Website Maintenance

Last updated PBMH 14-Apr-2012 - TO BE REVISITED

The web site is comprised of various modules:

• Top Lists
• Featured items
• Home Page
• Top Forthcoming Titles
• Newly Released
• Top Recent Titles
• Calendars

 

Marc Coulombe (built the web site) or someone else (Ray Murrell, Jobe Groot?) may be able to help out for the immediate purpose and recommend someone for the Data Manager position. This should be a person very familiar with Microsoft Access and with managing data. Marc (for example) should go through these instructions and then, if not going to do the work on a regular basis, should provide training to a less experienced person. Anyone else can have a go but should NOT spend a lot of time trying to figure something out – call for help so as not to waste time and get frustrated.

 

The Data Assistant should be able to provide background information to the data.

 

Review the Tasks database to see many of the tasks that have to be done on a regular and frequent basis.

IMPORTANT and USEFUL INFORMATION:

• Follow the naming conventions.
• Always keep backups!
• HiPoint Dirty Titles are formatted ‘TITLE OF BOOK                   mmyy *BOOK’ indicating the publication date for analysis purposes; the * is always at position 34 and the date mmyy always starts at position 29
• HiPoint Clean Titles always have the publication month at the end of the title (December 2010), which allows us to remove the dates after x months

Data Department Files

G:\DATA DEPARTMENT\HIPOINT_IMPORTS is the main folder.

G:\DATA DEPARTMENT\Top List Analysis is for sales analysis.

Importing Titles To Web Site Lists

This is done through DempseyCommerce > List Pop’n (pwd: letmein).

Instructions are on the pop-up form.

First column name: ProductCode

Second column name: SortOrder (if you don’t want them to sort alphabetically)

 

The data you are importing has to be the first tab in specific_list.xls, which means you need to move the worksheets and save the file AND CLOSE IT before importing. I have found that if you do not follow this protocol the import will fail or import the incorrect data.

Top Lists

Top Lists are refreshed every month. They are based on sales over the preceding two months and you should update them on the last day of a month or the first day of the next month, whenever the home page is renewed. The lists are the default view when a User selects from the menu items at the top of the web site:

Module	Has Top List
Books	Yes
Audio	Yes
Listening Stations	No
Music	Yes
Decks/Sets	Yes
Calendars	Sometimes
DVDs	Yes
Sidelines	Yes
Chimes	Yes, but not the first page

 

From HiPoint:

• Reports > Sales > Sales Analysis > Item Best Sellers Report
• Deselect List: Only if inventory – otherwise you will exclude titles we do not currently have in stock but which were sold in the period.
• From and To should cover the same periods to make things clean
• Year is the year-ending year (y/e is 31-Jul)
• Period is the month in the year (see Appendix 1)
• Select the two periods preceding the month in which these lists will display.
• Name the report Top_mmm.txt for the second month included in the run e.g. April 2012 = _APR and run the report to File – it will go to C:\tdsfiles
• From TRN select Trans Dates to cover the period you just ran the Sales report for.
• Run to file for Indigo 6751962, naming the file Indigo_mmm.txt – it will go to C:\tdsfiles
• Run to file for Ten Thousand Villages 6621879, naming the file Ten_mmm.txt – it will go to C:\tdsfiles

 

In G:\DATA DEPARTMENT\Top List Analysis:

• Create folder for last period and move the text files into it
• Copy the three text files created above into this main folder
• Open TopListAnalysis.mdb

 

In TopListAnalysis.mdb:

• Run the three DELETE queries
• Import the three text files into these tables
  • TopLists
  • Indigo_YTD
  • TenThousand (sometimes you have to import to a RAW table then append to the main table)

 

The queries look at sales for the previous two months and remove Indigo and Ten Thousand Villages sales. You can also remove specific quantities by entering a negative value in TopLists.AdjustOut – this would be for special orders for courses etc that don’t properly represent regular industry sales.

