When your account is activated your store will be assigned a unique STORE ID which can be anything but it is recommended to keep it short (ie 4-10 characters). A password is assigned which you can change later.

Here are the short instructions:

1) download and save MALLUPLD.EXE and SALES_UPLOAD.BAT files into the same folder (directory) that your sales report file is in (most likely the DOCUMENTS or MY DOCUMENTS folder). If your POS is on a server then these files may have to be located on the server. The rule is that these three files need to be in the same folder (directory) as the sales report file that you create everyday when you close.

2) create a shortcut for SALES_UPLOAD.BAT (do a right-click on the icon and choose CREATE SHORTCUT) and place it either on your desktop or next to your START button

3) generate your sales report (see below)

4) launch by double-clicking the SALES_UPLOAD.BAT icon or shortcut

5) repeat steps 2) and 3) everyday. Clever use of the Windows Scheduler can make this whole process automatic and done even in the middle of the night (assuming the computer is left on).

Note: some Windows (98, 2000, XP, etc.) may not show suffixes (ie .EXE and .BAT)

Here are instructions to help you generate the proper sales reports for the various POS systems we support:

AAIN 2007 and later | AAIN 2006 | AAIN 2005 and earlier | SOS | ComCash | MALLEASE FALCON | ANTEQ | THE MALLMASTER | Mall Sales Manager | MarketWare by DYMOND

If you are a software developer and would like your POS supported by Mall-Central.com, here are some guidelines.

What follows below are detail instruction on how to use the Store Page to add/delete dealers or change the report/site appearance and other configuration options.

As the Store Owner you have the "master" password and you have access to all Dealer Accounts. From this page you can add, edit, and delete accounts for your Dealers. A quick report of their sales is also available.

To ADD a dealer just type in a Dealer Number and click the "Get Info" which will then get the existing dealer info. If a dealer does not exist then a new record will be created. Make changes to the fields in this section and when done click on the "Add/Update Info" button.

To DELETE a dealer you must check the "Check to Delete Dealer" checkbox and click on the "Delete" button.

If you made changes to the fields but dont want to save the changes then click on the "Dont Save and Get Another" button.

Dealer Numbers: Dealer numbers are alphanumeric of any length and are CaSe SeNsItIvE.

Expiration Date: When you add an account you can assign an Expiration Date which can be extended when the Dealer renews their on-line service (see Maximum Web Images). The default term is one year. As of now this date is just for your reference and Mall-Central.com does not disable any services based on this date.

Password: New accounts can be added at any time. Enter a password twice to confirm and fill out the other fields as appropriate. Dealers can change their password at anytime but this will not limit your ability to access their accounts using your "master" password. Passwords are CaSe SeNsItIvE.

Secret Stuff: To help Dealers remember their password an automated password retrieval system is incorporated. When you set up the account the first time you don't have to set up the Dealer's Secret Question and Answer. This is best done by the Dealers under the Dealer Page.

Maximum Web Images: Here is where you control the maximum number of images a Dealer can display on the web under your Virtual Mall (if enabled). Each Dealer can be allowed, under your direction, to sell their wares on the web and the fee you charge should be proportional to the number of images you permit. All images are stored on the Dealer's server provided by the Dealer's ISP (most, if not all, ISP's give their customers some webspace). Some services such as Yahoo's Briefcase also works. This Virtual Mall is not active at this time.

The Dealer will be allowed to specify the URL of the full image, the URL of a thumbnail image, merchandise description, price, weight, approx shipping costs, and FOB location with your mall being an alternate ship from location if the customer can't come in to pick up the merchandise.

Customers who visit Mall-Central.com can search for items by description, price, and/or FOB location. Payments are made via credit cards or Pay Pal as you specify or you may make other arrangements with your customer at your own risk. All sales go thru your email address and, at your option, you retain a percentage of the sale.

WARNING: Decreasing the number of Maximum Web Images may unintentionally remove images from your Virtual Mall without warning and may upset one or more of your Dealers. Restoring the number back to it's original value will allow that Dealer to re-enter the items. Increasing the number has no adverse affect. Again, this Virtual Mall is not available at this time.

