Create Order Fulfillments in Shopify with fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition)

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We’re pleased to announce that you can now create Order Fulfillments in Shopify in the latest release of fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition). We’ve added the ability to create a Fulfillment record in fmEcommerce Link for one or more Order Items in v1.4 which was released today:

You can enter the Tracking Company (select from a list of known Tracking Companies), Tracking Number and optional Tracking URL and select the Location that the Fulfillment will ship from. Clicking the Upload to Shopify button on this window will create a new Fulfillment in Shopify or update an existing one if you’re making a change to a previously uploaded Fulfillment.

The Fulfillment will be created in Shopify and save you from having to update Orders in both Shopify and FileMaker when it comes to managing Order Fulfillments:

Once again this is a this free update to all our existing customers who can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc). Here’s a video that demonstrates uploading an Order Fulfillment from fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) – you can also watch it on YouTube here:

fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) Now Supports Order Uploads

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Since we first released fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) back in 2016 we’ve had a number of requests from customers asking us to include the ability to upload Orders from FileMaker to WooCommerce. fmEcommerce Link was created from a solution we built for our own business to solve a very pressing problem at the time – automate the downloading of Orders from WooCommerce into FileMaker so we didn’t have to manually enter these one-by-one.

At the time we didn’t see a huge need for having the ability to go the other way, as the whole point of WooCommerce is to handle online orders from your website. Having spoken with our customers who were requesting this and also having used fmEcommerce Link in our own business for a few years we can now see some scenarios where it would be helpful to have the ability to upload Orders entered in FileMaker to WooCommerce, including:

  • not all Orders for your products are entered directly into WooCommerce by all customers. Some customers might receive your product as part of a larger consulting project, or have to use payment methods that are not accepted on your store.
  • sometimes you just need to send the customer to your store to pay for an Order without wanting them to start from scratch and select the various products, add them to the cart and complete the checkout page. There is a way to create an Order for a customer and send them the link to the customer payment page so all they need to do is enter their credit card/payment details (see video below)
  • you might have orders from legacy systems that pre-date your WooCommerce store which you wish to upload so WooCommerce is in sync with your CRM software, allowing customers to be able to login and download updates and see their full history

Having had to enter a number of Orders manually into WooCommerce over the past few years we saw the light and started work on an update to fmEcommerce Link that includes the ability to upload Orders from FileMaker to WooCommerce. We’re pleased to announce that v1.53 of fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) is now available as a free update for all existing customers.

When working with Order uploads to WooCommerce please be aware of the following:

  • the tax fields are “read only” in the API so when you upload an Order we then download the updated details from WooCommerce which include the tax amounts that WooCommerce calculates automatically
  • Coupons are not applied when they are included in an Order upload with the REST API v2 that we currently support, so we’ve decided not to include them to avoid any confusion. The REST API v3 that was recently released includes some changes around Automatic total calculations when applying/removing coupons, so this is something we will included when we release an update designed to work with the v3 API
  • if you want to delete an Order Line item you don’t delete the line item in FileMaker – just set the Qty to 0 and include that when uploading and WooCommerce will remove it from the Order for you

Here’s a video showing the Order upload in action, including the ability to retrieve the URL for the customer payment page if you wish to send your customer a link to pay for an Order you create in FileMaker.

 

You can view the full release notes on our version history page.

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) and Webhooks

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We will be releasing a new version of fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) in the next few days – this is our long awaited update that includes native functionality for the FileMaker v16 platform and later so you don’t need to use a plug-in anymore. This means you can use the fmEcommerce Link solution on any FileMaker client application: FileMaker Go, FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced, FileMaker Server and FileMaker WebDirect.

As part of this update we’re also including a number of features that have been requested by our users, including support for Shopify Webhooks. Webhooks allow you to trigger an action when a specified event happens on your Shopify store. Our first webhook will be an ‘Order Creation’ webhook which will send the Order details automatically to your fmEcommerce Link file and create the Order automatically without you having to manually download the Order.

You could setup a FileMaker Server schedule that ran every x minutes that checked for new orders since a specified timestamp, but it’s much more efficient to leverage Webhooks if they are available and receive notifications when new orders are created on your store.

