ShopSite "How-to" or Task-Based Help

Most of the documentation for ShopSite consists of screen references. Basically, whenever you see an unfamiliar screen in the back office, you click the help link in the toolbar and see a reference for that screen that explains what each of the fields on the screen are for.

For this project, we wanted to create a task-based method of help documentation that provides the steps necessary to do particular tasks in ShopSite. Much like a F.A.Q., the help provided here will be presented in a question and answer format. If there is a question that you feel would be appropriate for this project, feel free to use the link at the bottom of the page to make suggestions.

ShopSite "How-to" Help will be presented in the following format:

Question:

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Get Started?

Response: After ShopSite is installed, point your web browser to where start.cgi is located on your web server. If this is the first time you've run this CGI, you will be prompted to provide your storeID and the password established during installation. Create a user by providing a username and a password.

If you want to go through the steps at a later time, highlight Utilities in the menubar and select Wizard from the drop-down list.

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Create a New Page?

Response: To create a new page within ShopSite, highlight Pages in the menubar and select Add a Page from the drop-down list. There are a number of fields available, but "Page name" is the only required field. If you have already created products, you can select which products you want to appear on the page. Click Save to save the page.

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Create a New Product?

Response: To create a new product within ShopSite, highlight Products in the menubar and select Add a Product from the drop-down list. There are a number of fields available, but "Product name" and "Price" are the only required field. Click Save to save the product. Note that craeting a product does not automatically add the product to any pages on your site. See "How Do I Add a Product to a Page"

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add a Product to a Page?

Response: To add a product to a page within ShopSite, click Pages in the menubar. Select which page you want to add the product to and click the Assign Items button on the right. On the next page, select Product from the list and click the Proceed button. On the final page, select the product(s) you want to add to the current page from the list of "Product not assigned" and click the Add button to move the selected product(s) to the "Product Assigned to Page" list.

Note: The products are added to the bottom of the list. If you want to rearrange the order of the recently added products, click the Arrange Items button at the bottom of the screen.

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Change an Existing Product?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Change Multiple Products at the Same Time?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add a Shipping Provider? (UPS, FedEx, etc.)

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Change the Name of a Page? (productName.html, etc.)

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Create a Downloadable Product?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Setup my Payment Processor?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I View my Orders?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Process My Orders?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add my Products to my Google Product Feed?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add Social Media Options to my Pages?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Create Coupons?

Response: To create coupons for your products, highlight Merchandising in the menubar and select Coupons.

Give the coupon a name. This is how it will appear on the List of Coupons page and is the text for the coupon link.
Set an expiration date.
Decide whether or not the coupon code can be used more than once.
Decide how the coupon can be applied. Will it apply to the entire order or just to specific products that have been added to the cart?
Decide whether the coupon will provide a flat discount ($5 off), a percentage-based discount (10% off), or free shipping. Note: Free Shipping must be enabled within ShopSite to use this option.
Decide if there are any minimums involved (the number of items in the cart or monetary value of the items in the cart).
Provide a Return to Store URL.
Optionally, provide an alternate code. As ShopSite automatically generates an alphanumeric coupon code that may not be easy to remember or share, this alternate code can be useful for coupon codes that also tell what the coupon is for, as seen in some advertisements. An example would be BOGO25%, where the customer buys one item and gets another of teh same item at 25% off.

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add More users to the Back Office?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Can I Email my Customers?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Setup Customer Rewards?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add Images to my Site?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Change my Site's Theme?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Back Up my Site?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Restore my Site from Backup?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add Navigation to my Site?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Make my Site Mobile Friendly?

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Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Set Up Inventory Tracking on my Site?

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Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Set Up Customer Registration?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Set Up Wishlists?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add Product Reviews to my Site?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I See Sales Reports?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Add Search Capabilities to my Site?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3

Question: How Do I Change the Names of the Different Fields?

Response:

Suggested Reference Pages: Reference Page 1, Reference Page 2, and Reference Page 3