Total Blue System Ecommerce

Identify and export opt-in subscribers

When you run a promotion encouraging site visitors to opt-in to receive promotional offers by email, you're likely to want to go back later and identify who and when people joined your list. Then you can deliver on your promotional promise and get the prize winners their due. Here's how you can identify who opted in to your list:

Login to the Admin Area of Total Blue System, and select the Email Marketing tab. Select View / Edit Messages & Lists, then select your Master List. On the next page, there will be a navigation bar on the left; spot the section called Reports. Click on List Breakdown, and then under Subscription Reports select New Subscribers.

At this point, you'll be asked to specify a date range. Do so, then click Generate. The result will be a window displaying the email address and the date is opted-in to your list.
At the top of the window will be a link reading "Click here" to view / download date file. You can right-click or download this Comma Separated Value (CSV) file, which will contain all of the demographic data field values as well as the email address and date of opting-in.

You can then work with this CSV file within a spreadsheet software program like Excel to sort or filter data to identify your email promotion winners.

Tip:  This is also a useful set of data to reference if there is ever a complaint sent to your email "abuse" address complaining of receiving or sending spam. You can look up the email address here, and identify the date and IP# when he or she subscribed. This can be shared with the ISP reporting the problem, or the subscriber himself if he should happen to question whether he ever joined your list.

Share data with 'best of breed' systems via Total Blue System API

Our e-commerce clients demand a great web sales channel, and want their websites to both receive and share data with their other IT systems. A new application programming interface (API)  for Total Blue System data makes it happen in a new, improved way.

The importance of an e-commerce API cannot be understated, for it's presence and sophistication enables a merchant to NOT settle for less. In a prior day and age, companies settled for an e-commerce software product that functioned less than they wanted because it held the appealing promise of product or data integration with other internal systems. Call it "best of suite." The best of suite solution didn't work in all the ways you wanted, but hey, it all worked together and shared data nicely.

We consider the "best of suite" phrase derogatory and dated. "Best of suite" in contrast to "best of breed" reflects a prior time when API integrations were either cost-prohibitive or scary unknown projects that nobody but the biggest, well-funded companies would consider. This isn't the case anymore, a fact recognized by Internet Retailer in a March 2007 article. It's a thorough examination of the opportunity, but the headline just about says it all: "Weighing technology choices: New e-commerce technology is no longer a choice between best-of-breed or single-source provider. Web integration technology makes both possible in the same installation."

In short, don't settle. Demand the best of breed e-commerce package and then expect to integrate it with your back-office order management or point of sale systems.

Here's some details about how our clients do it via an API:

Total Blue System uses the Representational State Transfer   (REST) style of API.   The Total Blue API is accessible as XML over HTTP secured with SSL.   All requests should set the "Accept" header to "application/xml". If this is not done, you may get the HTML   view of the application rather than the XML API view. Requests that POST or PUT XML data should also set the "Content-Type"   header to "application/xml" in order for the data to be interpreted correctly.

The API is protected with   Basic Authentication Scheme, using   an administrator's username and password.

The data accessible through the API is grouped into resources   published as a group of URLs where different HTTP request methods to   perform different actions listed below. Note that not all of these   actions will be available for each resource and there may be   additional actions available.

GET

Used to fetch XML information such as a list of items or an individual item.

POST

Create a new item

PUT

Update an existing item

DELETE

Destroy an item

Find more documentation in the Admin Area of your Total Blue System website management tool, under the Help section.

Note: MOM 5 and MOM 6 users are not able to make use of this API given the limitations of Mail Order Manager's data integration options.

Ruby on Rails software rewrite well underway

Total Blue System's capabilities manifest a new vigor and resiliency as they are remade using the Ruby on Rails web application framework. Yes, it's a rewrite and one that's been underway since summer 2006.

Our software application was coded in PHP, and runs on top of a Linux operating system with a ubiquitous MySQL database. But after a year of thinking about it, we stepped slowly into a rewrite of the product in 2006 that is continuing to this day. We're pleased with the decision to go to Ruby on Rails.

The reasons are many as to why this major decision benefits our clients and our company. For the sake of this post, we'll point to an example that explains a similar kind of thinking as our own, as they've already summarized many reasons nicely:

• Explanation of why a software application is moving from Java to Ruby on Rails.

Suffice to say, we're moving forward and picking up momentum. We've chosen an incremental refactoring approach, and shunned the idea of a Big Bang upgrade after considering our pacing and need for website stability. That means many pages, especially within the Admin Area for site owners, are already operating under a Ruby on Rails framework. Yes, we're using Mongrel, too.

