Tools

Scheduled Tasks

Scheduled tasks are used to perform some functions automatically at the background at a time that is most convenient for you according to the schedule you set up or manually.

To open scheduled tasks in Sana Admin click: Tools > Scheduled tasks.

In Sana Admin there are 10 scheduled tasks:

• Product import
• Customer import
• General information import
• Product image import
• Sitemap export
• ERP connection status check
• Authorization reminders
• Sales statistics import
• Mobile orders processing
• System - task scheduler
• Authorize.Net bank account confirmation
   This task is needed only if you are using the Authorize.NET payment provider.

On the Scheduled tasks page you can see the list of tasks, their status and last result, last run time and next run time.

The table below provides the description of the buttons on the Scheduled tasks page:

Button	Description
History	You can see the history of all tasks by clicking the History button at the top of the scheduled tasks list or see the entire history of a certain task by clicking the History button of the related task.
Start	Start the task manually. There are two options for the Product import and Customer import tasks: Update index - checks whether the products/customers information has been modified and updates the index. Rebuild index - completely rebuilds the index. When you click Start, without choosing the alternative task, the index will be updated as this action is set by default.
Edit	Configure the task.
View log	View the last log file of the task. For example, if the task has failed, the last log file can be used to see the reason of failure. If any errors occur, when a scheduled task is running, all errors will be shown in a summary at the end of the scheduled task log.

Multiple tasks can run simultaneously.

  By default Sana Commerce scheduled tasks are installed within the system, but it also possible to install and use the Sana Commerce Task Service as a Windows service. For more information, see 'Sana Commerce Task Service'.

Below you can read the detailed information about each task and how to configure it.

Product import

The Product import task is used to retrieve the product information from the database to build or update the webstore index. The webstore search functionality, sorting, phonetic search and product sets configuration depends on what product information is indexed.

When Sana Commerce has been installed and connected to your ERP system you need to configure the Index fields and run the Product import task to be able to manage your webstore catalog and menus.

The multilingual fields are also indexed for all configured languages (title, description, product group, item category and others). When a translation is not available the default description is indexed for that language.

The index should be updated when some products have been modified in the database.

When you change the index fields or visibility of prices in the maintenance mode you should run the product import task to make all recent changes take effect.

For more information about the index fields, see 'ERP Integration'.
For more information about prices visibility in the maintenance mode, see 'Products'.

To configure the Product import task click Edit.

The table below provides the description of the Product import task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the product import task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Batch size	Enter the quantity of products that should be handled in one batch.
Maximum interval between retries (seconds)	Enter the maximum interval between retries. When some products cannot be indexed for some reason the task will make another attempt during the specified time interval.
Maximum retries count	Enter the maximum retries count. When some products cannot be indexed for some reason this value specifies how many times the task should try to index them again.
Maximum items to skip before failure	Enter the maximum items to skip before failure. When some products cannot be indexed for some reason this value specifies how many products can be skipped before the task will fail.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

Customer import

The Customer import task is used to retrieve the list of all customers/contacts/sales agents from your ERP system.

When the list of customers is indexed they become available for managing the shop accounts in Sana Admin.

For more information about shop accounts management in Sana Admin, see 'Shop Accounts'.

When Sana Commerce has been installed and connected to your ERP system you need to run the Customer import task to retrieve the list of customers from your ERP system and make them available for managing the shop accounts.

When you add a new customer/contact/sales agent to your ERP system or change the name of a customer in ERP you should run the Customer import task to update the customers information.

To configure the Customer import task click Edit.

The table below provides the description of the Customer import task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the customer import task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Batch size	Enter the quantity of customers that should be handled in one batch.
Maximum interval between retries (seconds)	Enter the maximum interval between retries. When some customers cannot be indexed for some reason the task will make another attempt during the specified time interval.
Maximum retries count	Enter the maximum retries count. When some customers cannot be indexed for some reason this value specifies how many times the task should try to index them again.
Maximum items to skip before failure	Enter the maximum items to skip before failure. When some customers cannot be indexed for some reason this value specifies how many customers can be skipped before the task will fail.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.
Index customers	This option is used to index customers from the ERP system.
Index contacts	This option is used to index contacts from the ERP system.
Index sales agents	This option is used to index sales agents from the ERP system.

General information import

      The General information import task should be started before the Product import and Customer import tasks.

