Today we may assume with confidence that internet commercial activity cannot be considered as an outstanding step of a company that wishes to increase its market share by attracting new customers. Quite the contrary, in the modern world almost every company involved in sell/purchase activity yet lacking its virtual business representation, evokes a sincere perplexity. As a result, there are many IT companies offering their software products developed specially for e-business; but almost every software product has its own sticking points.

This assertion may be approved with the following idea: the modern e-business market is in need of heterogeneous software systems while pre-existed chaotical workflow is going into the past. This very fact can be explained easily. As soon as a volume of information processed by business automation system reaches a certain level the importance of effective support of different documents increases dramatically. A large amount of unstructured data can be hardly indexed, it is problematic to integrate other systems with it, and it's almost impossible to conduct information analysis in it.

For small e-Commerce companies, working on LAMP platforms (Linux Apache MySQL, PHP), the problem is not so obvious while all the process automation is done by the use of an e-store.

But when you have an idea to implement sales analysis into BackOffice functions or to integrate an e-store accounting with other company's activities you face a difficult choice whether to start manual documents processing from one system into another or to invest money into business workflow integrated system.

Which solution to choose and what are the sticking points of the different choices?

1. FULL Integration over HTTP protocol

Today's situation shows great popularity in usage of server-based systems where a typical browser is used as a client part.

The advantages of such approach are:

• All the information is stored in a server database;
• Given the systems architecture has been planned well, the information can be indexed easily. Moreover, such system can be easily expanded (using the human resources of the same company or by invitation of third-party developers).

The disadvantages of such approach are:

• It often happens that small companies do not possess their own intranet server, and the Internet commerce platform is located on a commercial hosting with the big access time;
• A development of system that will perfectly suit the activity of all the specialists involved in business process (accountants, managers, marketing specialists, etc) may require serious financial investment;
• Teaching the personnel to use such a system will take time.

2. Workflow by "Hand"

The company continues to work with accustomed documents using accustomed office procedures. The documents are converted from one format into another as well as transferred into system and from the system manually.

The advantages of this approach are:

• The personnel continue to work with the accustomed software, and the use of inexpensive commercial hosting is admitted.

The disadvantages of this approach are:

• An inevitable question: how well the information is synchronized?
• What version of data is used by E-Commerce platform?
• What versions of information from E-Commerce platform marketing and management offices are working with?
• How to keep track of the information from/into the database?

3. Does a balanced decision exist?

Fortunately yes. This is a document transformation.
Using this method a company continues to work with accustomed documents by using routine office procedures. The points of synchronization are created directly in an e-Commerce system located on the server. Compared to the cost of software development for all the working places and business process participants this solution looks really cost effective.

While people continue to work with accustomed programs and usual document formats the system converts the documents from the formats used in the office into the internal systems formats. At the moment of the systems access the software does the reverse transformation. This way existing office programs perform almost like a universal client for the e-Commerce platform.

Let us review a certain example of the approach above.

There is a long-time existed obstacle of Microsoft software products usage in Unix/Linux environment. Microsoft Excel is definitely one of the most important programs for a typical user. Hundreds of millions of XLS files with different information exist and millions are created every day. Not only users work with XLS files on their local machines but they also want to use such files in the Internet. Taking into account the fact that the great majority of Web servers are operational under Unix/Linux we can clearly recognize the question about XLS file reading under Unix/Linux.

Programmers of many countries rack their brains to resolve this problem as it would be appreciated by users.

The good news is that the problem has already been solved. On the Internet software market there is a product developed by a young but roughly growing Canadian company, Zakkis Technology Corporation. This product is called PHP Excel Parser. This particular software helps to organize XLS file reading under Unix/Linux really quickly. All that PHP Excel File Parser needs for its work is a Web server with standard PHP software installed on it. It doesn't require any additional modules, libraries, etc - only standard PHP software installed.

The application perspectives of PHP Excel Parser are simply boundless: e-commerce stores, product catalogs, schedules or any other data in table format. The programmers do not need anymore to teach users how to save their XLS files in CSV (comma separated value) format in order to use them under Unix/Linux. They just need to create a Web form that allows a user to upload his/her XLS file on a Web server. PHP Excel Parser does all the rest. The Parser uploads all the XLS file data into the array automatically while the programmer has to choose where to submit this data further: in HTML file, database, or to display it directly at the monitor. What could be easier for a programmer?

This solution is easier, faster, more convenient and less expensive than writing your own program for reading XLS files under Unix/Linux. PHP Excel Parser can parse numeric, strings, data fields, and fonts. Multi-paged Excel files are also supported.

Zakkis Technology takes care not only of programmers' comfort, but also of users not experienced in programming.

A new software product called ABC Catalog is based on PHP Excel Parser Pro. With this software any user can create a WEB price-list directly from an Excel file by pressing a single button. The program can be used to create new price-lists, catalogs and other tabular materials as well as for renewal/changing existing ones.
The software does not pose any excessive requirements to the Excel document's form - ABC Catalog will transmit neatly your chosen color and format into a web page. The only strict requirement is the use of MS Excel version 97/2000/XP files.

Running an e-Commerce business not necessarily require significant financial investing. However it may entail big time wasting due to the use of homogenous information OR matching it in accordance with system requirements. The software products presented above will help you to avoid such obstacles.

The economy of time combined with the economy of efforts leads to the economy of money. The ready-to-use solution is available on the market today.

Zakkis Technology
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