5/19/03 - View Orders/Account History
We have updated the "View Orders" & "Account History" to allow for more flexibility and options. When you enter E-cat
admin and click "View Orders" you will see a drop down box full of all your current e-cat accounts. You must choose a specific
account to view orders or select all accounts.
Click here for Example
If you select "ALL ACCOUNTS" you will then be asked to enter an Order # or
to set a date range and then click "Show Orders". By clicking "Show Orders" you will now see the orders selected in the
normal view orders format.
Click here for Example
If you select a Specific Account to view orders all instruction are the same as the above instruction with the exception of one additional feature.
Selecting a specific account allows you the ability to either view the orders in the normal view orders format
by clicking "Show Orders" or you can now download the orders to an excel spreadsheet by clicking "Download Orders".
Click here for Example
When downloading orders you must first select an order number or date range. Once you have done this click "Download Orders"
The system will prompt you to save a file to your local computer click "Save".
Click here for Example
Then choose a destination for this file and pick a place you can
access the file after the download is complete (Like a My Documnets folder)
Click here for Example
This will save the orders to your computer as a tab delimited file. Once the download is complete
you can start your excel program and choose the open feature in excel. Tell excel to look for all files not just
xls spreadsheets so the tab delimited orders file will appear. Once you find the tab delimited file choose open and then
excel will launch a wizard to translate the tab delimited file into the excel format. Follow the instructions, just
a few clicks then you will see the orders displayed in excel. Once they are in excel you can do anything you want to the
data.
3/7/03 - Start Page
This feature allows you to have more flexibility as to what page is displayed when an account logs into the ecat. You have two options. You can choose
"Product Group" which keeps in place the current format where the product group items establish the start page. This is where you can decide to have a special or
corelist as the accounts start page. The other option is "Product Search" selecting this sets the ecat search page as the account-starting place. The search page
is where an account can select a database then a manufacturer to help find products in the ecat. See the link below to
view so screen shots of this option.
Click here for Example
3/6/03 - Welcome Message
This feature allows you to create a text message that is displayed in the ecat as a welcome message. Using the admin interface profile
you can type a message per account that is displayed in the ecat when your customer enters the ecat.
Click here for Example
10/21/02 - Sales Tax Feature
This feature allows you to set by shipping address a specific sales tax to be added to the sales total.
You can establish the specific % to be added to the shipping addres by first selecting the coreect shipping
address from the "Edit Ship Tos" link in admin. you will see at the bottom of this page a box that is where
you set the %. You then need to activate this feature. You can activate this feature by login. To activate the
feature select "Edit Logins" in admin,select "Edit" for the login you wish to activate. When that logins page
loads go to the bottom of the page where you will see "Other Information" and select yes fo the apply sales
tax. The link below shows a few screen shots of what this looks like. Please call if you have any questions.
Click here for Example
10/21/02 - Favorites
This feature lets your customers select items in the ecat to be added to a favorite products list.
This feature lets your customers place items in an easy to find location. This is like a customer created corelist. To activate
this select the customers login in the "edit login" area of admin. Choose the login you wish then selet "edit". At the bottom
of the login page select “yes” in the favorites drop down box. Please call if you have any questions.
Click here for screen shots.
8/20/02 - Corelist Only Database Color Code
You now have the ability to activate a Corelist Only color code. This feature gives all corelist items a green mark
when displaying search results to help your customer identify their corelist items. This item can be activate in the "Edit Interface"
portion of the ecat. Please see the image below for more details.
Click here for Example
8/05/02 - Database Color Code
In admin you now have the option to activate per account a database color code. The color code appears next to a product
in the search result screen. This color code can help you identify what database product results came out of. To activate
the color code pick the account you desire and choose "edit interface" and select "All Color Codes" from
the color code selection area.
Click here for Example
8/05/02 - New Product Layout
We have modified the product picture format to a new layout that shows the product image as well as a product description.
As product data is populated with more informative descriptions this format will allow for that growth.
Click here for Example
8/05/02 - Order Status Feature
You now can open up past orders using the admin View Orders feature and add order status text to that order. This order status
text is then available to your customers in the e-cat through the Account History feature. You can type delivery dates or tracking numbers or
any text you feel would be helpful for your customers.
Click here for Example
7/17/02 - Upload / Download Corelist
You now have the ability to upload a corelist into the E-Cat and download a core list out of the E-Cat. All corelists for upload must be in Tab Delimited format and the
corelist data needs to be in a specific format for the upload to work correctly. You can see this format by going to your favorite corelist downloading it and then opening
the list into excel. Once you have selected a corelist and have hit the button "Edit Core List" you will see in the options box a link titled download coreslist. Choose
download and then select where you want the download to be saved on your computer. This will save your corelist to your computer as a tab delimited file. Once the
download is complete you can start your excel program and choose the open feature in excel. Tell excel to look for all files not just xls spreadsheets so your tab
delimited file will appear. Once you find the tab delimited file choose open and then excel will launch a wizard to translate the tab delimited file into the excel format.
