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Help with automation!

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  DDAoN 
#1 ·
Hello everyone, I'm hoping this post is in the correct spot, it touches on a few different areas.

The company I work for just set up an e-commerce site a few months ago. Customers can go on our website, order from our product line, and check out with credit card using authorize.net. When the customer orders, I get an email from authorize.net with their payment/shipping information, and I get an email from our website also containing their billing/shipping info, the item they ordered and the SKU corresponding to that item.

Our product is custom built, so basically lets say it's a window. The window comes in 7 different sizes. The customer chooses a size. Then they choose from 3 types of glass. Then they choose from two colors for trim. Then they can choose from two types of curtain rods to accompany it.

Once the customer builds and purchases the item, I get the email breaking down their order.

5 foot by 2 foot window, shatter proof panes, walnut stained trim, 6" curtain rod.

that combination of components corresponds to this SKU 5X2WSPPWT6R

Then I open an excel form, RE-TYPE the name, billing info, shipping info, date ordered. I choose each component from poorly made excel drop downs until i've re-created the order from the email in excel. This order form is uploaded to salesforce for job tracking, then printed and handed to our shop foreman who uses it to build the job.

The time spent re-entering and typing all this information is eating into valuable lead time. Is there a way to automate this process? To take the SKU and enter it into an excel for, and have the SKU automatically pull up the correct components? Is there a better way than using excel? Is there a way to automate it full, so when an email comes in with an order I can just drag it into salesforce or some other program, and that order is generated on its own? I really need help here. I'm just a graphic designer/account manager here, but this is a problem that really needs to be addressed. Any help is appreciated! Thanks guys/girl!
 
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#2 ·
Hi i.am.strax,

From the sound of it you are looking for a program or system that will take care of all the backend work in an ecommerce system. Honestly this isn't as hard as it sounds. I am sure that there are some systems out there that will work for your needs. I am not that familiar with salesforce, but I can look into that.

My first question is what system or platform is your company using for their ecommerce website? Once I know this I can see if there is any backend functions that can take care of all the work you do in excel.
 
#5 ·
Welcome to TSF, i.am.strax!

I've actually had a similar project, recently, automatically populating an Excel spreadsheet. I can't give you a solution that'll access your e-mail to validate whether the customer has made a valid payment, but all the other information is handled by your server backend (in some form). This information is forwarded, via e-mail, to you.

An e-commerce website would require a database to handle product information (unless you have an overly simplified system where everything has to be updated manually). Assuming this is the case, you can expand the database to track this information instead of an Excel spreadsheet. Should you still need the spreadsheet, then I suggest looking into integrating PHPExcel into your website. It's a lovely PHP-based library that exports content to an Excel format. It even supports complex formatting to make the output look exactly as you want it to.

I hope this helps. ^^
 
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