Getting Started with Miva Merchant
Document revision 1.01

Using This Document
It is recommended that you print out this document and use it as a guide when developing your first store. Specific feature information is available by clicking on the blue '?' help symbol situated by certain product features.

Overview
Miva Merchant has an administrative interface that you access with your browser to configure storefronts and process orders, and a runtime module which handles the presentation of products and the order taking process. Optionally, advanced users and third party vendors can build modules in Miva Script which add additional functionality to the system. You must have access to the Miva Engine in order to run the Miva Merchant system. You can get a personal version of the Miva Engine free from Miva Corp., access the engine free from participating web hosting services, or purchase a license directly from Miva Corp. Since most Miva Merchant customers use the services of a web hosting service and get free Miva Engine access, this document focuses on hosted and personal implementations of the system.

Installing Miva Merchant
Installation is done by copying the Miva Merchant script files into your Miva script directory and then running the setup.mv script. Windows users should make sure that the latest Miva Mia is already installed. If you have used the Windows installer, then the files have already been copied for you and you can run the installer using a URL similiar to:

http://127.0.0.1/merchant/setup.mv

If you are using Miva Empresa, the Unix or NT version of the Miva Engine, with a hosting service, then they may have already copied the files for you and you can run the installer using a URL similar to:

http://replacemewithyourdomain.com/merchant/setup.mv

The installer will ask you for licensing information and will setup your data files. At the end of the installation process the installer will show you the URL's to further access Miva Merchant.

When you first installed Miva Merchant, you were be prompted for a login and password. This first login is the Mall Administrator and is the Miva Merchant user who is allowed to grant access to other Mall Administrators, add users, install Modules, and create Storefronts. A regular user, also known as a Store Manager, is only allowed to manage the stores in the system. Miva Merchant Storefronts consist of product catalogs and related information pertaining to how orders are processed in a particular store.

The Administration System Interface
There are two sections to the administrative interface -- a dynamic hierarchal menu and a data entry area. You can expand or collapse the hierarchal menu for a particular item by clicking on the arrow directly to the left of the menu item. If an item has no subordinate items, then a dot instead of an arrow is displayed. At startup, the menu will display the top three levels of menu options:

• Mall
  
• Stores
  

Building Your Storefront
At this point you should click on the arrow next to the Stores choice to further reveal subordinate choices. For the purposes of quickly getting started and building a store right away, you'll only need to be concerned with the top level 'Stores' option and its subordinate items. As you build your store, you'll find that new subordinate items are automatically added to the menu hierarchy and that the hierarchy is automatically refreshed.

Note: 
In general, collapsing items in the menu when not in use is always a good idea. It would be possible to leave the menu fully expanded all of the time, but this would mean more content in the menu area for the system to refresh and more content for you to scroll through.

To accommodate nested sub-items in the menu, you can re-size the menu area in horizontal proportion to the data entry area by grabbing the border between the two and dragging left or right.

1. Entering General Store Information
   To create a store, click on the arrow by the word 'Stores' to reveal the 'Add Store' choice. When you select "Add Store" you'll see a series of fields in the data entry area that prompt for basic store information. After you have filled in these fields and submitted the form, you'll see the store added into the menu hierarchy and you'll be automatically placed into the "Edit Store" mode. If the "User Interface" module that you selected requires additional information (as is usually the case) then the fields are added to the bottom of the Edit Store screen.

2. Adding Product Categories.
   With Miva Merchant, categories can contain products or additional sub-categories. Click on the name of your store in the menu hierarchy to reveal the categories menu choice, and then click on the arrow next to the 'Categories' choice to reveal the 'Add Category' choice. Click 'Add Category' and fill in the fields that appear in the data entry area.

3. Adding Products
   There are two ways in which you can use the admin interface to add products to your new store: adding all products first and then associating those products with categories that you've created, or adding products to one specific category at a time.