An outside observer might call E-business Coach a fast follower, looking to learn from others what's working and then imitate the successes while avoiding the early mistakes of others. That's not necessarily the modus operandi of our professional services team, as that work can be experimental and innovative, but it's mostly true about our software. It's interesting that respected contributors to the Java community and other notables in the software development world are finding similar reasons to go to Ruby on Rails.

Of course, fast followers must be rapid in their execution to succeed. And among many other benefits, that's one of the nice things about working with Ruby on Rails. It speeds software development efforts, so we can keep feature development apace with the best Internet marketing and sales tactics.

PS. If Ruby on Rails is news to you, and you're technically inclined, check out this explanation of Ruby on Rails for the rest of us.

Easy upload of banner and promotional graphics

Within the Total Blue System we have the concept of Teasers, which are simply rectangular spaces tucked into various places on your website where you can communicate to site visitors about the latest promotional offer, customer service message, or announce whatever's new.

Teasers are often graphic files, in .jpg, .gif, .png, or .swf (flash) format. Sometimes they're a combination of grahpics and text, with HTML to stitch it all together.

Now it's easier than ever to create a new Teaser because you can easily upload graphic files through a web browser, within the Admin Area of your website. Click the upload button, select the file on your desktop computer, and upload it to a special folder on the web server with another click of the mouse.

Choose the "Upload Teaser Content" menu item in the Teasers section of your e-commerce site's Admin Area.

PCI compliant vulnerability scanning: what's included

Jeopardizing your business with the threat of fraudulent payments is trouble enough. But the risk factor goes way up if hackers compromise sensitive financial data belonging to your customers, the credit card holders. The safe path includes maintaining your compliance to the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard, and that means regular vulnerability scanning.

Total Blue System-powered clients now receive complimentary PCI vulnerability scans for their e-commerce websites, included in your normal license fee. This builds upon the support for resolving vulnerability scan alerts that we've long provided. Now you can enjoy the peace of mind with both needs met:  regular quarterly vulnerability scans from a VISA-certified provider and all the help you need to see real and false positive alerts resolved and passing scan certifications given to you for your records.

Note: we've selected SecurityMetrics as our vulnerability scanning partner for 2007. We're familiar of course with ScanAlert and the PCI scanning services they provide in addition to their HackerSafe designation. Many clients make use of this trust-building tool, and receive our help in passing scans. But our experience shows SecurityMetrics scans to be superior for the needs of our e-commerce merchant clientele.

• Here's an explanatory 'primer' on what vulnerability scans are and why they're important (for E-business Coach clients only; login required.)

Upgrade to our business class webmail service

A business class email system for personal messaging is an important part of the Total Blue System turn-key e-commerce package.  As a client, you get an unlimited number of mailboxes for your company's staff and access to a first-rate webmail client for access on-the-road or away from your daily work computer.

While POP and IMAP email access is available through any desktop email client, we've found many clients choose to access their mail through the web browser -- even when working at the office. It's the webmail client that was just upgraded.

Here are highlighted improvements:

1) User Controlled Sharing / Collaboration.
--a. Shared calendaring is enabled for all users under the domain
--b. Users have the capability of making an entry in the calendar as "private" or "public," --c. Users can restrict who can view their calendar,
--d. Users can select which calendars they wish to be able to view (only calendars for users who have not blocked them).

2)  Layout Changes.  The new layout contains a new tab/menu system and a new left menu.

3)  Performance Enhancements / Bug Fixes.  There are numerous performance related improvements, including bug fixes.

4) Read Mail Improvements.
--a. Ability to save all attachments with one click,
--b. Drag and drop messages,
--c. Added multiple flags,
--d. Added print link to the preview pane,
--e. All addresses in the header are now clickable (will open compose page),
--f. Added folder column to search results when searching multiple folders

5)  Compose Mail Improvements. 
--a. Auto-save drafts,
--b. New HTML editor,
--c. New spell checker including Spanish

6)  Tasks.  Users can create and manage multiple task lists.

7) Shared Calendars. The “Calendar Manager” is comprised of two sections; one for editing a personal calendar, the other for managing which calendars are visible.

8) Invitations. Users have the capability when adding an event to a calendar, to invite other users to the event. Invitations are send out as emails with a specially formatted attachment that can be parsed by the webmail email application, and other “iCal” compliant applications such as Outlook and gmail.