How interfaces to external websites and mobile apps operate. This note covers the standardised eCommerce interface, prior to the standardised interface being developed some retailers had semi-custom interfaces which are generally being retired.
See also eCommerce Generic Interface
Sending Information
- Products are selected using a query to retailmax.elink.product.list typically with the predicate "&198=1" to select only published products. If you wish to send different products to different websites a command file will be required to individually select the specific sets of items.
- If images are requested to be sent as part of the selection, then the extract above will only include the URL references and not the
actual image data. Interfaces for binary data can be complex for web developers to build and it is easier to provide downloadable copies of the images.
In RLProduct.cpp a call is made for each product listed to Media::GetList...() to retrieve an IMAG structure which contains
- ImageUrl (f200) a Url that can be used to retrieve the image from this Gds server
- AwsS3Address (f202) An AWS simple storage path to the image file. Details of the storage account are not sent and should be externally agreed (In Gds an AWS S3 account is configured under Messaging like an email account)
- StorageKey (f120) A unique identifier for this single image
- MD5 (f121) Current MD5 hash information for the image. Providing this allows eCommerce sites to detect if an image content has changed, such as it being editted.
- PublicUrl (f201) A Url on a Fieldpine WebServer hosting the image as a service. These Urls are not intended to be hardcoded
or used by general public, they are for interchange to allow WebServers to download and save the images themselves.
Fieldpine PublicUrls have the general structure www.fieldpine.com/geni/pRmSystem/StorageKey
The media scanning primarily uses the table Media
- Image data is sent to Fieldpine and AWS at upload time if selected/enabled, but can be re-sent later with a call to @@@
- When an image is uploaded and requested to be sent externally
If sending to Fieldpine
- A MiniTask is created internally and sends the image to gds.fdlonline.media.edit This is a lazy send and does not block the image upload call from completing.
- The receiving server (Fieldpine.com etc) extracts and stores the image for that retailer (RmSystem)
If sending to AWS S3