   Adding Products First - Click on the arrow next to the 'Products' choice under your store name to reveal the 'Add Product' choice. When you select this choice you'll see fields in the data entry area for basic product information. Once you have created a product, it will be added to the menu hierarchy and additional choices for product attributes will be available for the product. Using this method, Miva Merchant will place all new products in a special product list called "Uncategorized Products." This is useful for adding products to your store when a category for the products hasn't been decided or defined. Later, a product that has been created in the "Uncategorized Products" list can be associated with one or several different categories. Once a product is associated with at least one category, it is immediately removed from the "Uncategorized Products" list.

   Adding Products to Categories - Click on the arrow next to a product category that you've created to reveal the 'Add Sub-Category,' 'Add Existing Product(s),' and 'Add New Product' sub-options.

   To add new products directly into the category that you've selected, the 'Add New Product' option and fill in the product information fields that appear in the data entry area. Once you've entered all the required information about a product and submitted it, the form re-appears in the data entry area for you to use in adding another product to that category.

   Click 'Add Existing Product(s)' to add a product to the category from the "Uncategorized Products" list or to associate a product that has already been created in- or associated with- another category.

   At this point, you can also bring up the Storefront interface in a separate browser window to actually see your store unfold as you build it. To do this, use the same URL in use for displaying your admin interface, but substitute 'merchant.mv' for 'admin.mv' at the end of the URL.

4. Associating Attributes With Products
   Miva Merchant allows you to associate a variety of attributes with a particular product. Attributes can be a selection from a radio button, check box, select list. A product attribute can also be data entered to a text entry field.

   All attributes are associated with a prompt, and radio buttons and check boxes can have additional pricing information. Pricing information for attributes can be negative or positive numbers so that attributes can either subtract or add to the base price of a product. To add additional attribute information to a product, click on the arrow next to the product to reveal the 'Add Attribute' choice. When you select this choice, you'll be presented with fields in the data entry area. Radio buttons and select lists will present you with fields for additional information after they have been added.

5. Upselling
   The Upsale system in Miva Merchant allows you to make a special offer, for a single product, to a shopper at the time of checkout. You can maintain a list of products, each of which will be offered for sale to the customer at a special price under a certain set of conditions. The upsell products are offered in sequence to each successive shopper when certain thresholds are met.

Modules
Miva Merchant can be extended by installing snap-in enhancement modules. Once installed by the Mall Administrator, the modules are available to Store Managers as part of the menu hierarchy. In the 1.0 release, the following modules are automatically installed:

Module Name	Module Type
Miva Merchant Look And Feel	User Interface
KoolCat Look And Feel	User Interface
US Currency Formatting	Currency
Standard Batch Reporting	Order Reporting
State Based Sales Tax	Tax
Shopper Selected Sales Tax	Tax
Flat Rate Shipping	Shipping
Base + Weight Shipping	Shipping
Minimum or Weight Shipping	Shipping
UPS OnLine Shipping Calculations	Shipping
Credit Card Payment With Simple Validation	Payment
Simple Check Payment	Payment
CyberSource Payment Service	Payment
AuthorizeNet Payment Service	Payment
Anacom Payment Service	Payment
KoolCat Import	Import
Flat File Product Import	Import
Flat File Order Export	Export
Email Merchant Notification	Fulfillment

Developers and third party software suppliers that are interested in creating their own modules should request the free document "Creating Miva Merchant Modules" from Miva Corp. by sending email to modules@miva.com with contact information and a description of the module's proposed functionality.

Special Info for KoolCat Users
Miva Merchant can be used to completely replace an existing KoolCat site. Use the 'Import KoolCat Data' facility from the 'Utilities' menu to convert existing KoolCat files to Miva Merchant database files. Since Miva Merchant uses a module approach for many of it's features, you'll have to select which Tax, Currency, and User Interface modules you want to associate with your KoolCat catalog. You'll notice that one of the User Interface choices is KoolCat Look and Feel, which when selected, completely emulates the KoolCat shopping interface. Before proceeding with a conversion from KoolCat to Miva Merchant you should process all outstanding orders and backup your data.