What does the solution offer?

newlook feature summary – Making life easier for users and developers alike…

• Rules-based dynamic environment for fast UI generation and easy maintenance
• Integrated support for emulation, mobile clients, RIA, zero deployment UIs and Smart Client UIs
• Use ‘point and click’ macros for easy integration and extension ‘Designer’ provides drag and drop support for re-facing and new UIs for composite applications
• Create reusable components from 5250/3270 applications for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Integrated debugging and error handling
• Multiple APIs for seamless desktop integration
• SSL and VPN support for flexible security
• Integrated printer emulation, multi-session and file transfer support
• Supports IBM’s Open Access for RPG

“The more we use it to enhance, modernize and integrate our applications, the more we appreciate the power of the looksoftware suite of programs.” adidas

User profiles

Each user is set up with a profile, plus a password that restricts access and also defaults many elements of customer specific functionality required. This information includes a default Website, a list of customer accounts to which they are authorised, buying lists and the authority levels within the application. These authority levels limit where and what the user can do within Weblinc, including read only or edit/change approvals. Also, user specific views of information can be created within the enquiries, which will display user requested data in different table formats, with sort facilities on columns as required.

Items or Products

The standard ERP data on an item can be extended with multiple groups for the website search facilities, multiple images, extensive text and specifications. Each item can also have different units of measure.

Item Search

Weblinc provides many ways to search products, a user can search for an item based upon its item code, a full or partial description, via product categories, features, size, weight, colour, price, product functionality and many more variations.

Order Entry

The Weblinc order entry has been designed so users do not require any training to operate the site and therefore it is simple to use. It includes many features that help with the ease of entering a full order or entering an individual order line. These features also aid speed of data input, therefore making the site more acceptable to users.

Quickly create a whole order

Weblinc offers several standard short cuts to reduce the time to input an order. These functions are designed to allow the user to utilise previously entered orders or pre-defined lists to speed up the creation of a new order.

COPY A PREVIOUS ORDER

• If a user wishes to place an order that is similar to one they have previously input, there is the facility to retrieve this order and copy it to create a new order. Once duplicated, individual lines can be edited or new lines added. Once the user is satisfied with the content of the new order, it can then be confirmed in the normal manner.

COPY A PREVIOUS ORDER

• Many companies will order a similar list of items on a regular basis. To aid speed of input of orders of this nature, Weblinc allows the user to set up a template (favourite order), that contains a list of such items with no quantities. Then, when the user wishes to place an order of this nature, a template can be retrieved and only the quantities need to be entered against each line. This greatly aids speed of input and also acts as a reminder of the items purchased. This can directly affect the value of the order that the customer places. An order template can be used at any time to provide a list of associated products when creating an order and several templates can be used within a single order.

Creation of an order

If a user is creating an order from “scratch”, there are many functions available that assist in this task. As the data is entered, Weblinc tries to help by providing as much detail as possible, guiding the user to create the order quickly and easily.

ADD A LINE ITEM

• Once a user selects the option to create an order, they can add lines very simply by just keying the product code and quantity and selecting the “Add“ button. Lines are then displayed with the item code, a description and price. The total order values are also updated. Quantities on order lines can be amended at any time during order input, whereupon the lines and totals are re-calculated.

TOTAL ORDER VALUES

• During order input, total order values are displayed including line details, total number of lines entered, total line value, VAT and total order value including VAT. This ensures that the user has full visibility of all the order values at all times.

System 21 / Aurora based Pricing

When a sales order line is entered, Weblinc retrieves the specific customer price dynamically from the AS/400 using the standard SYSTEM 21 / Aurora pricing routines. As a result of using the AS/400 to perform the pricing of lines, Weblinc ensures that the customer is given the correct item price including their discounts or price breaks. Consequently, the complex SYSTEM 21 pricing algorithms required to generate the specific customer price do not need to be replicated or maintained on two systems.

Sell on ups

Weblinc can maximise the customers’ order value by displaying the next price level break of the item combined with displaying any “associated” products that may normally be purchased together with the item. If an out-of-stock situation arises, alternative products can be suggested.

Add a line to an existing order

Once an order has been confirmed and the SYSTEM 21 order entry system has been updated then this order cannot normally be amended. However, Weblinc does provide the facility to add additional order lines onto an existing order providing that the order has not been totally fulfilled on the SYSTEM 21 system.

Order Workspace

To maintain the ERP database integrity, all transactions ae validated prior to being committed to the SYSTEM 21 database. More than 70 tests are performed on an order prior to it being applied to the transaction database on the AS/400. Any sales orders that do not pass this validation are held in the order workspace for resolution. Once the order has been corrected then, and only then, is it applied to the database. Tolerances / rules can be set so that abnormal orders can be identified and held in the order workspace for review. Different errors can be handled in different ways, depending on the site, and the user. Certain errors can be allowed where the users will not be told, but the resultant order would be posted to the order workspace for review. Once in the workspace it can be reviewed, corrected and re-sent to the AS/400 based.

Hosted Solution

Weblinc provides hosting services for both the website, Weblinc and any associated website software. Dependent on the size of the purchasing organisation, making use of our hosting is usually the most reliable and cost effective approach to managing and operating the ecommerce platform. Where Weblinc provides the hosting, the AS400 is connected to the hosting via a secure VPN.

Larger organisations with their own data centre can host the entire ecommerce environment in house. To support and maintain the ecommerce platform, Weblinc would require secure remote access to the servers.