Follow the instructions, just a few clicks then you will see your corelist displayed in excel. You can study and see how the data is laid out.
You can make any changes to the data you want like change a price or a description. Then all you do is save the file as a tab delimited through excel and upload
it back into the system. I am encouraging everyone to have a walk through on this with me but feel free to try it out.
Please contact me to be trained on this new feature.
5/30/02 - Image Reference
We have created a page that lists all the Vendor logos as well as other images that can be used in the E-Cat in the various add spaces.
Now if you have always wanted to have that 3M logo or a Epson logo on a customers E-Cat you now can pick the logo
you like from the Image Reference list. In the edit interface page in the E-Cat admin you will see a link
titled "Click here for Image Reference". When you click this link a new window will open. The new window will have two items.
The first item is the image name followed by the actual picture. Select the image you want and then
type that images reference name in one of the add spaces in the edit interface page. Here is a link to see the reference page.
Click here for Image Reference
4/29/02 - New Corelist & Specials format
We are in the process of rolling out a new Specials and corelist format that will give you the ability to activate
an unlimited amount of corelists and specials for each account. Where you could only load 1 special and 2 corelists
you now can do as many as you want per account.
Click here for instructions
2/11/02 - Account History
Many accounts have multiple logins. In the E-Cat original design regarding account history all logins saw all orders in their
particular account when viewing their account history. This new account history logins feature allows you to tell the
E-Cat to show only the account history for each login. You can control this feature by selecting an account in E-Cat Admin and then select edit profile.
EXAMPLE if you choose "Show all logins in Account History = YES" Then all logins see all orders for that particular account.
EXAMPLE if you choose "Show all logins in Account History = NO" Then account history shows orders by login. If you login as customer "x" you see only customer "x" history.
See picture
2/8/02 - Price = "call" Feature
In the E-Cat you can now create a pricing profile that has a product mark up of (-2) instead 1.00 or the normal
format. Now any product that has a mark up of -2 the price in the E-Cat will now show the word "call" instead of a price.
This feature can help eliminate the sale of product in the E-Cat that you do not sell or wish to not sell. With the price as "call" your customer
cannot add that item to their basket.
See picture
2/4/02 - U.S. Ingram Micro Database
Ingram Micro's (Computer Hardware/Software)database is now available to our E-cat Users. Similar to Tech Data we load the Ingram file daily. You activate and set pricing profile the same as you do with the current Tech Data file. Please note! you can only use either the Tech Data file or the Ingram Micro file.
2/4/02 - New Quick Search Box
We redesigned the quick search box to make it a bit cleaner. We added a help button 
to help people
with searching questions.
See Picture
2/4/02 - H.P. Microsite
Vision and HP have been working together to provide a solution that gives customer access to HP information to help them make informed HP purchases.
The HP Microsite which can be activated on any of your new or existing E-Cat accounts loads the Microsite hot link
image seen below. The Microsite link loads a new window that holds a ton of HP product info from cross referencing
of HP printers to HP supplies as well as enhanced descriptions of HP products. Your customer will see their price
for those items and can even add the HP product to their shopping basket right from the Microsite. To activate this feature
just go to your account admin profile and check the box titled HP Microsite. When the box is checked the Microsite is active.
See Picture
2/1/02 - New E-Cat user Manual PDF
A new an updated Manual is available,now in PDF format. Great to give to new E-Cat users. It is 500kb so it takes a moment to download.
Get Manual
1/10/02 - Admin Interface Color Additions.
We have changed the way you select colors for your E-Cat interface. Before you had a drop down box of roughly 8 colors.
We have now opened up the E-Cat to accept all HTML color reference numbers. Instead of using the drop down box you now put the
appropriate color reference number in the necessary box. We have a chart that has the HTML color reference #'s for our original 8 colors
as well as a chart for several other colors. Just find the color you want and then type that colors 6 character reference number,then hit update and you are on your way!
See Picture
12/6/01 - Update basket button.
This button gives you the ability in the view basket screen to change the quantity of an item in your shopping basket and then the system will recalculate your price total.
See Picture
Link Feature
12/6/01
A catalog help page was created to assist people in the catalog. Please see the link below titled "Admin Links Feature Demo" to learn how to set this up. You can use this feature to place a hot link to the catalog help page inside your e-cat accounts.
Here is the URL for the catalog help page.
http://www.vbpnet.com/ecathelp/GCindex.htm
Admin Links Feature Demo
