Retrieving Hippo hippoVEND Data

You can download data from the Hippo web site to augment the data that you automatically collect from your hippoVEND servers. Normally, you shouldn't have to do this, since Hippo supports the Automated Notification System. However, perhaps you want to upload data from before your SL Commerce Manager account was created, and the upload feature allows you to do this.

Note: One factor you must be aware of is that the data you download from the Hippo web site does not include a transaction ID, so we have no way of verifying whether a transaction you download may already be loaded in SL Commerce Manager. This may result in duplicate data, which you can clear up by manually deleting the duplicated transactions from the Browse Transactions view.

To begin your download, please perform the following steps:

Log in to the Hippo web site at http://www.hippo-tech-sl.com/secure/. You must have an account with access to hippoVEND data.
First, you must ensure that your date formats are set to be compatible with SL Commerce Manager. Click on "hippoVEND" and when that page opens, click on the "My Account" button in the left portion of the screen.
On the My Account Settings page, click the "Date and Time" tab.
From the "Date Format in CSV Exports" drop-down menu, choose the option that looks like "2008-07-31", or year-month-date format.
Press "Save Changes". Since your settings will be saved for future visits, you only have to do this process once unless you chnage your settings again in the future.
Next, go to the hippoVEND area, and click on "Sales Log".
In the menu at the right, click on "No Grouping". This will present a plain grid view.
It may be helpful to sort the grid by date, in order to just select the dates you wish. Click on the Sale Date column header to perform a ascending sort.
Once you've sorted your grid, click on "Export to CSV" in the right menu. This will open the data in your browser as text.
Your next steps vary depending on what operating system and browser you use. Basically, you need a text file for uploading to SL Commerce Manager. From your browser, you probably have a command on the File menu called "Save As..." (Internet Explorer) or "Save Page As..." (Firefox). Choose this command, and then choose to save the file as Text.
Choose a location on your hard drive and a file name, and then save the file.
If you wish, use a text editor like Notepad (Windows) to edit the file, removing any data that you don't wish to upload. Save the file.
Using your web browser, log in to the SL Commerce Manager web site, and navigate to the Hippo Upload area.
Click the "Browse..." button and locate the file.
Click the "Upload" button to send the file to the server for processing. Wait while the file processing takes place. Do not navigate to another page until the file has been processed.