Retrieving Data From Second Life

Second Life provides residents with easy, built-in tools to sell products. A content creator can simply select an object and mark it as “For Sale”. Once the seller sets a price, customers can purchase the item, or copies of the item, just by clicking it and selecting "Buy" from it’s menu. No special software or vendors are needed, which makes it ideal as a way to get started selling in Second Life.

However, while it’s very easy to sell your creations this way, it’s not easy to see what is being sold or who is buying them. There is very little in the way of notification, unless you happen to be online. Thankfully, you can easily track these sales using SL Commerce Manager.

To get started, you should log in to Second Life at https://secondlife.com, using your Second Life name and password. Navigate to your Dashboard, and click on the Account link.

Once that opens, choose Transaction History. When the window opens, choose an appropriate date range. Second Life remembers up to 30 days of transactions. After you’ve imported your data the first time, SL Commerce Manager remembers how much you’ve imported, so there’s no chance of duplicating your records. Because of this, you can always choose the maximum range of 30 days.

If you give away freebies, you can check the box for “Include L$0 transactions”. This will import transactions for free products.

Once you’re satisfied with your selections, click the "Download XML" button and save the file to your computer. Log into SL Commerce Manager.

Uploading the data to SL Commerce Manager

Once you have logged in, click on the Account tab at the top of the page. Once the Account page opens, choose Second Life from the Upload Data group.

On the data upload page, choose whether to include "Pay" events. Next, click the Browse button and locate the file that you previously downloaded. Once you’ve selected the file, click the Upload File button to begin the data import process.

Your file has now been uploaded and the data should appear in your reports.