WARNING: This can cause serious damage to your file setup if you do anything wrong. If you upload the wrong files you will adversely affect your setup. If this should happen you can easily restore the Recent Sales Data File and the HEADER.HTM file and you can do it quickly if you have copies available. The big problem is if you should upload an outdated PASSWORD.TXT file. The reason this is a problem is because your dealers have the ability to maintain their own account information and you probably don't have a backup copy. If you upload an old PASSWORD.TXT file you will probably receive a bunch of phone calls from your dealers asking why they cant log-on. If you upload the wrong file your system will become disabled until a reasonable PASSWORD.TXT file is restored. We do backup the password file everyday and keep a weeks worth of backups. We do this to gaurd against unintentional boo-boos like this. If you suspect anything wrong with your dealer accounts please call us immediately before a weeks worth of backups are replaced by a corrupted password file.

The UPLOAD FILES utility is helpful for those new stores just coming on-line and have not set-up their computer or servers to automatically upload their Sales File. Believe it or not, I have timed a 1.2 MB file uploading using MALLUPLD.EXE (see below) at about 2 minutes at 56K. Uploading via this page takes about 5 times longer or about 10 minutes.

Uploading the Sales File via WWW can take a long time if you are on a dial-up connection and if the file is big. The file should not be larger than 1.5MB. If you try to upload a large file and you mistyped the vcheck info (your "master" password) or you selected the wrong file (ie a really BIG file) you will not know about it until the file has been uploaded (if it is a really small file you wont have to wait very long). If there was any kind of error reported it means that the Recent Sales file on the web server was unchanged and the only damage was the time that it took.

VCHECK: type your "master" password here. This is used to double check your intentions.

Uploading the PASSWORD.TXT File is a quick and dirty way of doing the initial setup if you have a fast way of creating the file with the proper format. After the initial upload there should be no reason to ever do this again. Password files are usually smaller than 100K bytes.

The name of your password file can be anything and should be of the proper format. To begin with it needs to be a text (ASCII) file. Next it needs to contain a record (line) for each crafter (dealer) as follows:

1025 ^t 3863 ^t  ^t  ^t  ^t  ^t 04/08/2003 ^t  ^t  6 (LF)

This is the minimum. Shown above is the dealer number followed by a tab (^t) followed by the dealer's password and then 5 tabs. The expiration date, two tabs followed by the number 6 (for 6 web images) and end with a line feed ($0A). Some text editors dont do a good job of creating a pure text file so your uploaded file will undergo some filtering during the upload process to assure a correct format.

Uploading the HEADER.HTM File is useful if you want to change the look of your site or you want to change a message for your dealers to read. This would be a good place to provide a link to an on-line newsletter. Typical HEADER.HTM files will be 5K bytes. References to graphics should be pointed to another server.

Store information is established when you open an account and cannot be changed except by written request by the Store Owner. However, you can change your public email address and other parameters as follows:

Email Addresses: there are two. The first one is the email address which you gave when you opened the account and cannot be changed by you except in writing. The second one, "Public Email", is the email address displayed as a means for your dealers to contact you electronically. This is very convenient. However, if you decide in favor of ultimate privacy (not recommended) you can leave this field blank. If you desire, and for a nominal charge of $2/month, Mall-Central.com can set up a private email POP account for the purpose of keeping your personal email address confidential.

Account Sponsor: for internal use only.

Your Account Expires: on this date. Would be a good idea to send in your payment for this service before this date.

Max. Number of _________: this is the maximum number of crafters/dealers/vendors you are allowed to sign up according to your plan subscription.

Max. Number of items/mo.: this is the maximum number of items or transactions you are allowed to upload during each month. If you try to upload too many items, Mall-Central.com will ignore the excess transactions without warning and your dealers may wonder why their sales seem to have tappered off near the end of the month. Best solution is to pick a plan that is matched to your store. Don't hesitate to contact us immediately if you need your account urgently upgraded. We will be happy to work with you and resolve any urgent needs such as this.

