FillZAutomation
From MediaSell
Contents |
[edit] Overview
- You can automate inventory and order functions by use of FTPS. You can access our FTP service at ftp.fillz.com . The username and password are the same as the ones on the web site. By default, we make available secure access by TLS/SSL encryption for both control and data.
- Please note: Usernames are case-sensitive. They should not contain symbols, such as '@', '-', '.', etc. If you are trying to use FTP function and are receiving an error message, check your username in the top-right hand corner when you are logged on your FillZ account to see if anything is capitalized.
- Alternatively, you can use non-secure FTP and connect to anonftp.fillz.com. For this you must use regular FTP with no encryption. The password for non-secure FTP can be obtained within your FillZ account by clicking on the Settings tab and then clicking on FTP or API Token right beneath the Change Password fields.
- Some available FTP clients with this capability are: FileZilla,CuteFTP, SmartFTP, CoreFTP. We recommed that you use FileZilla.
Setting Up FileZilla:
1. Download FileZilla using the link above.
2. Open FileZilla and click "File" -> "Site Manager" -> "New Site".
3. Enter ftp.fillz.com in the "Host" field and choose "FTP over SSL (explicit)" in the drop-down menu under "Servertype".
4. Click the radio button beside "Normal" under "logon type".
5. Enter the username and password that you use for FillZ.
Please Note: Usernames are case-sensitive. They should not contain symbols, such as '@', '-', '.', etc. If you are trying to use FTP function and are receiving an error message, check your username in the top-right hand corner when you are logged on your FillZ account to see if anything is capitalized.
If you need further assistance, please submit a ticket through the Contact-us form on the web site.
Sending Files Using FileZilla:
1. Browse your computer for the file you wish to send under the "Local Site" field.
2. Click on the file and drag it to the box on the right-hand side of the screen under "Remote Site".
3. Your file has been transferred.
[edit] Inventory Uploads
You can upload inventory files in Term:Amazon tab format, Term:UIEE Format and Homebase formats directly to the top-level FTP directory. These files will be processed within 1 hour. A report with the outcome will be saved into the reports directory. Your filename will appear at the top of the report after the time stamp.
Example:
File: 2007-11-05-11-40-01-myinvtest.tab
(Everything after "XXXX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-" is the original filename)
[edit] Order Downloads
If you wish to obtain order information by FTP, please let us know and we will turn that on for your account. The files generated are in the Amazon Fulfillment Report, with a couple of additional fields. After we turn this on and you get your first file, please review the contents of the file to get an idea of the format. Order files are generated hourly. The date/time within the filename reflects the date/time of the file itself.
ShipMethod will be Standard for standard shipping and any other value should be considered expedited.
Orders are placed into two directories: orders-created and orders-modified. Orders are placed into orders-created when they come in to the system from the marketplaces. Orders are placed into orders-modified when anything changes about the order. The most common change for an order is the status changing, either through the web interface or with an order confirmation (see next section).
Unknown columns in Order Files will be ignored by FillZ.
[edit] Order Confirmation
Order confirmation files should be in tab-separated format with the following columns. The first two columns are required, and the rest are optional. NOTE: field headers must match exactly as shown below (i.e. these are case-sensitive).
The order confirmation files should be placed in a directory named orders-confirm. Note: if the orders-confirm directory doesn't exist, please create it.
We recommend adding a time stamp to your file names.
- order-id - FillZ order number
- status - one of "packed" (aka In Process), "shipped" (aka Complete), "cancelled", "deferred"
- tracking - delivery confirmation or other tracking number. Prefix with USPS: , UPS: , FEDEX: if you want us to provide a hyperlink to the respective tracking page from the order search page.
- postage-amount - amount of postage
- postage-date - date of postmark
- postage-transaction-id - an optional unique ID
- postage-status - text describing the outcome of the postage transaction (e.g. "address verification error", or "success")
Abebooks, Alibris, and Play require confirmation before the customer is charged. It is possible that a customer's credit-card is invalid or is otherwise declined. This requires a bit more work to handle in an automated way.
First, confirm that you have the item on hand and upload an order confirmation with status equal to "packed".
To check that the order was confirmed correctly on Abebooks and Alibris, you have to look at the orders-modified directory and wait for the order to appear in "packed" status. Once it does, you can ship it. You should retry every four hours or so, if you don't see an order moving. After 3-4 retries your software should give up and assume that the order has a problem (e.g. rejected credit-card).
After you ship the order, you should also submit the order again to orders-confirm and set the status to "shipped". This will keep things organized on the FillZ end of things and make it easier to investigate problems.
Notes:
- If you make any changes at all to an order, it will be moved to the orders-modified folder (such as an address change, status change, ect.)
[edit] Pricing Imports
You can send us files that contain Market-specific_Prices:. Please note that these files only need to contain two fields, sku and price.
- The file name should be as below, replacing "Amazon" with any marketplace name, and updating the date and time.
- You can only indicate one marketplace per import. If you want to apply the same prices to more than one marketplace, you will need to do separate imports and change the market name.
- Capitalization is important, so please use the spelling under "Marketplaces".
- The extension can be changed, for example, you can use ".tab" instead of ".csv".
File Name Example:
2007-03-21-08-30-market-Amazon.csv
Marketplaces:
Abebooks, Abebooks2, Alibris, Amazon, AmazonCA, AmazonDE, AmazonUK, Biblio, BNBQ, Chrislands, Custom1, Custom2, Custom3, EBay, Gemm, Half, TextbookX, Valore
[edit] Purging
You can purge your inventory within FillZ and also purge any or all of the markets you list on through FillZ. Please understand that these are separate steps.
To purge FillZ through FTP, you simply have to include "purge" in the filename (anywhere). A purge on FillZ causes items not in the purge file to be deleted from FillZ. A purge on FillZ will just cause a delta to be sent to the marketplaces, it will not purge the marketplace.
To purge a marketplace, you have to use the FillZ web interface. You simply click on >Settings, then >Marketplaces. This takes you to the configuration page for each market. Click >Purge under the specific market and that market will be purged.
[edit] Reporting
Within the FTP site there is a reports directory. You can check here to find the status of each file.
[edit] Commands
We recommend that you use the NLST command to retrieve filenames, rather than the LIST command. The latter is non-standardized and can easily break if the listing format changes. Plesae see more information on this here: http://cr.yp.to/ftp/list.html
