kind of imports to perform? - select Products to import all the information relating to the products, or Link to the products to transfer only the urls of the products useful for the publication of listings to bindCommerce, for example on Kijiji
• From which language of the site to download: select the language from which you want to import the products

First you can choose whether the connector should perform:

• The creation of products in bindCommerce
• The modification of existing products in bindCommerce

For each of these actions, the following options are available.

Consider that the SKU code is used as the primary identification key to decide whether a new product entry or update is required.

The identification key of the categories used to manage the updates is built by appending the names of the categories in the main language, which will form a field called "keycat", therefore, if a category is renamed or moved in the category tree, it will be identified as a new category (the update will not be done, but a new category will be created in addition to the previous one).

Options for creating new products in bindCommerce

The options related to the creation of the products not present are the following:

• enter product name, description, notes, dimensions and custom options
• enter categories
• enter child products
• enter product - category matching
• enter manufacturer
• insert images
• enter prices
• enter stock availability
• insert category image
• enter metadata
• insert featured products

Options for editing existing products in bindCommerce

The options for modifying existing products are as follows:

• update product name, description, notes, dimensions and custom options
• update child products
• delete product - category combination
• add product - category combination
• update manufacturer
• update prices
• update stock availability
• update product image
• update category image
• update category description
• update metadata
• update featured products
• set the quantity to 0 for products not present in the file
• mark as deleted and set the quantity to 0 for products not present in the file
• delete product images NOT set?

Finally, there is an additional premium option that is valid both in creation and in modification of the articles:

• Convert the relative URLs present in the description into absolute: it can be useful when you want to download products that have images inserted in the body of the description and saved on the database in the form of relative URLs, which would not be visible outside the site.

Alternative choice

Once you have chosen the options to perform, you can decide whether to save the data in an alternative to the product list. It is useful for managing, for example, alternative languages to the main one.

Creation of connector for downloading products from OpenCart

Remember that before creating the connector it is necessary to install the OpenCart node on which the connector will operate. After doing this, go to the menu:

 

Process >> Connectors

and click on the Add button.

The following parameters must therefore be chosen:

• Connector Name: Choose a name to identify what the connector does
• Node type (technology): choose eCommerce OpenCart
• Node: choose the previously created node
• Connector type: choose eCommerce OpenCart [Download products on bindCommerce]

 

Click on SAVE AND CONTINUE to access the additional fields of the connector.

Configuration

The previously created import configuration produced by OpenCart must be indicated in this field.

Product filter

In this section of the connector it is possible to choose whether, and which filter to apply, among those previously created through the function setting filters on products.
Once the changes are complete, click on SAVE AND CLOSE.
The connector can be executed in interactive mode (by clicking on the button Execute the connector immediately?) Or through automatic procedures.

Details

Written by: Valentina Cascio

Category: OpenCart integration

Published: 06 December 2018

Hits: 1490

The goal of this process is to download the orders that customers have placed on eCommerce stores made with OpenCart to bindCommerce.
At the same time as the orders are downloaded, the stock availability on bindCommerce can be updated, and as a result (thanks to other connectors) the quantities available for sale on the various online stores and marketplaces can be updated.

 

Options for downloading orders from OpenCart

The first thing to do will be to create a special configuration for the connector that will take care of downloading the orders. It can be configured by going to the menu:

eCommerce >> OpenCart >> Download orders

By clicking on Add it will be necessary to fill in the fields as follows:

• Configuration name: indicate the desired name
• eCommerce platform: select OpenCart

Click on SAVE AND CONTINUE to access the additional configuration fields.

Select period

It is possible to choose whether to download all the orders each time, or only those of a given more recent period. If you try to download an existing order, it will be updated and not duplicated, but if there are a large number of orders, it is not sensible to re-execute the complete download every time (greater volume of data to transfer and process), but, in according to your discharge policy, limit the range only to a given period.

It is therefore possible to choose to download orders from a date onwards or not older than a certain period.

Update existing customers

When you are downloading an order from a customer already present on bindCommerce (recognized through the relative eMail address), you can choose to update the relative personal data (name, address, etc.), or not. Normally the best choice is to update (to always have updated data available).

What to do if there is no shipping address

On OpenCart it is possible to specify the billing address and, without making it explicit, say that the shipping address is the same. When downloading orders on bindCommerce, to have a more complete situation (without empty fields), you can choose to populate the shipping address using the billing address. If there are no particular reasons to the contrary, we recommend setting this option.

Filter by order status

You can choose to download all orders on bindCommerce (do not filter by status), or download only those orders that are in a particular status.

Update stock availability on bindCommerce

This option allows you to choose which order statuses to update stock availability by decreasing the quantities purchased.

Order status to be considered canceled

Here you can specify which order status, among those managed and linked to OpenCart, to be considered as Canceled on bindCommerce.

Create products not present on bindCommerce

If the products contained in the downloaded orders are not present (SKU not present) you can choose to have bindCommerce create the downloaded product, or not. If the product is not created, it will not be possible to monitor its stock availability.

Order line uniqueness key

This option allows you to specify if the unique key must be the SKU or if the SKU must be entered together with the description.