We’ll be releasing a free update to fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) later this week which will include support for Webhooks when a new Order is created. You will need to setup a Webhook and install the supplied PHP file on your FileMaker Server (you will need to enable Custom Web Publishing/PHP in your FileMaker Server Admin Console), and once this in place anytime a new Order is received in Shopify it will automatically be pushed to the fmEcommerce Link file, typically within a few seconds. N.B. your webhook address must use HTTPS – HTTP addresses are not supported by Shopify.

You can get more information about Shopify Webhooks at the following links:

https://help.shopify.com/en/api/getting-started/webhooks

https://help.shopify.com/en/api/getting-started/webhooks#through-store-admin

Here’s a short video demonstrating this in action (you can also watch this on YouTube here). If you have any other Webhooks you would like us to support please let us know.

Eliminating Double Data Entry with eCommerce, FileMaker and Accounting Integration

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Are you a small business that uses FileMaker to run your business (Contacts, Invoices, Suppliers, Leads etc) but also have an online store and use another accounting software? Do you find yourself re-entering online orders multiple times in your FileMaker CRM then once again in your accounting software?

There is a better way – we know as we once were in that situation ourselves. Over the past five years we’ve introduced a number of new systems into our business operations, including:

  • 2 online stores for our main Databuzz site as well as for our fmSMS product both running WooCommerce
  • switched from a  desktop accounting software to the Xero Cloud accounting platform

We also use the FileMaker platform internally to run our business and like many of our customers we suddenly found ourselves in the position where we had to enter a new sales order multiple times in different systems. The workflow for a new order became:

  1. receive notification via email of a new online order
  2. create a new order in our FileMaker CRM and copy/paste the customer and order details from the email
  3. logon to Xero and create a new Customer and Invoice and enter the Payment manually via copy/paste from FileMaker

The online order was being manually typed twice in FileMaker and our accounting software, leading to data entry errors and wasted time handling the same order multiple times. At Databuzz we like to “eat out own dogfood”  and most of our Products have been the result of a need to solve a problem within our own business that we suspected other businesses would also have. With the help of our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution as well as fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) and the power of webhooks we’ve been able to completely eliminate all data entry for our online orders.

The new streamlined process looks like this:

  1. a new order is created in one of our online stores which triggers a WooCommerce webhook to push that new Order to our internal version of fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition).
  2. this calls a FileMaker script which then pushes the online order to our internal version of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition). It checks to see if the customer already exists, otherwise it creates a new one.
  3. a staff member does a quick sanity check to make sure everything looks correct and then clicks a button to upload the new Invoice and Payment to Xero.

We’ve managed to reduce this business process from 5-10 minutes to 5-10 seconds –  this has freed up time to be spent on more productive tasks instead of mindless double data entry. Whether you’re using WooCommerce or Shopify for your online store and Xero or MYOB AccountRight/Essentials for your accounting it is possible to integrate all of these with FileMaker in the middle so that new online orders flow directly into FileMaker and then into your accounting software without any more double data entry.

If you would like to discuss integrating your FileMaker solution with your eCommerce system please contact us for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements. We also have a number of FileMaker integration solutions available if you would prefer to do the integration in-house:

fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) Update

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We’ve just released a minor update to fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) – v1.34 – that includes one new feature and one bug fix:

  • we’ve updated the Get Orders download script to check for any previously downloaded Orders with the same WooCommerce ID and skip them if present. This makes it easer to download new orders multiple times a day without having to worry about ending up with duplicate Orders
  • we’ve fixed a bug that was failing to delete the Products Meta Data records when updating a Product from WooCommerce

Once again this is a free update to all our existing customers – you can get the full details of the changes in the release notes for fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition). Existing customers can download this new version using their existing download links from their original order – please contact us if you have any issues downloading this update.

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) Update September 2017

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Shopify, the leading multi-channel commerce platform, recently announced that it now powers more than 500,000 businesses in 175 countries around the world. The number of merchants of the Shopify platform is growing annually at an average rate of 74% and in the last 12 months 131 million people have bought from Shopify stores.

If you’re using Shopify for your online presence and FileMaker in your business check out fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition):

http://www.databuzz.com.au/fmecommerce-link-shopify-edition/

It has many examples for integrating FileMaker with Shopify, including the ability to upload Products from FileMaker and download Orders from Shopify at the click of a button – no more double data entry!

