Overview
This article contains a list of instructions for manual setup of our Counterpoint integrator. These steps should only be taken if you have a solid understanding of Counterpoint. Continue reading to learn how to manually set up the Modern Retail Counterpoint integration.
Registration
From the main menu, select Registration.
Copy and paste the Registration Name and Registration Key provided by Modern Retail into the appropriate text boxes, and press the Update button. You should see a message that the software has been successfully registered. After the software has been registered, you may close the Registration window.
Setup
To setup the Modern Retail Integrator, there are a number of sections or windows that can be used to configure the Integrator. Some configuration settings are required and some are optional, as noted below.
Required
- CP Database Source (required)
- Create MRCPI Database (required)
- CP Store (required)
- CP Price (required)
- CP Barcode (required)
- CP Inventory Location (required)
- Service Timers (required)
- CP Misc. Charge (required)
- Modern Retail Authentication (required)
- API Order Import (required)
- CP Product Description (optional)
Optional
- Order Scheduling (optional)
- Ship Code Setup (optional)
- Paycode Setup (optional)
- SMTP Setup (optional)
- Loyalty Setup (should only be configured and enabled if customer has purchased Loyalty option)
- New Item Creation (optional)
All configuration settings are store in an XML file named MRCPISetup.xml. The file MRCPISetup.xml can be found in the Integrator installation directory. An effort should be made to backup and protect the file from loss.
Additional configuration settings can be made manually to MRCPISetup.xml that are not covered in this document. MRCPISetup.xml will be documented separately.
Database Source
From the Main Menu choose Setup and then select CP Database Source. Enter the information provided by your Counterpoint System Administrator into the appropriate fields and save, by clicking the 'Save' button. Once the Counterpoint information has been entered and saved, click on the 'Test' button and you should receive a message that a successful connection has been made to the Counterpoint database.
Once you have successfully tested the connection the Counterpoint Database, you may close the 'Setup CP DataSouce" window. Exit and close the Integrator program, re-open the Integrator and proceed to "Create MRCPI Database".
Creating MRCPI Database
The Counterpoint Integrator uses the customer's MSSQL server to host a small database named "MRCPI". During initial configuration, the Integrator will note the absence of it's database and will display a Setup menu option, labeled "Create MRCPI Database". If you see "Create MRCPI Database" in the Setup menu, select the menu option and a Message Box will appear. The Message Box will say "Are you sure?", press the "Yes" button to create the MRCPI database.
After the MRCPI database has been created, you should close and open again the Integrator. The "Create MRCPI Database" menu option will disappear from the Setup menu. You can also check for a successfully create MRCPI database by opening the log. If you see records in the Log, then the database has been successfully created.
Some MSSQL servers operate in a shared environment and more than 1 customer may require the MRCPI database for their Integration. In the MRCPISetup.xml file, the is a field which defined the name of the MRCPI database. The MRCPISetup.xml field name catalogname can be changed to another value. Example:MRCPI_CUSTNAM
Renaming the MRCPI database name will allow you to host multiple customer using the Modern Retail Integrator in a shared SQL server environment.
Store Setup
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Store. Select from the dropdown list, the Counterpoint Store that will be used. After you have selected the Store, press the Save button and close the window.
Counterpoint Price
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Price. Select the Counterpoint Item Price you want to send to the API are the web price and the sales price. The simplest form of promotional pricing is to select an alternate Item price as the web store sales price. If you enable "Price Rules", the client can use any form or Counterpoint promotional pricing for their web store promotions. In other words, their web store promotions will match the in-store promotions. Price Rules method is not compatible with Mix & Match, Quantity Discounts or Buy1 Get 1 type of promotions.
Not all clients are a good match for Price Rules, depending on the client's computing resources, the number and type of items they carry, price rules may not be a good fit. A client who carries 2500 shoe gridded items can easily expand into 80,000 variations of the items. There may or may not exist the computing resources and time to re-send all items after midnight and complete the job in a reasonable amount of time.
