Activant sells the Eagle™ for Windows System, which is a combination of hardware and software to manage and control: inventory, sales transactions, accounting, and customer accounts.
     The Eagle system has thousands of installations and a team of developers that continue to maintain and improve the system’s usefulness. Active Lightning provides custom software solutions that work interactively with the Eagle system via an Eagle ODBC software license:

		Catalogs and Circulars
		Webpages
		Website Interactivity with iNet or ESTU
		Communicate orders and inventory between online stores and Eagle POS
		Customer Relationship Management [CRM], Sales Force Automation [SFA], and Business Intelligence
		Other

Catalogs and Circulars

Active Lightning offers the ability to automatically create print-ready catalogs and circulars. The data from the Eagle database drives the creation of a catalog or circulars, delivering pdf files that are ready for commercial printing. Manual desktop-publishing labor is NOT needed. A company can use its preferred page layout design—either an existing design or one developed with an Active Lightning designer.

An example of a catalog produced from an Eagle system is described in the Active Lightning Portfolio Gallery, also an example of a circular produced from an Eagle system. This type of automation is ideal for generating pdf files. Using the pdf file format has many benefits. Think of it. Pdf files generated automatically with current information from your Eagle system...no manual labor.

Webpages

Active Lightning also offers the ability to automatically create web pages using information from the Eagle system. There are 2 ways to go. One, automatically produce static pages that are manually posted via ftp to the web server—for example, pages like this for each of 700 classes.      Or two, dynamically deliver content such as quantity on hand and pricing via server-side programming that ties into the Eagle.

This type of custom software from Active Lightning allows a company to host its own Eagle information and display its preferred user interface. A cheaper way to go is to purchase the standard internet product from Activant, iNet.

Website Interactivity with iNet or ESTU

iNet
Activant has a product offering, called iNet, that dynamically delivers content from an Eagle system onto the web (like the second option above). iNet has two information tracks: 1) eStore for public retail shopping, and 2) OrderPro for companies with accounts to shop, get quotes, and obtain account information.
     With iNet, the Eagle information is displayed via Activant’s web servers in a standard layout.
     In the past, there was only one entry point to iNet. A company would put a link on its website and when a user clicked on it, he or she would go to the iNet home page for eStore or OrderPro. The “new look” for iNet eStore was launched in September 2004. It provides a company with the capability to link into iNet information many different ways:

• By sku
• By search string
• By department
• By class

Active Lightning has the knowledge and expertise to integrate iNet eStore with a company’s self-hosted webpages to make a rich, easy-to-use visitor experience. For example, a search window can be implemented directly on a company’s home page that can take a user directly into iNet where the results of the search will be listed.

ESTU
For one reason or another, a company may have a shopping cart that it prefers to iNet. In this case, placed-orders need to get processed so that the Eagle system recognizes the sale and relieves inventory. This can be accomplished automatically by using a product offering from Activant called ESTU with custom programming from Active Lightning.
     The custom programming takes an order from the 3^rd-party shopping cart and creates a special file (with the file extension “.inv”). This special file is delivered to a folder/directory on a client PC on the company’s Eagle network where it is automatically read and processed.

ActiveSync

Communicate information between online stores and Eagle POS

Sometimes a company conducts ecommerce via more than one website. The Eagle System can act as a central system to keep track of inventory, orders, and shipments. Changes to inventory need to be posted to the different ecommerce sites. Orders from these sites need to be downloaded and inserted into the Eagle System via ESTU. Active Lightning develops custom software that performs this integration. Click here to see an example of a project we did.

A rich-featured shopping cart which we recommend for your consideration is PDG Commerce. ActiveSync is already set up to work with this shopping cart. It can be purchased for a one-time fee of $1000 and it has everything you need for an online ecommerce site, including automated email confirmations and integration with UPS. So when iNet does not meet your needs, this is an option worth considering.

ActiveControl

Customer Relationship Management, Sales Force Automation,
and Business Intelligence [CRM/SFA/BI]

Active Lightning offers a database application that ties into Eagle called ActiveControl. It provides functionality for CRM (customer relationship management), sales force automation, and business intelligence application. Active Lightning builds the application by starting with what we have done previously. Then we modify it to have the properties desired by the purchaser.

ActiveControl provides information and controls to manage customer relationships. Key features of the application include the following.

The Eagle system provides sales history for each customer by allowing a user to drill down to the invoice level; however, company sales or sales by department are only available for year-to-date, period-to-date, or last year. In order to see sales aggregated for multiple periods or years, a company needs this application. ActiveControl captures historical weekly and annual totals from the Eagle system for analysis and reporting. The ability to see total profit or profit by department for multiple periods and multiple years, and see how events interact with sales results is key functionality for business intelligence.
     ActiveControl also captures daily information that tracks the performance of sales people.
     Sales force automation includes the ability to schedule different types of customer contact events and be alerted when the scheduled contact is approaching. The ability to track sales opportunities, commissions, and conversion rates are all offered in this application.
     There are many ways that this database application serves its owners. A full discussion goes beyond the scope of this presentation.
     Active Lightning offers a blend: software that exists with proven productivity with custom capability. Active Lightning is experienced with integrating this type of database with the Eagle System.

Other

Active Lightning can provide other custom solutions.
     For example, Active Lightning can provide an order tracking system that shows the status of an order on a company’s website, from information in the Eagle System. Another possibility is to automate credit card settlement and email confirmation of telephone or web orders.
     One customer had trouble generating pick lists the way they wanted them. Active Lightning developed a pick-list generator that had the features they desired.
     If you have an idea about how you would like to use the information in your Eagle System to do something that is not already provided by Activant, then please feel free to call us to explore the possibility.

Excellent Value for the Money

Active Lightning custom solutions provide excellent value for the money. Generally, small companies can afford them. See the Active Lightning hourly work rates. Usually, our clients order work on a fixed-price basis. In this case, the project objectives are conveyed through one or more phone conversations; then, Active Lightning formalizes the specifications of the project in a proposal/quote. The client can then review the document to see if it matches expectations and caps costs at a reasonable level.

Possible, Practical, Affordable

An Eagle System manages the heart of key business operations. Active Lightning offers the ability to build on top of this foundation to get solutions that are custom-tailored to a company’s desires and needs. Whether a marketing system that informs customers from accurate Eagle information, or a customer relationship management tool, both are possible. Yes, Active Lightning makes it possible, practical, and affordable to get nonstandard, custom additions to your Eagle system.

When you hire Active Lightning, you hire a team of intelligent creative trustworthy people led by Sally Seaver Shabaka. In delivering specified IT functionality, we attend to technical design, cost-containment, sustainability, marketing and the client’s brand. We thoughtfully work for our client’s best interests on many levels.