Change Password to: You can change your "master" password anytime.

Confirm it: type the new password again. If this doesn't match the new password above it wont be changed.

Secret Question enter your secret question here. It will be used to help you remember in case you forget your password. Example: mother's maiden name.

Secret Answer type in the correct answer to your secret question here. If you give the right answer when asked, the system will reveal your password.

Upload Filename and Directory: This is the tricky part and it has to do with setting up the auto upload feature so your point-of-sale system can upload everynight automatically and unattended (or manually). To maintain security a special directory for your store has been created on our FTP server as specified here. Although you cannot change the name of the directory on our FTP server, you can change the name of the file you upload, which may become necessary from time to time as your POS system changes. The filename you specify here must match exactly the filename you upload using MALLUPLD.EXE on your server. MALLUPLD.EXE can be downloaded here. It might require a little experimentation to get this right and we will help you with that.

Upload File Type: Mall-Central.com can handle any file structure for your Sales File. However, you need to specify which file structure you will be uploading. If what you select and what you upload doesn't match you will get unpredictable results and reactions from your Dealers as they try to decipher their sales. You wont be a happy camper. So please contact us and we will write a custom script for your data files, if needed, for a nominal charge.

Upload Directory you can not change this but you need to know it so you can set up MALLUPLD.EXE correctly.

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Pre-configured files are available here for you to download and use with your POS. You wont need these for some POS systems if they (SOS and Falcon) have the Mall-Central.com upload routine integrated into them. For all other POS systems, click on these links and save one at a time. Save these files in the same directory that your POS software will save it's Sales Report file. If you wish, you can create a shortcut of SALES_UPLOAD.BAT and place it anywhere convenient on your computer. To help troubleshoot your upload process the contents of your Upload Directory is shown here and can be Refreshed at any time. MCTEST.BAT is a test file that uploads MALLUPLD.EXE to your Upload Directory. The reason to try this for troubleshooting (by double-clicking it's icon) is because the only files needed to make this test work is MCTEST.BAT and MALLUPLD.EXE and does not need your Sales File from your POS system and therefore can be used from ANY computer. If you see MALLUPLD.EXE in your upload directory then you must have done it and it works! You can run MCTEST.BAT multiple times and each time you do you should see the datestamp for MALLUPLD.EXE change and it's filesize increase by 159.44K each time confirming that your upload process works. If it doesn't work here are things you can look at: 1) Mall-Central.com is having problems. Please call. 2) Your ISP is having problems. Test on another computer at another location. 3) The Internet is having a problem. Test on another computer at a location much further away. 4) Your computer is having a problem because: a) you have installed new software b) turned on or off a feature of some other software c) you have a new version of some other software d) the other software is most likely a virus checker such as Norton e) you may have changed settings in you firewall The order of most likely causes is 1 (yes, we are not perfect) or 4 (yes, neither are you ;) However, the Internet is not as reliable as they say so it is not uncommon for 2 and 3.

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The following is for those that need or want to make changes to the pre-configured .BAT files provided.

Hint: Filename in the Store Configuration Form is to be just the filename without any pathnames (ie. RECENT.DBF or TRAN.DBF and not, for example, C:\SHARED\POS\RECENT.DBF). From our experience, it is best to put MALLUPLD.EXE, the batch file associated with it, and the sales file to be uploaded, all in the same directory.

BUG: There is a bug with MALLUPLD.EXE. If the file to upload is on A: drive (highly unlikely) then the A: designation becomes part of the uploaded filename which is not desireable. The C: designation does the same thing. To insure that this is not a problem, be sure to follow the drive specifier with the backslash (\) symbol. In otherwords, use C:\filename or A:\filename in the filename parameter of MALLUPLD.EXE. If all files are in the same directory as recommended above then the drive specifier is unnecessary.

