I. INTRODUCTION
I. INTRODUCTION |
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Interchange Store Administrator Manual |
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If you don't already know what Interchange is, then unless you simply enjoy reading instruction manuals, find a good magazine. To quote from the ICDevgroup website; "Interchange is an open source alternative to commercial commerce servers and application server/component applications. Interchange is one of the most powerful tools available to automate and database-enable your web site or build online applications." That is the short version. Interchange is incredibly flexible; in fact adaptable might be a better term. Interchange can be made to do almost anything, given the proper data and a capable developer. However the focus of this manual is not to describe the many potential applications of Interchange, or even how to develop websites or applications using Interchange. That documentation already exists in many forms. What does not exist in a complete form is an "End Users" manual. Some thing for the person who will add products, change prices, set up promotions and specials, upload product images, and any of the other duties that need to be done on a daily basis to administer an ecommerce web site. Part of the reason that there has not been a definitive Users Manual prior to this is that Interchange can be configured in literally hundreds of ways. So keep in mind as you peruse this manual that you may or may not see all of the functions and features described here. Or you may have features that are NOT described here. This is the nature of Interchange. Interchange has many features that allow day-to-day activities to be carried out with ease. In addition most any task not already included in the Interchange distribution that you as the "Store Administrator" of an Interchange store could possibly want, can be created with the help of a competent Interchange developer. The purpose of this manual will be to acquaint you with the features and functions of Interchange, as it exists in the downloadable package from the ICDevgroup website. This manual will relate to the current demo version of Interchange, which is Version 4.9.7. Remember, Interchange is very flexible and your catalog could and probably will vary widely from the packaged Demo version. The purpose of this manual partly to state specifically how to use Interchange as it exists in the Demo, and partly to plant the seed for the types of things that are possible. Use this manual to familiarize yourself with the workings of Interchange. Then contact your Interchange Developer and ask him or her to create the features you can use in your particular application. This demo is accessible at http://demo.icdevgroup.org/i/demo1/admin/index . We will discuss the use of most of the functions and features that relate to the duties of a Store Administrator role. The backend of Interchange allows many functions to be executed and some of those are not relevant or needed for the Store Administrator. You will notice that the manual is laid out with the structure of the tabbed display that Interchange uses for its administrative interface. You will also notice that some of the tabs are declared, but not described. These tabs are not normally used for the day-to-day duties of a Store Administrator and as such are not within the scope of this manual. Another manual outlining the additional uses of the Interchange UI (User Interface) will be forthcoming. Finally I would like to thank all those developers who have contributed countless hours of their time making Interchange the comprehensive program that it is today. This manual has been produced by Perusion, an Interchange Consulting Company. |
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