The General information import task is used to synchronize settings and basic data with your ERP system. When you run this task it checks whether your ERP system supports for example product images, sales statistics or prepayments. It also imports the basic data from your ERP system to the Sana database, for example countries, currencies, units of measure, shipping methods. Thus, when the Sana Commerce solution is installed it is important to run this task before running the Product import and Customer import tasks.

Sana Commerce allows to accept orders when there is no connection to your ERP system. This allows to continue business operations without interruption, even when connection to your ERP system is not available for some reasons.

For more information about maintenance mode, see 'ERP Connection'.
For more information about sales orders that are placed in the maintenance mode, see 'Orders'.

The General information import task is also used to synchronize data with your ERP system to be able to run the webstore in the maintenance mode when connection to ERP is not available. If data is not synchronized with your ERP system the webstore will not be able to switch to the maintenance mode. The task can be run only when connection to your ERP is available.

This task synchronizes the following data with your ERP system:

• Currencies
• Countries
• Units of measure
• External shipping methods
• B2C template customer
• Product categories
• Products and product variants
• Customers and shipping addresses

It is important to run this task even if you are not going to use the maintenance mode and you intend running your webstore only with a stable connection to ERP. This is needed because sometimes it is not possible to predict connection failure. If for some reason connection to the ERP system is lost your webstore should be able to switch to the maintenance mode to continue working without interruption. We recommend to run this task when the products catalog and customers in your ERP system are ready to synchronize the above mentioned data and before you are planning to switch you webstore to the maintenance mode intentionally due to some reasons, for example because of the planned hardware/software maintenance.

During synchronization data is stored in the SQL database and thus can be used in the maintenance mode. When the webstore is in the maintenance mode the data of the last synchronization will be used.

In the maintenance mode you can show/hide prices in the webstore. To enable/disable prices in the maintenance mode in Sana Admin click: Setup > Products > Price > Price visibility when ERP connection is not available. Enabling this option requires reindexing of the products.

If your webstore is in the maintenance mode and the option Price visibility when ERP is not available is enabled, only the list prices will be shown in the webstore. In the maintenance mode the customers will be able to see the prices based on the latest indexed list prices. The customer specific prices, trade agreements, discounts and volume prices are not available.

In the maintenance mode the stock is not shown in the webstore and availability of products does not depend on stock.

The table below provides the description of the General information import task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the general information import task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

Product image import

The Product image import task is used to automatically resize product images and put them to the 'small', 'medium' and 'large' folders according to their size. This is done because product images of different sizes are used in the Sana Commerce webstore. After that product images are linked to the related products based on the item numbers and shown in the Sana webstore.

For more information, see 'Product Images'.

The table below provides the description of the Product image import task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the product image import task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Batch size	Enter the quantity of product images that should be handled in one batch.
Separator	Enter the symbol that is used to separate product image information in the product image filename, like item number and product variant code. Default: _
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.
Import product images from ERP	Use this option to import product images from ERP. If the catalog in your ERP system contains product images you can show them in the Sana webstore. You can equally use the procedure which Sana provides out-of-the-box to add product images and those images which are already present in your ERP system. See also: How to add item images in Microsoft Dynamics NAV How to add product images in Microsoft Dynamics AX

Sitemap export

The Sitemap export task is used to inform search engines about the webstore URLs that are available for indexing. The sitemap is the XML file that contains the webstore URLs with additional metadata about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other webstore URLs.

All web pages are available for indexing:

• Product pages
• Flexi-pages
• News
• Product list pages
• FAQ pages

The URLs of the pages in different languages are also created in the 'sitemap' files when the webstore is multi-language.

The tables below provide the description of the Sitemap export task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the sitemap export task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Items per file	Enter the number of links which are stored in the 'sitemap' file. Maximum: 50000
Compression	If this option is enabled the sitemap files will be compressed as a 'gzip' file. There should be not more than 50000 URLs in the sitemap file and it should not be larger than 10Mb.       Starting from Sana Commerce 9.1.1 this option is not available.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

Providers
Use Providers to configure web pages for indexing:

Settings	Description
Enabled	Use this option to enable/disable web pages for indexing.
Batch size	Enter the quantity of items that are handled in one batch.
Priority	Enter the priority of the URL in relation to other URLs in the webstore. This allows to specify which pages are more important. The valid range is from '0.0' to '1.0' with increment of '0.1', where '1.0' is the most important. The default value is '0.5'. Rating all web pages with a high priority will not have any effect on the search.
Change frequency	Determine how frequently the page may change: Always Hourly Daily Weekly Monthly Yearly Never 'Always' is used to mark web pages that change each time when they are accessed. 'Never' is used to mark archived URLs (for example files that will not be changed again).