PayPal transactions

This is a premium option that allows you to report information relating to payment via PayPal within orders. For more details, consult the appropriate PayPal tutorial.

OpenCart

This is a specific section for the OpenCart CMS, where a field is available to indicate the default VAT that will be calculated on orders.

Electronic invoicing

In this section it is necessary to enter the name of the two fields intended for electronic invoicing present in OpenCart. They can usually be found in orders or from any module that manages the functionality.

Connector creation

Remember that before creating the connector it is necessary to install the OpenCart node on which the connector will operate. After doing this you need to go to the menu

Process --> Connectors

and click on the Add button.

The following parameters must therefore be chosen:

• Connector Name: Choose a name to identify what the connector does
• Node type (technology): by choosing the OpenCart eCommerce node, the Node and Connector Type fields will be updated, showing the choices compatible with that type of node
• Node: choose the previously created node
• Connector type: choose the type of eCommerce OpenCart [Download orders on bindCommerce] connector.

 

After having set all the parameters, click on the SAVE AND CONTINUE button. The page will reload and you will be able to parameterize the connector options.

• Connector configuration: in this field it is necessary to enter the previously created configuration for unloading orders.

Once the changes are complete, click on SAVE AND CLOSE.

As is already the case for other connectors, the execution can take place manually (by clicking on Run the connector immediately?), Or automatically by means of a scheduled procedure.

 

Details

Written by: Valentina Cascio

Category: OpenCart integration

Published: 06 December 2018

Hits: 1430

The goal of this connector is to publish the products on bindCommerce within the stores created with OpenCart. The publication may be complete with all data and images, or it may be an update of only some restricted data, such as stock availability.

The execution of the connectors can be activated in interactive mode, by clicking on the appropriate button, or be "automatically launched" from a scheduled procedure.

Product publishing options

To create a specific configuration to be applied to the connector that will publish the products on OpenCart, go to the menu:

eCommerce >> OpenCart >> Product publishing

and select the Add button and fill in the fields as follows:

• Configuration name: indicate the desired name
• eCommerce platform: select eCommerce OpenCart

First you can choose whether the connector should perform:

• Creation of products in the eShop (OpenCart shop)
• Modification of existing products in the eShop

Consider that the SKU code is used as the primary identification key to decide whether a new product entry or update is required.

The category identification key used to manage updates is built by appending the names of the categories in the main language, which will form a field called "keycat", so if a category is renamed or moved in the categories tree it will be identified as a new category (it will not be updated, but a new category will be created in addition to the previous one, in fact it never deletes the categories on the eShop, which may have been created with other methods independent of bindCommerce).

For each of these actions, the following options are available.

Options for creating new products in the eShop

• enter product name, description, notes, size and custom options
• enter categories
• insert child products
• enter product - category matching
• enter manufacturer
• enter prices: keep in mind the options described below in relation to the price lists to be considered
• enter stock availability
• insert porduct image
• insert category image
• insert metadata and tags
• enter featured products
• unpublish products (if availability is updated)
• use the heaviest weight between the real and volumetric one

Options for modifying existing products in the eShop

The upgrade options are listed below:

• update product name, description, notes, attributes, sizes and custom options
• update child products
• delete product - category pairing
• enter product - category matching
• update maufacturer
• update category name and description: it will not work with the name in the main language because if its name changes, the keycat, identification key of the category itself, will change and will therefore be interpreted as an addition
• update prices: keep in mind the options described below in relation to the price lists to be considered
• unpublishes the products reported as canceled on the integrator
• update stock availability
• update product image
• update metadata and tags
• updates featured products
• unpublish products out of stock (if availability is updated)
• use the heaviest weight between the real and volumetric one
• unpublish categories left without published products (acts on the whole store)

Where to get the available quantity for the products

This is a premium option that allows you to define advanced rules to send warehouse quantities different from the real ones, for example by limiting the maximum, sending a fixed value, taking data from an attribute or calculating the stock as a percentage of that real.

For more details, see the specific guide on Quantities rules.

Attributes to consider

You can choose to include some attributes in the publication. The attributes selected here will be published on the online shop.

Note for products from Danea Easyfatt: This option is particularly useful to exclude from the publication the Color attribute that Danea creates whenever it is defined that a product is of type "Item with stock (Size / Color)" even if in fact it affects only one of the 2 parameters (eg size). In these cases, publishing both parameters on OpenCart would create a "false" product sheet, giving the user the possibility to choose size and color from 2 different drop-down menus, in which the color attribute would always be fixed at the default value ( -).

For a correct connector configuration, it is advisable to carefully consider the characteristics of the connectors involved in the specific configuration area.

In the same section it is also necessary to specify the target language on the site.

Attribute scale conversion

Scaling is a tool made available to create a correspondence between the specific values of an attribute saved in bindCommerce and any different reference values. The conversion can also be performed for the Manufacturer / Brand fields.

For more details, see the appropriate Attribute Value Normalization tutorial.

Price lists and prices

bindCommerce can manage multiple price lists and among the options of the connector that publishes the products on OpenCart there is the choice of which price lists to publish. In this regard, it is necessary to pay close attention to the key used by OpenCart to identify the price list (see in this regard the price lists management).