Generally, if the client has 50,000 item variations or less, Price Rules will be the best choice for promotional pricing, as it provides the greatest flexibility.
Counterpoint Barcode
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Barcode. Select from the dropdown list, the Counterpoint barcode type that will be used. After you have selected the barcode type, press the Save button and close the window.
Inventory Location
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Inventory Location. Use the Inventory Locations window to add or remove a ConterPoint Inventory Location. The items sent to the API will be selected from your primary Inventory Location. The primary Inventory Location will be the first Inventory Location listed in this window. You may select more than one Counterpoint Inventory Location. Selecting more than one Counterpoint Inventory Location will cause the Inventory Quantity Available to be aggregated amongst the selected Inventory Locations. After you have established your primary Inventory Location you may close the window.
Product Description
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Product Description. Enable or disable the use of HTML description. To save your setting, press the Save button and close the window.
Misc Charge
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select CP Misc. Charge. Select from the dropdown list, the Counterpoint Misc. Charge that will be used for shipping and fees. When finished, press the Save button and close the window.
Service Timers
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Service Timers. The Setup Service Timers window contains 2 fields with values. You can use the default values or make adjustments as you see necessary. Service Timer values control how often the Windows service wakes up to synchronize Counterpoint Items to the API.
- Service Timer Minutes - This value controls how often the Integrator Background Service will check for Counterpoint Item changes. The value should be 5-10 minutes. Every 5-10 minutes, the Background Service will check for Item changes and send them to the Modern Retail API.
- Service throttle in milliseconds - This value can be use to control the speed at which the Integrator imports orders into Counterpoint and the speed at which items are sent to the API. Default value is: 1500
Once your Service Timer values are set, save by pressing the 'Save' button. Every time you save new values, the background service will restart and load the new values.
Authentication
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Modern Retail Authentication. Enter the information provided by your Modern Retail representative into the appropriate fields and save, by clicking the 'Save' button. Once the information has been entered and saved, click on the 'Test' button and you should receive a message that the Integrator has made a successful connection to the Modern Retail API. Once you have successfully tested the connection the Modern Retail API, you may close the window.
Order Import
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select API Order Import. The API Order Import Setup windows contains values which determine how your website orders will be imported. Imported Order are converted to Counterpoint Point of Sale Tickets. Once your Order Import values have been set, save and close window. You may enable or disable Order Import by checking the Enable Order Import checkbox.
Order Scheduling
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Order Scheduling. The Order Scheduling window is an optional configuration. When configured and enabled, it can be used to define a time window for importing orders.
Code Setup
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Ship Code Setup. Ship Code Setup is optional. Ship Code Setup can be used to map shipping strings received from the web store platform to Counterpoint Ship-via codes.
Paycode Setup
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Paycode Setup. Pay Code Setup is optional. Pay Code Setup can be used to map payment_method strings received from the web store platform to Counterpoint Paycodes codes.
SMTP Setup
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select SMTP Setup. SMTP setup is optional. It can be used to configure email notifications when orders are imported into Counterpoint.
Loyalty Setup
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select Loyalty Setup. Loyalty Setup is optional. The feature should only be enabled if customer has purchased Loyalty option. Select the Loyalty program to be used when creating new customers and the CounterPoint Loyalty Pay code to be used for redemption. Additionally, you can enable or disable Loyalty Point feature and new customer creation with selected loyalty program.
New Item Creation
From the Main Menu choose Setup and select New Item Creation. New Item Creation is optional. The feature allows you to select a existing Counterpoint item to be used as a new item template. When enabled, if the Integrator finds an order line item it can not find in Counterpoint, the Integrator will create the Counterpoint item using all the required item creation fields from the template item. The Integrator will also create an inventory record for every inventory location configured in the Integrator, with 0 inventory quantity. This feature is useful for drop shipping.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to submit a support request through the Modern Retail Admin Panel.