ActiveStock for Actinic Version 7

What is ActiveStock?

ActiveStock solves one of the core issues with Actinic - the lack of on-line stock control. As the Actinic database is local to your PC, it can only "monitor" stock as orders are placed - it cannot dynamically adjust stock levels on your website. This has been a problem for many Actinic site owners as their customers have been able to order items that are out of stock or order more items than are currently available. The only way around this is to download orders frequently, set the new stock levels (including setting the "Maximum Quantity Orderable" variable to be the same as the stock level) and uploading frequently. This is far from ideal as uploading can take a very long time for large sites. ActiveStock deals with these issues on your server and allows you to get on with managing your business.

How does ActiveStock work?

ActiveStock uses modified versions of some of the standard Actinic cgi scripts (plus one new one) to read from and write to stock information in a file on your server. So, as orders are placed on your website, the stock levels are reduced accordingly and the next customer can only order up to the remaining stock level (or cannot add an item to the basket if it is out of stock). You will continue to process orders in Actinic after they have been downloaded, and stock adjustments should still be carried out there. If you make an adjustment in Actinic (e.g. you take delivery of some products or you process off-line orders that affect your stock levels) then you simply run the ActiveStock Windows application to upload your new stock information. Now you can also schedule order downloads and stock file uploads so you'll always be in control.