HotWax Media and OFBiz – 2009 Contributions – Part 4

For the final chapter in our series highlighting the contributions of HotWax Media to Apache’s Open For Business (OFBiz) in 2009, we will focus on the OFBiz integrations related components:

1. Shipping Integrations
2. Multi Channel Sales Integrations
3. Payment Processing Integrations

Shipping

During 2009, the available shipping integrations in OFBiz got a boost from some much needed power users — clients with real-world business needs driving development efforts is always the best scenario for an open source project!  We focused on enhancing the integrations by implementing new aspects of UPS standard web services, UPS World Ship, USPS standard web services, FedEx and Endicia.

1. Added UPS integration support for sending Shipment Return Label email to customer. This option will be available on order detail screen and as well on the return screen when order is in the “Completed” status and the return is in the “Accepted” status.
2. Added functionality for getting online shipping charges from UPS if an order is in the “Approved” status with associated shipment in the “Picked” status and it has been hold due to an overage in the shipping charges from the Weight Package only screen.
3. UPS integration enhancement for supporting shipping quote based on dimensions.
4. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with existing UPS World Ship terminals.
5. Added support for USPS international rate estimates and label printing.
6. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with the Endicia services to provide additional features that were not supported in standard USPS web services.
7. Built a custom component for integrating OFBiz with the new FedEx web services to provide additional features that were not supported by the version of the FedEx SDK that was currently utilized.

Multi Channel Sales

Over the past 10 years, possible sales channels have increased from catalogs and brick and mortar stores to include standard ecommerce, public marketplaces, and shopping comparison sites.  HotWax Media has played an active role in expanding the different multi-channel integrations that are offered to OFBiz users.  Here is a list of integration improvements to eBay, Google Base and Amazon:

1. Added multiple store support to eBay and provided sample data to document how it works.
2. As part of adding  multi-store support to the eBay integration, improved the Category Association management by adding  a new ProdCatalogCategoryType “PCCT_EBAY_ROOT” and adding a worker method in the CatalogWorker class to fetch the top level eBay categoryId.
3. Implemented new services available in eBay – GetOrders and GetMyeBaySelling to allow single transaction (one per import) as well as multi transaction (multiple per import) support.
4. Added a new screen to optimize the import orders and transactions workflow.
5. Create support for eBay configuration from the new entity EbayConfig.  Provided the GUI support to update configuration values.
6. Added a new entity, EbayShippingMethod, to support custom shipping methods from eBay. Also provided GUI support and included demo data for reference and documentation.
7. Fixed the Google Base product feed – it was broken when we started working on it.
8. Provide entity support for Google Base configuration.
9. Updated eBay and Google Base customer error messaging.
10. Added multiple store support to Google Base and provided sample data to document how it works.
11. Built a custom component for integrating Amazon web services for: a) Sending product information (feeds for product, price, relationship, image, inventory) to Amazon;  b)Sending order adjustment and fulfillment information to Amazon; c) Retrieving order information from Amazon.

Payment Processing

OFBiz flexibly integrates with a growing number of different payment processors.  2009 saw a number of new Payment Gateway options become available, and HotWax was able to provide updated or new integrations to many of these services.

1. Implemented Chase Bank’s “Orbital Payment Gateway” – supported features are credit card authorization, capture, authorize and capture, release, and refund.
2. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of Orbital Gateway – since this was created after the community switched to maintaining this in entities – property file configuration is not supported at this time.
3. Analyzed the Google Checkout integration that was started in the OFBiz trunk – found it to be insufficient.  Provided a new implementation utilizing the updated Google Checkout SDK.
4. Users can now create and order using Google Checkout – including the checking of existing customer information.
5. Added support in OFBiz for fulfillment of orders created from inside Google Checkout.
6. Added additional shipment, order state change, and other notifications into the Google Checkout integration.
7. Provided seed & demo data so that user can test Google Checkout with merchant and seller accounts.
8. Because this integration was stared when property files were used in OFBiz, we maintained backward compatibility to allow existing users to use property files for configuration settings in Google Checkout.
9. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of Google Checkout per the current OFBiz standard.
10. Added support to Google Checkout to support Google shipping methods in OFBiz.
11. Added GUI support for GoogleCheckout entities to easily handle configuration settings. The name of entities are: GoogleCoConfiguration & GoogleCoShippingMethod.
12. Provided documentation for the community to show how Google Checkout works.
13. Made a number of improvements to the standard PayPal IPN integration.
14. Implemented PayPal Express Checkout (both the Payflow Pro and standard PayPal account versions) allowing for order payments and refunds using a PayPal account.
15. Provided entity support for the configuration settings of PayPal Express Checkout.
16. Upgraded PayPal’s PayFlow Pro from version 2 to version 4 – helping the community to stay up to date while the existing implementation was deprecated and taken out of production in September of 2009.

What’s Next?

Spending our 2010 helping take the Apache Open For Business project to the next level of usability, flexibility, testability, and accountability.

Contact us today to learn how HotWax Media can help you achieve your business goals using Apache Open For Business.

– Tim

Tim Ruppert is Chief Operating Officer at HotWax Media as well as an OFBiz project committer and active community member. Tim will join other HotWax Media employees and advisors in periodically posting thoughts here related to OFBiz, eCommerce, ERP, and related topics.