Customer tracking problem

Report · Apr 13, 2012

Hi guys,

I am doing a Yoga Studio Website. For the most part it is going pretty straight forward, but the issue is they need a customer tracking feature built in that they can just scan a clients card and it records that they were there and and reduces their number of pre purchased classes.

I can do this very easily with PHP/MySQL. However I see no way to do this with Business Catalyst.

So is there a way that I can pull the customer contact data from the BC site into an external php site that I will have to build for them to track their client visits?

Having to enter client info twice into two different systems is not a good option in this case.

Any ideas?

Report · Apr 13, 2012

Hey BRad.

Use the BC data but API.

make a custom field which is their pre-purchase classes. They can pay and make request for them on the site and admin can update the field there.

API wise you external system pics up the scanning links directly to you middle layer (PHP) which processes and updates BC for them.

The Data needs a unique identifier so their email or I'd so you can look for them on the BC site and then update the data.

Or it could be done manually in the CRM when ever that happens.

Report · Apr 13, 2012

Thanks Liam,

I was hoping there was a way using the API, but I can't seem to find where to even start looking into how to do it. There is no 'good' documentation on this that I can find. Do you know of any?

Report · Apr 13, 2012

http://kb.worldsecuresystems.com/635/bc_635.html

The links on there link to the more detail API stuff.
It is SOAP.

Report · Apr 13, 2012

Yeah saw that. Not clue where to start. Guess I need onto come up with another solution or not use business catalyst. What I need to do is so easy. Kinda disappointed that it can't be done in bc. Oh well.

Report · Apr 14, 2012

Alright, had a chance to get some sleep and give my BC frustrations a rest. Decided that sooner or later I have to learn the API if I Wanna become a serious player in the business catalyst world. This project might be worth taking a bit of a loss to learn or at least start learning this stuff.

For others in the same situation as me I have found that the Bc Gurus Pro site has a whole section dedicated to the API. Guess where I will be spending my Saturday! 😉