OutPosts are not for the feint hearted. An OutPost is a web database, and is the data engine between a website and Business Administrator. It effectively replaces any existing database you already have for your website.
Location: Command Bar, Services
Overview
It would never be wise to expose Business Administrator to the web in any shape or form. No web page should ever access Business Administrators database directly, even if the database is a long way from web exposure, and even if there is plenty of security. Remember that web pages can be hacked to gain access to underlying information.
Business Administrator can create an OutPost for you. It’s a shadow of the Business Administrator database that holds only relevant information necessary to run a website.
For example, it will contain data about your stock pricing, and the volumes of stock you have. It will not hold payroll or employee information. Your web pages should connect to that OutPost, and you can have as many OutPosts as you like.
When the OutPost is set up, Business Administrator will constantly liaise with the OutPost to find out if any trade has happened, and to update the OutPost with any new information it has.
Setting up
The top of the dialogue will list the OutPosts that are registered with Business Administrator, and their state. You can edit an existing one or create a new one, either of which will cause the Q&A to appear in the bottom half of the dialogue.
Answer all questions as appropriate. State the name of the OutPost and the database type and location. It is wisest to give an OutPost the same name as the business it belongs to.
Path to Stock Images: when you enter details of a product on Business Administrator, you can also offer some images of that product. Business Administrator knows that those images will be useful for a website, so it will want to transfer the images to the websites image folder as well. The only images it will upload are relevant pictures of the product whose details appear in the OutPost database: it will not upload any other image. So pictures of staff will not be uploaded because Business Administrator will not upload details of staff to the OutPost.
When pictures change, Business Administrator will upload those as well, and it will remove redundant pictures. If a product is no longer selling on the website, then its pictures will have become redundant too.
We recommend you set up a second images folder for this purpose, to run alongside the traditional site images folder.
Logs: most web servers will create and maintain a log of activity of your website: it is usually a file saved to disk. In some cases, Business Administrator can read and analyse those logs. However, website logs are rarely a true reflection of genuine website activity, and other means of monitoring website activity should be sought. Contact Chalestra to develop accurate methods of website reporting. We suggest that the logging system should not be used.
Automatically remove site pictures: if products fall to disuse, then Business Administrator will want to remove redundant pictures of the products from your website. This is an override switch which should be used if you have a reason to keep the pictures on the website.
Maintaining the OutPost
As soon as all the questions are complete, Business Administrator will offer two options: it will allow you to create a new database, or a new OutPost. They are very different.
You may want a new database for testing purposes – you do not want to corrupt Business Administrators data with testing information. When you create a new database, Business Administrator will put a mock database containing data and pictures in a location of your choice so that you can develop a website. Business Administrator will not monitor this database.
When you are ready, you can create the OutPost. Business Administrator will create a brand new database and monitor it – this is a fully-fledged system that Business Administrator will link to and monitor. Whatever happens with this database will be reflected in Business Administrators data. All testing should have stopped at this point.
When done, there should be nothing you have to do to maintain the OutPost. Business Administrator will constantly monitor the OutPost and report on the state of it. Business Administrator will report if it has problems with the OutPost.
OutPost monitoring is largely the domain of Business Administrator’s Shadow Systems and will not require any effort from you. However, you could go to the OutPost section in Server Manager either to force an update, or to gain more information about the OutPost.
If trade happens on the website, it will be reported in Business Manager under sales reporting, or in Finance Manager.
In some scenarios and for a variety of reasons, Business Administrator will do an emergency update of the OutPost. This phenomenon is normal, but rare.
Trading with OutPosts
It’s worth mentioning that if you run a traditional shop and a web shop, you ought to read about the Pricing Board. This system allows you to run several charging schedules which means you can easily run separate pricing schedules for different applications, such as a traditional shop and a web shop.