In this section it is necessary to choose which country code to use for the VAT rate.

Finally, let's consider the "Copy the price" field has as possible options:

• Price excluding VAT on bindCommerce
• Price including VAT on bindCommerce / (1 + VAT) to solve the problems of rounding to the cent

Questa opzione serve per gestire le problematiche di arrotondamento prezzo ai 2 decimali.

The problem derives from the fact that the price including VAT is not saved on the OpenCart price table, but the VAT excluded price (which on the database can reach up to 5 decimals), and then it is multiplied by 1.22 (1 + VAT) to obtain the price including VAT, and if we keep to 2 decimals, sometimes there is no price excluding VAT that makes a round figure.

Let's take the example of a product with a price of € 180.00 including VAT, the price excluding VAT is € 147.54 (147.54 x 1.22 = 179.9988 rounded to € 179.99). If it had been € 147.55 the calculated price including VAT would have become 180.011 which is rounded to € 180.01. When prices are fed by Danea, both VAT excluded and VAT included (rounded correctly) are present. If we choose the second option, bindCommerce will use the VAT inclusive price and obtain the VAT excluded price to 5 decimal places, which are sufficient to obtain a correct rounded calculation.

Choice of alternative descriptions to the main one

The option allows you to publish on OpenCart the values of products present in an alternative date, instead of the main ones. We will use this possibility to manage the publication in alternative languages or with a different format.

If there are no values for the selected alternative, the system will use those of the main tables.

For more details, consult the appropriate tutorial

Tags

In this tab we have the possibility to activate the sending of tags, specifying the picking field. We have several options: from the Tags field of the product table, from a free field, from the Notes field or from an attribute.

OpenCart

This section is dedicated exclusively to OpenCart type shops. The required fields can be found in the OpenCart interface.

• Store name: from the OpenCart control panel you can find the System -> Settings menu

Connector creation

Remember that before creating the connector it is necessary to install the OpenCart node on which the connector will operate. After doing this, go to the menu:

Process -> Connectors

and click on the Add button.

The following parameters must therefore be chosen:

• Connector Name: Choose a name to identify what the connector does
• Node type (technology): choose eCommerce OpenCart. After choosing the node type, the Node and Connector Type fields will be updated, presenting the choices compatible with that type of node
• Node: choose the previously created node
• Connector type: choose the type of connector eCommerce OpenCart [Product publishing]

Then click on SAVE AND CONTINUE.

Configuration

in this field it is necessary to enter the configuration for the product publication previously created

Product filter

In this section of the connector it is possible to choose whether and which filter to apply among those previously created. See the Product Filters tutorial for more details.

Differential approach

The differential approach is used to optimize the repeated execution of the connector under the same configuration conditions (options and filter applied). By checking the last successful execution of the process, it extracts only the articles that have undergone a real modification and not every time the entire archive.

Click on SAVE AND CLOSE. The connector can be executed in interactive mode (by clicking on the button Run the connector immediately?) Or through automatic procedures

 

 

Details

Written by: Valentina Cascio

Category: OpenCart integration

Published: 06 December 2018

Hits: 1241

The installation of the OpenCart node allows you to put the bindCommerce integration platform in communication with online stores created in the OpenCart environment.

To create the node go to the menu:

Process >> Nodes

click on Add and fill in the fields as follows:

• Technology: Select OpenCart eCommerce
• Name: indicate the preferred name for the node

Click on SAVE AND CONTINUE to access the additional fields of the node

FTP Access

• FTP server: indicate the FTP server that allows you to reach the site, without specifying the protocol. Example: ftp.mysite.com
• Folder: if the FTP access does not go directly into the folder that contains the site (to be clear, the one containing the index.php file and the administrator, components, etc ... folders), you can specify the necessary folder path here to reach the site root, followed by /. Example: public_html / sitoecommerce /
• Username: FTP username. Example: mysite_user
• Password: FTP password. Example: mysite_pass
• Enable passive transfer mode: this option must ONLY be activated if the FTP server only supports this file transfer mode
• Enable SFTP transfer: activate this option if the area has an SFTP type connection available

Website address

• Protocol: indicate the protocol used by the e-commerce site (http/https)
• Url: indicate the site address, without using the protocol and not terminated by /. Example: www.mysite.com.

Node installation

To install the node, simply click on the INSTALL NODO button. The system will confirm the start of the installation with a message (which will end in a few seconds, without further messages)

Update node

In correspondence of functionality updates, the bindCommerce team will notify you of the need to update the node. To update the node, simply click on the UPDATE NODE button.

Sales channel costs

These are useful parameters for calculating commercial profitability. It is possible to specify a fixed cost per sale and an average percentage cost.

After entering or updating the parameters, before continuing, you must click on the SAVE AND CONTINUE button to save the parameters that will be used by the node installation or update process.

Connectors

After installing and configuring the node, it will be possible to configure and use the connectors to OpenCart, and specifically:

• Connector for uploading products on OpenCart
• Connector for downloading orders from OpenCart