Blog

What’s an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It’s a way for programs to communicate with each other. You’ll need some programming skills to use the API but our hope is people will create and share/sell applications that integrate with MerchantOS. For example a company that has web based rental software could integrate their application into ours and you could then use their product if you wanted to add rental capabilities to our point of sale system.

Getting Started

We’ve created a developers page and a set of API documentation. If you have any questions just call or email support and we’ll be happy to help out.

Some Examples Of How The API Could Be Used

All of these will require a programmer, but for someone who has experience using web service APIs, this should be fairly simple.

• Display stock levels and price on your website.
• Build a web application for customer’s to look up their workorders or sales history.
• Synchronize your MerchantOS items with your Ecommerce site.
• Build a utility to import your purchase orders into MerchantOS.
• Create a custom integration with an accounting system.

What The API Can’t Do

The API can be used to do an almost unlimited number of things. But it isn’t magic. Here are some things it can not do.

• Change the interface to MerchantOS. The API only works with the data from your account. It can’t change how MerchantOS itself looks.
• Get notifications of events in MerchantOS. We hope to add this at some point.

We are now able to automatically send your customer list and sales data to The Bike Cooperative. Setup is easy and you’ll never have to hassle with sending information to The Bike Cooperative by hand again.

The Bike Cooperative improves retailers’ profitability and quality of life through its exclusive buying, marketing, cost savings, and training programs. If you’re not already member of The Bike Cooperative, you can check out their offering here.

Do you have multiple printers all plugged into the same computer? Do you ever send your receipts to your label printer or vice versa? We’ve just made a huge improvement to help stop that from happening!

What it does

After you install and configure a special printing add-on for Firefox, print jobs will be automatically sent to the correct printer on Microsoft Windows computers. If you print a receipt, the receipt printer is automatically sent the print job (no print dialog necessary). If you print labels, you’ll be warmly greeted by the whirring and clicking noises of the correct printer as well.

If you’re a Mac user, sadly you can not take advantage of this feature. The printing functionality in Firefox for Mac is different and will require an update of that browser.

All you need to do is follow the setup instructions in our manual to start taking advantage of this now

We slowed things down a bit for the month of November and October so that several of us could cycle out for much needed vacations. This has given those who took a break some time to recollect and prepare to push MerchantOS forward. Here’s what we’re working on right now…

Application Programming Interface (API): There are many features and functionality we would love to add to MerchantOS but simply don’t have the resources to do on our own. Also there are many customers who have very unique needs from their point of sale system. The API will allow any programmer to write an app that works with MerchantOS. You could for example hook your homegrown order fulfillment system into MerchantOS or create mobile device apps that interact with your point of sale.

Before you get too excited, this is a fairly sophisticated feature that will require the skills of a programmer to utilize. Our hope is some programmers who write integrations would share or sell their integrations. Also other companies with complimentary products could now integrate their product with our own instead of waiting for us to integrate with them.

The API is available in a limited form and we are currently adding more functionality to it. You can read about it here.

Just wanted to let you know that we’ve redone the Quick Add Item feature. The new interface is similar to the normal item record view. It works in the same general way the old Quick Add Item worked:

1. Use the search field to search for an existing item or catalog item.
2. Or you can directly start typing in the details of a brand new item.
3. Enter a quantity (optional) you want to add to inventory for the item.
4. Press “Add Inventory and Start A New Item”, to start the process over.

We have merged this functionality in with the “New Item” feature. So whenever you are creating a new item you get the Quick Add Item interface. We’ve removed the “Quick Add Item” button from the menu because it’s now the same as that “New Item” button.

If you are having trouble give us a call. If you have feedback about this feature you can submit it through Help->Suggestions & Feedback or just leave a comment here.