We’ve just released an update with a few minor changes, including an update to the downloading of filtered Orders by date range to now use your Shop’s timezone setting. We’ve also added a new example that allows you to delete a Product in Shopify from FileMaker. Contact us to if you have any questions or to request a free 14 day trial.

fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) Update August 2017

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We’ve just updated fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) – our solution for integrating FileMaker with WooCommerce – with a number of new features and bug fixes. We love getting requests from our existing customer base in many different countries and have included a few feature requests in the latest update, including:

  • Products: we added support for Grouped Products so you can now create and update these from FileMaker
  • Products: we added the ability to Delete a Product in WooCommerce from FileMaker
  • Products:  you can now view Product Images using a Webviewer (you no longer need to download Images into Container field to View them)

We’ve had a number of requests for the ability to create an Order in FileMaker and upload that to WooCommerce so it is available for customers to view when they login. We had been planning to add this in already so this will now be included in the next release – there’s quite a bit of work involved in ensuring the Order data is valid and gathering the correct line items, shipping lines, taxes etc, but we’re hoping to have this released in the next 4-6 weeks.

We’re also working on an update for FileMaker Pro v16 users to take advantage of the new JSON functions and cURL options in the FileMaker v16 platform – this will allow you to no longer need a plugin to communicate with the WooCommerce API, making it easier if you’re using FileMaker Go and FileMaker WebDirect and not having to use server side scripts.

This is a free update to all our existing customers – you can get the full details of the changes in the release notes for fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition). If you have any additional feature requests please get in touch.

The Benefits of eCommerce Integration with your FileMaker CRM

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In Australia and other parts of the world this week marks the start of a new financial year, which is a great time to review your business processes and eliminate any inefficiencies that is costing your business time and money.

One of the most common businesses processes we see in many small- medium sized businesses is the double data entry of orders from online eCommerce systems into the FileMaker custom business application (and sometimes once more into the Accounting software). We work with many small businesses that have an online presence, selling products and services using online platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify. Many of them are unaware they it is possible to automate the exchange of data between eCommerce systems and FileMaker using APIs (an API is an Application Programming Interface that a company makes available to other software developers to allow you to get your software – FileMaker in this case – talking to their software).

If you’re using FileMaker as your CRM (Customer relationship management) application to track your customers, sales, invoices and payments there are a number of advantages of integrating it with your eCommerce software, including:

  • no more double data entry in FileMaker. The order and customer details have already been entered by the customer in the eCommerce system – with the click of a button the order details can be downloaded to your FileMaker custom application in a few seconds
  • no more double data entry of Product details in your eCommerce system. If you’re using your FileMaker application as the central repository of product data you can push/upload data from FileMaker to your eCommerce system (including images) at the click of a button
  • less errors between your eCommerce system and your FileMaker custom application. Being able to download and upload data between your eCommerce system and your FileMaker application means there is less likelihood of data entry errors between the 2 systems
  • free up staff time for more productive work. Rather than having staff spend countless hours each week doing double data entry they can be freed up for more productive (and enjoyable) work, such as following up on sales leads, customer service, marketing etc.
  • it also allows staff to upload and download data to the eCommerce software without giving them direct access to the eCommerce software

We’ve helped customers save between 1-2 hours of time each day for staff that were previously manually entering online orders into their FileMaker application. Now they download all the orders in the morning for the previous day and the whole process takes under a minute. We’ve even helped some customers use the power of Webhooks to have new orders pushed directly to their FileMaker Server so they don’t have to download any new orders – they instantly appear seconds after being placed online.

If you would like to discuss integrating your FileMaker solution with your eCommerce system please contact us for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements. We also have a number of products which allow you or your in-house/external FileMaker developer to do the integration yourself with the WooCommerce and Shopify eCommerce platforms:

Databuzz releases fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) – Integrate FileMaker Pro and Shopify

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Sydney, Australia – June 13, 2017 – Databuzz today announced fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition), a FileMaker solution that integrates with the Shopify eCommerce platform.

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) allows you to upload and download data between your FileMaker solution and Shopify, the leading cloud-based, multi-channel commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Shopify currently powers hundreds of thousands of businesses in approximately 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as Tesla, Nestle, GE, Red Bull, Kylie Cosmetics, and many more.

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) removes double data entry and human errors saving your company significant time, money and hassle by automating the exchange of data between FileMaker and Shopify. fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) is completely unlocked allowing you to integrate it into your FileMaker solution. You can copy and paste examples showing you how to authenticate with the Shopify API and download Customers, Orders, Products, Collections and more at the click of a button.

