Best Practices > Step 1 - Settings > The Advanced section > The e-commerce shopping cart > How to handle orders and product availability in stock

As well as creating the product catalog and preparing the website for e-commerce, if you are using the Professional edition, WebSite X5 also provides a useful control panel and the WebSite X5 Manager app which the site administrator can use to monitor and handle both orders and, consequently, availability of the products in stock.

To be able to handle e-commerce orders from the online control panel and/or the WebSite X5 Manager app, you first need to define their reception in an online database.

So the first thing to do is enter the parameters of the database that will be used:

▪	In the Access Management window, click on the Add... button.

▪	Enter all the necessary parameters for identifying the database in the Database Settings window and confirm.

Once the database has been defined, it can be used in the e-commerce shopping cart:

▪	In the Shopping Cart \| Sending order window, select Send data to a Database and choose a Database from the list.

▪	If you want, you can specify the Tables Prefix Name where the data is to be saved.

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If you want the site administrator to receive a notification e-mail each time a new order is registered in the database, select the Send an e-mail to notify the data has been received option and enter the Admin e-mail address. In any case, you need to give the Admin e-mail address because it will also be used as the sender of the order confirmation e-mail.

▪	Write the Header Text and Footer Text that will be used to compose the User's Order confirmation e-mail.

When the database that will receive the orders has been defined, you can create the product catalog. It's very easy to add a new product to this:

▪	Select the product category in the Shopping Cart \| Product List window and click on the New Product button.

▪	Enter all the necessary information in the Product Settings window and confirm.

When you are defining a product, as well as giving details such as its name, price and discount, you can also give potential buyers an indication on current stock levels.

▪	In the Product Settings window, go to the Availability section and select Approximate quantity, then select the most appropriate option for the product you are working on: In Stock, Limited availability or Out of Stock.

▪	Alternatively, select Available quantity. In this case, you must:

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Check the Quantity currently in stock: this is a read-only field that is updated automatically by the program. If you are defining a new product, the value in this field is "0": it will be updated according to the Quantity to add/remove (after the project has been published online) and the order situation (and you can use the Update button in the Shopping Cart | Product List window).

•	Enter the Quantity to add/remove. If you are defining a new product, enter the number of articles that are in stock. Otherwise, indicate how many articles you are going to add to or remove from the Quantity currently in stock to change the value shown in the field.

•	Enter the value for the Warn if quantity falls below option: products whose availability falls below this level will be highlighted in the summary table in the Shopping Cart \| Product List window and added to the Availability section in the online control panel and the WebSite X5 Manager app.

When the Available quantity has been defined for all the products in the catalog, you need to specify how the products are counted:

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Go to the Options section of the Shopping Cart window and select the Update available quantity on order dispatch option: the number of products purchased is subtracted from the available quantity only when the orders are given as "processed"; otherwise, this will be done when orders are "ready for processing".

Notes on how product availability is counted

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If you view the Available quantity of products (in the Product Settings | Availability window), an article may be detracted from the current quantity when an order is received (and therefore shown in the Ready for Processing section of the online Control Panel or the WebSite X5 Manager app) or when the order has been processed (and, therefore, moved to the Processed section of the online Control Panel or the WebSite X5 Manager app). To specify the preferred accounting method, work on the Update available quantity on order dispatch option in the Shopping Cart | Options window.

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If the Update available quantity on order dispatch option is not selected, when a new order arrives the ordered quantity is immediately detracted from the total available quantity. If you move the order from the Ready for Processing section to the On Hold section, the subtracted quantity is immediately restored to the total.

▪	In all cases, if an order is deleted, the product quantity subtracted from the availability total is automatically restored.

When the Available quantity has been defined, you can decide whether this information is to be displayed in the product cards (created with the Product Catalog Object). If the Show Availability option in Product Catalog Object | Settings is not selected, the indications of effective product availability will be visible to the site administrator (in the summary table of the Shopping Cart | Product List window and in the Low Stock tab in the E-commerce section of the online control panel or the WebSite X5 Manager app) but not to visitors to the online store.

When the e-commerce shopping cart has been set up and the project is online, all you have to do is wait for orders to arrive. If the procedures described above have been followed correctly, the site administrator will receive an e-mail each time a new order arrives, and he can handle orders and monitor stock levels through the online control panel.

The control panel is at the http//www.mysite.com/admin URL, where http//www.mysite.com is the URL of the site to which the e-commerce shopping cart is linked. All the users in the Admin group can access the control panel (the Admin group is created in the Access management section in Step 1 - Website Settings | Advanced).

When the administrator accesses the e-commerce section of the control panel, he can:

▪	View the list of new orders in the Ready for Processing tab.

▪	Click on the order number or the button next to it to open the order.

▪	If the order has been processed, click on the button to move it to the Processed tab.

▪	If the order can't be processed immediately (for example, payment is still due or there is a problem with the invoice/shipping data), click on the button to move it to the On Hold tab.

▪	If the order is not valid, click on the button to delete it from the orders database.

▪	View the Processed tab to display the sales trend.

▪	View the On Hold tab to process or delete an order that was waiting for more information. Orders have to be moved from On Hold to Ready for Processing before they can be processed: this can be done with the button.

▪	View the Availability tab to check the list of products that are under the minimum quantity level.

▪	View the Charts tab to check the online shopping cart sales trend charts.

The website administrator can manage online store orders with the WebSite X5 Manager app in just the same as he can when working with the online control panel.

The WebSite X5 Manager app is free and available for both iOS and Android. Use the buttons in the App Store or on Google Play to install it, or use the QR code in the Control Panel window or in the WebSite X5 Manager section of the online Control Panel.

Once the app is installed, you can manage orders by:

▪	Opening the app and, if you haven't already done so, adding the website to the list of those that are manageable through the app.

▪	Tapping on the website you want to work on, to access the Dashboard and open the E-commerce section.

▪	Working as already described for the online control panel.

You can enable the app to automatically send push notifications each time a new order is made in the online store and/or when the stock levels of a product fall below an established minimum quantity:

▪	In the Control Panel window, select the Enable push notifications option.

▪	Publish the updated website online.

▪	In the app's Website Settings screen, check that you have selected the option for sending push notifications when a new order is received and/or when stock levels are low.

When you have finished working on the orders in the control panel and/or the WebSite X5 Manager app, go back to the program and update the project so you have the correct stock availability on hand and can replenish stocks as necessary.

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Open the Shopping Cart | Product List window and click on the Update button: the information on availability in the summary table is updated according to the orders received (in the Ready for Processing tab in the E-commerce section of the control panel and the WebSite X5 Manager app) or processed (in the Processed tab in the E-commerce section of the control panel and the WebSite X5 Manager app). Remember that stock is counted according to the settings of the Update available quantity on order dispatch option in the Shopping Cart | Options window.

▪	If the available quantity of a product has fallen below the minimum level, select the product and click on the Edit... button.

▪	Open the Availability section in the Product Settings window and enter an appropriate value in the Quantity to add/remove field.

▪	Make any further changes that are necessary and then publish the updated project online.

Best practices:

-	How to create an e-commerce shopping cart
-	How to work with the product catalog object
-	How to manage websites using the WebSite X5 Manager app

Further information:

-	The online Control Panel and the WebSite X5 Manager app
-	Mobile App: definitions and uses