 

frmExportLists allows you to repopulate a table with query names, and then select which queries you want to export. You must supply an export file name. The file goes to G:\DATA DEPARTMENT\HIPOINT_IMPORTS\.

 

WARNING: Do not select all queries at the same time otherwise it may hang, or at least tie everything up for a long time. See the web site for the standard lists: Books, Audio, Music, etc.

 

Use this tool when creating specific lists as discussed elsewhere. It sorts by sales ranking.

 

See Importing Titles to Web Site Lists (above).

 

Periodically update all the lists on the website using this tool.

Featured Items

New Releases/What’s New

These lists are on menu=3 on the website. They show all titles for a particular month, based on the mmyy code in the Dirty Title as identified in DataDeptTools_app.mdb qryWhatsNew_1_Month.

 

Using DataDeptTools_app, DempseyCommerce and specific_list.xls

• Edit qryWhatsNew_1_Month to return the titles for the desired month.

• This module shows four months in advance, the current month and seven previous months.
• Each month this module is adjusted from within DempseyCommerce_app > Web Management > Menu = 3.
• Add in the new month (four months out) and remove the earliest month.
• Update the current month and all future months because titles may have been added in or cancelled since the lists were previously run.
• Using DempseyCommerce_app > Web Management > Menu = 1, change the reference to the current month on Menu = 3 – check the site to make sure you have done it right.

Top Forthcoming Titles

This list appears in the same module as New Releases on the web site. It is based on the backorders for NYP titles, coming at any time in the future.

 

In DataDeptTools_app

• Run qryTopForthcomingTitles and export to Excel file G:\DATA DEPARTMENT\HIPOINT_IMPORTS\specific_list.xls, then import using DempseyCommerce.
• Within DempseyCommerce_app > Web Management > Menu = 3 change the ranking of this list so that it is above the current month.

Top Recent Titles

In TopListAnalysis

• Modify qry_2_TopRecentTitles to look at titles from the correct period, based on the mmyy code in the Dirty Title.
• Paste data into specific_list.xls for import using DempseyCommerce.
• Within DempseyCommerce_app > Web Management > Menu = 3 change the ranking of this list so that it is below the current month.

 

Home Page Updating

This needs to be done by someone with HTML and CSS experience. Here are some quick notes for Marc or whoever has the first go at it. Read through them all before diving in!

• See H:\Dempsey Commerce\PagesForEdit\1205_MAY_Drafts
• I create a draft for each month names default_yymm_mmm.aspx using Visual Studio Express edition.
• Each month gets its own CSS_yymm_mmm.css file for many of the home page elements.
• The main.master has to be updated to work with the CSS files.
• The rotating images are located on the web server in the SliderFiles folder. I put each month’s images in a new folder called CurrentContent_yymm for obvious reasons. The code is in js. I tweaked the obfuscated code slightly – can’t remember why but it may have been to do with the border round the slider.
• Rotating images are 570 px x 270 px and there is a standard base file in Adobe > File > New.
• Individual images are based on a 150 px high image laid onto a larger canvas with a drop shadow being applied and the whole thing snipped around the shadow.

 

Default_yymm_mmm.aspx

div class="slides_container"

The Data Assistant will prepare a Word document JomePage_yymm_mmm.doc with all the relevant codes. This is where the rotating images go.

 

div class="WoodstockLogo_1205_MAY"

Barbara will decide what gets featured here.

 

table id="IndividualsIn_1205_MAY"

This is where the individual images and quotes go.

Everything from the first <tr> to the last </tr> get copied to login_yymm_mmm.aspx into <table id="IndividualsLogin_1204_APR">.

 

Calendars

These are a world unto themselves but are largely set up for the year each January.

 

 

Appendix 1

Fiscal periods are based on y/e July 31

August             =1

September        = 2

October            = 3

November         = 4

December         = 5

January            = 6

February           = 7

March               = 8

April                 = 9

May                  = 10

April                 = 11

June                 =12