When the sitemap file has been created and placed on the web server, you need to inform the search engines about its location. You can do this by specifying the location of the sitemap in the 'robots.txt' file, which is stored in the root of the web store hierarchy. You can add the path to the sitemap to the 'robots.txt' file directly from Sana Admin: Setup > Basics > Robots. For more information, see 'Robots'.

For more information about sitemaps, please visit this website: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php

ERP connection status check

Use the ERP connection status check task to check connection availability to your ERP system.

This is necessary when connection to your ERP system is not available for some reasons and your webstore has switched to the maintenance mode. This task checks the connection and when it is available again it switches the webstore to the online mode automatically.

The table below provides the description of the ERP connection status check task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the ERP connection status check task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

See also:
ERP Connection
Unprocessed Orders
General Information Import

Authorization reminders

Use the Authorization reminders scheduled task to send the reminders by e-mail to the account managers and sub-accounts who have orders that need to be authorized.

Ordering process is critically important for most businesses and for some the order approval workflow is essential. It is used to enforce the business rules of a company to ensure that all orders are within budget. In the Sana Commerce webstore account managers can create sub-accounts with a limited budget whose orders need to be authorized if an order exceeds the limit. For more information, see 'Shop Account Roles'.

The table below provides the description of the Authorization reminders task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the Authorization reminders task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Number of days before reminder is sent	Enter the number of days before the reminder will be sent to the authorizers. If authorizers have orders which need to be approved and the orders have been placed more that the number of days specified in this field the authorizers will receive a reminder by e-mail.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

Sales statistics import

The ERP systems gather the detailed sales statistics for each customer. Now this sales statistics from ERP can be seen directly in Sana Admin: Sales > Sales Statistics. These reports include information about total orders, total quotes, total outstanding order amount, total outstanding invoice amount as well as profits, order returns, discounted amounts, etc. per customer within a specific time period.

Use the Sales statistics import task to import or update sales statistics for all your customers.

The table below provides the description of the Sales statistics import task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the Sales statistics import task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Batch size	Enter the quantity of customers that should be handled in one batch.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

For more information, see 'Sales Statistics'.

Mobile orders processing

The Mobile orders processing task is used to synchronize and send orders to the ERP system which are placed from the Sana mobile app using the order processing strategy that is optimized for fast ordering.

When the order is placed from the Sana mobile app at first it is sent to the Sana SQL database. Such orders can be seen by the mobile manager in Sana Admin, checked and sent to the ERP system.

This order processing strategy might be useful if you have unstable Internet connection and you have problems with sending the orders directly to the ERP system or you need to quickly place a lot of orders, which you can easily send all at once to the ERP system from Sana Admin anytime.

The table below provides the description of the Mobile orders processing task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the Mobile orders processing task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

For more information, see 'Configuration' and 'Mobile Orders'.

System - task scheduler

The System - task scheduler task is a system task that is used to periodically send the request to Sana Admin to keep the connection between the scheduled tasks and Sana Admin.

If IIS has been restarted, the System - task scheduler task will run after the first request to the webstore.

The table below provides the description of the System - task scheduler task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the System - task scheduler task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.

Authorize.Net bank account confirmation

   This task is needed only if you are using the Authorize.Net payment provider.

The Authorize.Net bank account confirmation task checks the status of the orders which are transferred through the Authorize.Net Payment Provider ECheck.Net method.

The Authorize.Net bank account confirmation task checks only the orders which are transferred through the live account. The reason of this is that Authorize.Net doesn't save the test orders, so their status cannot be checked.

The table below provides the description of the Authorize.Net bank account confirmation task settings:

Settings	Description
Run on schedule	Use this option to enable automatic running of the Authorize.Net bank account confirmation task according to the configured schedule or disable it to allow only manual start of the task. If you enable Run on schedule you should enter either the interval in minutes when the task should run automatically or the fixed time.
Run interval (in minutes)	Enter the time interval in minutes when the task should run automatically.
Run time	Enter the fixed time when the task should run automatically. For the fixed time the daytime of the server is used.
Maximum archived log files	Enter the maximum number of log files to store. If this number exceeds, the oldest log file will be removed and the new one will be created.