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) features include:

  • works with FileMaker Pro v12, v13, v14, v15 and v16
  • works with Macintosh and Windows
  • completely unlocked for you to integrate into your own FileMaker solution
  • can be hosted by FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server

“Many of our customers use FileMaker Pro to run their business and Shopify for their eCommerce platform,” said Andrew Duncan, CEO of Databuzz. “They don’t want to have to manually re-enter Customers and Orders in FileMaker, so we built fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) to streamline their business processes. With fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) you can push and pull data between FileMaker and Shopify at the click of a button.”

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) includes examples for the following Shopify API endpoints:

  • Customers: download and upload Customers
  • Customers: download and upload Customers
  • Products: download and upload Products (including Options, Variants, Images and Metafields)
  • Orders: download Orders from Shopify (including Order line items)
  • Price Rules: download and upload Price Rules (Discounts)
  • Custom Collections: download and upload Custom Collections
  • Smart Collections: download and upload Smart Collections
  • Shipping Countries: download Shipping Countries from Shopify
  • Locations: download Locations from Shopify

Availability, Pricing, and Compatibility

fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) is available in a number of licenses: Company, Vertical Solution and Developer. It is available now from the Databuzz website at http://www.databuzz.com.au/fmecommerce-link-shopify-edition/. Company Licenses start at AUD $495.00. fmEcommerce Link (Shopify Edition) requires FileMaker Pro v12, v13, v14, v15 or v16.

Media/Customer Contact:

Andrew Duncan

Phone: +61 418 468 103

sales@databuzz.com.au

About Databuzz: Databuzz is a long-standing member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. We have been developing and deploying FileMaker solutions for clients in Australia and internationally since 1999. Our clients are individuals, small-medium businesses, government agencies and multi-national corporations. Databuzz was founded by Andrew Duncan, a Certified FileMaker 15 Developer. For more information please visit our website at http://www.databuzz.com.au.

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fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) Now Supports WooCommerce 3.0

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Earlier this year we wrote about the upcoming release of WooCommerce 2.7 and how it would be introducing a new version of the REST API (v2) with a number of new API endpoints, particularly for Product Variations. Shortly after our post WooCommerce decided to re-version 2.7 to 3.0 to better reflect the significance of this update and push the release date to the 4th of April, 2017.

Since the release of WooCommerce 3.0 we’ve been busy working on an update to fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) to support the new v2 of the REST API and associated changes. We’re pleased to announce that v1.3 of fmEcommerce Link is now available as a free update for all existing customers (details have been sent via email about how to download this update). As v1 of the REST API has now been deprecated by WooCommerce we’ve decided to create 2 versions of the fmEcommerce Link file, one for each version of the REST API:

  • fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) REST API v1.fmp12
  • fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) REST API v2.fmp12

WooCommerce 3.0 is a major update and WooCommerce recommend that you ensure your store extensions and themes are compatible before upgrading, test on a staging site if you can, and make a backup for peace of mind. Since the 3.0 release on April 4th there have been 7 updates already fixing bugs with both WooCommerce and the REST API.

The major changes in fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) 1.3 include:

  • now supports the WooCommerce REST API v2 only
  • Product Variations are now stored in their own table to match the new Variations endpoint (you can now update Variations independently of their parent Product)
  • added support for additional fields exposed by the v2 API for existing endpoints
  • added new Meta Data tables which are included with most of the API endpoints (Customers, Orders, Products etc)
  • added support for new Payment Gateways endpoint
  • added support for new Shipping Methods endpoint
  • added support for new Shipping Zone Locations endpoint
  • added support for new Shipping Zone Methods endpoint
  • fixed issue when uploading a Product with no Images when Product previously contained images

WooCommerce 3.0 supports both v1 and v2 of the REST API so you can upgrade to WooCommerce 3.0 and continue to use your existing version or integration of fmEcommerce Link and everything will continue to work as it did with WooCommerce 2.6. If you wish to take advantage of the new API endpoints (e.g. the ability to upload Product Variations separately to the parent Product) you will need to switch to the new v2 API and make some changes to your existing scripts etc using the examples from the fmEcommerce Link (WooCommerce Edition) REST API v2 file. If you are not planning to upgrade to WooCommerce 3.0 in the near future you do not need to make any changes.

All future development we now be focussed on the v2 REST API as that is the version that WooCommerce will continue to develop – we’ll certainly fix any bugs that arise with the v1 REST API. You can get the full details of all the change on the version history page.