Actinic has the ability to export order information as a set of spreadsheet files. By default, they are saved as 'CSV - Comma Delimited' files, but you do have the option of delimiting the fields with tabs.
These files can be called whatever you want, and saved wherever you want - by default they are created in your site folder (normally 'Site1'). They can be opened with standard spreadsheet applications.
Order exporting is set up in 'Business Settings | Order Processing'.
Select 'Enable Export to Files' in the 'Report Options' area to activate this feature. Then click the 'Export Options' button.
The fields within this area are described below:
Field |
Meaning |
Orders File |
This file contains general information about the order including: order number, order date/time, credit card details, shipping details etc. Name the file what you want and use 'Browse' to choose where you want to create the file. |
Persons File |
This file contains the contact information for the orders, including, name, address, email address etc. There are two contact records for each order - invoice contact and delivery contact. In Business/Designer a field for 'Customer Reference' is provided. This is the 'External Reference' field for a customer account (see Entering Main Account Details). |
Add Order Number to Persons File |
This will include the order number in the 'Persons File', which helps when matching contacts to orders. |
Order Lines File |
This contains information about each item that has been ordered, including product name, product reference, etc. |
Payments File |
This file contains the payment history for the orders. If you are using a PSP (see What Is A Payment Service Provider?) then this will contain the authorisation information about the online transaction. |
Buyers File Actinic Business/Designer only |
The first time you run an export, this file will contain all your customer account buyer information. Subsequent exports will only contain new or changed customer account buyer information. |
Executable to Run After Export | |
Program |
Use this field to select the name of the (optional) program you are using to process the .csv files. This field is used by Actinic Link (see Linking Actinic To Accounts Packages). |
Options: |
If this box is selected, you can supply command line parameters to your chosen external program in the following order: Ordersfilename The command is executed with the directory of the first file as the focus. So if the other files are in different folders, the full path is given for them. |
Include Filenames as Command Line Parameters |
Select this box if you have used filenames within the 'Options' field. |
Delimit fields with: |
Choose whether you want the fields in your export files to be separated by commas or tabs. |
Hide Files Dialog on Export |
When you activate an export (see below), a window will appear to allow you to change all the fields mentioned here. If you do not want this window to appear, and for the export to proceed automatically, then select this box |
If you are not processing orders within Actinic:
1. Ensure 'Bypass Catalog Order Processing' is selected in 'Business Settings | Ordering'. See Approaches to Order Processing for more details on this.
2. Download a new batch of orders.
3. Go to 'Operations | Outstanding Exports.' to trigger an export. You can also trigger an export by going to 'Export | Outstanding Exports' within the ' Operations | Report Selection' window.
If you are processing orders within Actinic:
1. Fully complete the order (see Order Processing Overview for details)
2. Go to ' Operations | Outstanding Exports.' to trigger an export. You can also trigger an export by going to 'Export | Outstanding Exports' within the ' Operations | Report Selection' window.
When you export, a window will appear asking you to confirm details of the export. These are the same fields as described above. Just click 'OK' to carry out the export.
Note: If you don't want this window to appear in future, select the 'Hide This Dialog' checkbox.
You can choose to export specific orders in Actinic, and bypass the 'batch exporting' requirements described above, by doing the following:
1. Highlight orders you want to export. You can use [Shift + Click] and [Ctrl + Click] to highlight multiple orders.
2. Right-click and select 'ReExport to Files' (or select 'Export | Export Orders' within the 'Report Selection' window).
This will then bring up the 'Export File Settings' window as described above (unless you have chosen to hide it).