The upload command should be saved in a batch file and then you can use Windows Task Scheduler to run the batch file. First, use NOTEPAD and enter the following line and watch upper/lower case and spaces:

Replace directory and filename with the appropriate information from your configuration.
Do not put a space between the word username and mallowner and don't put a space between password and 3ddu711.
Note: everything is case sensitive, especially filenames and directories.

Save this batch file in the same directory as the Sales File and MALLUPLD.EXE and you need to know where you saved it so you can tell Windows Task Scheduler where it is. Save it using any file name that ends with .BAT (ie you might want to use SALES_UPLOAD.BAT). Next, launch the Windows Task Scheduler and set it up to run this batch file once per day and whenever you want. Make sure you set it up to go when the computer is on and can connect to the Internet. Make sure a modem and cable are hooked up. It will work. Trust me. BUG REPORTS

How It Works: The username "mallowner", the password "3ddu711", and the domain name "mall-central.com" specify the FTP server. DO NOT CHANGE THE USERNAME AND PASSWORD. ENTER THEM EXACTLY AS SHOWN HERE. The directory specifies a unique directory which only you know and which is shown on the Store Page. This directory name needs to match the Upload Directory name shown in your Store Info area of the Store Page and this name is established by Mall-Central.com when a store account is opened. The filename is the drive, path, and file name of the data file located on your hard drive or server. The remaining items, namely, -v, -z, -S .tmp, are parameters that must be typed as shown and specify how MALLUPLD.EXE needs to handle the upload protocol. MALLUPLD.EXE is a standalone application, it does not have to be "installed", it is a single file that supposedly can be located anywhere on your hard disk. The important thing is to type in the command line exactly as shown and to follow the prescribe convention for the filename (see BUG above). I have written another set of instructions to help you test and debug your upload routine.

BTW, Windows Task Scheduler can be found by opening the My Computer icon on a PC. I haven't found an equivalent for Macs or Unix (except for the UNIX command cron which exists on Macs, too).

Title: This field provides a unique description of your Store which will appear througout Mall-Central.com.

Background GIF/JPEG URL: if you know HTML you'll know what to put here. If you dont know HTML, it aint hard to figure out what you need to put here. Type in the URL of the image file you would like to use for the background of each page. For example: http://www.domain.com/images/dots.gif.

Background Color: Most browsers understand the words of color (ie RED, YELLOW, GREEN, etc.). All browsers understand the RRGGBB hex (0-9A-F) designation which goes from 000000 (black) to FFFFFF (white). Have fun experimenting if you dont know what this means.

Message: you can type in whatever you like as a message for your crafters/dealers/vendors to see each time they log on.

Logo URL: yes, you can customize each page with your pretty logo by typing it's URL here.

Login Error Msg: more customization. Some stores did not like my generic error message and wanted to have their own. Perhaps with instructions to contact a certain person at the store if there is difficulty logging on.

Do you call them: select the terminology you wish to use to refer to your Dealers.

Your Store's Time Zone selecting the time Zone where your store is located is used to help customize the presentation of data and for other future uses.

There will be other ways to customize Mall-Central.com for your store and when those options become available you will be able to configure them here.

BUG REPORTS

As the file to be uploaded gets larger everyday, more time is required to do the upload. A rule of thumb is 1 min per megabyte. However, this rule of thumb depends on a lot of variable factors. Also, some connection modem idle monitors are not reliable and will recognize an FTP upload as an idle condition. Therefore, you may need to set your "disconnect" option either to never or to some period of time gauranteed to be greater than what is actually needed. For example, one store used to have the time set for 3 minutes. Then, half way thru December, the upload failed as the modem would disconnect because more time was needed to finish the transfer. The "disconnect" property was changed to 7 minutes and now works year round. The "disconnect" option (or property) is found in the Modem Control Panel (I think).

MALLUPLD.EXE seems to work with Windows XP. If you cannot determine the proper pathnames then consider putting the batch file (ie AUTOUPLD.BAT), MALLUPLD.EXE, and the file to be uploaded in the same directory. For the filename just use the filename without any C: , backslaches , or any other path syntax - just the filename. This technique is useful with ComCash POS.