Automatic Notification System (ANS) Launches for Direct Delivery

[CommerceTeam Linden]

Today, Linden Lab launched Automatic Notification System (ANS). ANS allows those Merchants that used Xstreet with the Magic Box Delivery System to confirm that a delivery has completed and send order details in a consistent format to a specified URL.

In order to support ANS with Direct Delivery purchases, we have made ANS available in Merchant Admin under Store setup on the Marketplace web site. Note that the Marketplace version will only support sending data URLs; it will NOT support sending data to inworld objects. For more details on how this system will work, please see this user created content on the wiki.

Before we can retire Magic Boxes, we will need to complete support for limited quantity items (or items that are “no copy” for the merchant).

The Commerce Team

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Nice. Thanks!

[Niall Braveheart]

Great news, I know many merchants have been waiting for this before starting  to move to DD.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to document this so clearly Darrius.

[Etienne Brando]

Thanks so much for this explanation of the approach for supporting ANS. The user created document on the WIKI is also very helpful. The treatment of the "Region" and the "VerifyKey" is a little disjointed. These should also be included comments in the section titled "Basic ANS Transaction Record" since they are also included with each notification.

In any case thanks again  to the Commerce team. Those of us who need ANS will probably need to support duplicate ANS messages until all products are migrated to the Direct Delivery method.   

[Etienne Brando]

The Knowledgebase article title "Selling in the Marketplace" needs to be updated to include information about how a merchant can use the Automated Notification service.

[Ann Otoole]

---

CommerceTeam Linden wrote:

...

 

Before we can retire Magic Boxes, we will need to complete support for limited quantity items (or items that are “no copy” for the merchant).

 

The Commerce Team

---

Will this be done and tested by June 1st?

[Argus Collingwood]

---

CommerceTeam Linden wrote:

 

Before we can retire Magic Boxes, we will need to complete support for limited quantity items (or items that are “no copy” for the merchant).

 

The Commerce Team

---

What about getting the database sorted out too. That is a must before we upload the rest of our items to DD.

[Kampu Oyen]

>Will this be done and tested by June 1st?

Legally, I don't see how they can risk not doing it at this point, since we've already publicly explained what it would imply that they are trying to accomplish by not doing it.

[Darrius Gothly]

Sadly the ANS for Direct Delivery has a Severe bug and IS NOT SAFE TO USE YET!! The ANS Transaction being sent via the Marketplace service is duplicating the Item ID# (the numeric part of the Product's listing page) into the Location field. The Location Field is supposed to have the Order Line Item ID number instead, showing which line item in an Order correlates to the ANS Transaction. As long as that field contains the wrong data, you CANNOT track an ANS transaction back to the specific line item in an Order.

Please watch and vote for this issue on the JIRA:

ANS/SLM duplicates ItemID field into Location Field but should put Order Line Item ID# in Location

[Blitz Rage]

DD works really well. I am impressed. However I did like seeing in local chat when a delivery was made or when an item was bought. Thanks for the hard work!!

[Lluis Indigo]

yes !  I miss the messages whn I sell something ...in the other hand XDD now not disturb me the chat when I sell freebies  

[Van Loopen]

A simple question to all: what was wrong with the system of magic box? notifications on delivery appeared earlier and were containedin sales ledger. It seems to me that is the latest attempt to force the migration to the new viewer saw which bears only compatible with this new system ANS and Direct Delivery.

Why to mess your life?

[Dark Larkspur]

Van - The Magic Box Delivery will fail if the Region it is rezzed in has to re-start or has crashed; a Merchant always has to fix the delivery problem for the Customer. Also if the Magic Box is in a laggy Region or has crashed it's own scripts; there is more work for the Merchant and stress for the Customer. I only have a small store, so I have not used ANS, and I only needed to be on the "New Viewer" just long enough to migrate my products; I still play on my favorite viewer; no problem, still not forced to 'Live' with the 'New Viewer'. As to instant messages on sales; I am not positive if those messages counted toward you having your messages capped; in any case, a Merchant who has a lot of Product selling and prefers to log in to that Avatar Account; gets way too much notification, while it is fun to see for some of us who have small slow sales... ☻

[Dark Larkspur]

Sly - I only have a small store of a bout 25-30 items and I have migrated all of them over to DD. Only my Amaretto Bundles and Blooming Butterflys can not be moved yet. I only had to run Firestorm long enough to stick all the stuff in the 'Working Folder' and push the button...! took me a couple hours cursing the new code viewer, but you have to have V2 code to make it work, this is true, and Phoenix will not be able to implement it... but as soon as you are done with the 'Upload' you can switch right back to your favorite viewer.... If you want to go on voice inworld and have me walk you through the Migration Process that worked for me; leave Dark Larkspur a message ☻

[Su Xue]

Very difficult indeed. difficult to understand. (For non-English speakers.)

Automatic Notifications (ANS)
For more information on ANS, please see the Knowledge Base.

Notification URL:

Save

What is this? Direct Delivery and Automatic Notification System = I have read but I don't understand. What should I do? Perhaps an instructional Video ?

My merchant Outbox still does not work. I tried everything. The little circle just keeps turning and turning.
I sent the product before. I tried all the suggestions. the result is still the same :
the merchant outbox initializing all the time and it ended up putting the error message,
" Marketplace initialization failed
Initialization with the Marketplace failed because of a system or network eror. Try again later."

My computer :
İşlemci : Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHZ 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHZ FSB
Anakart : Intel G41 Chipset Anakart
Bellek : 4 GB 1333 MHZ DDR3 Bellek
Sabit Disk : 640 GB Sata Harddisk
Optik Okuyucu : DVD RW Dual Layer
Ekran Kartı : 1GB ATI HD 4730 Ekran Kartı (512MB Ayrılmış Bellek)
Klavye : Casper Klavye, Optik Mouse
Kart Okuyucu : 20-IN-1 Kart Okuyucu
İşletim Sistemi : Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit)
Monitör : 19" Wide Screen Lcd Monitör
ESET Nod32 Antivirus, Antispam, Firewall+Casper Webcam + Casper

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Van Loopen wrote:

A simple

 

question to all

:

 

what was wrong

 

with the system

 

of

 

magic box

?

 

notifications

 

on

 

delivery

 

appeared

 

earlier

 

and were

 

contained

in

 

sales ledger

.

 

It seems to me

 

that is

 

the latest attempt to

 

force the

migration

 

to the new

 

viewer

 

saw

 

which bears

 

only

 

compatible

 

with this

 

new system

 

ANS

 

and

 

Direct

 

Delivery.

Why

 

to mess

 

your life

?

---

I agree with this 100%!  In fact, unless I purchase a new PC which I cannot financially afford to do atm, I won't even be able to USE DD.

While some people are not having any issues with the new DD and are saying that they did with MB, in almost five years I have had absolutely no issues with MB.  I used to keep a box in my store and one in my home in case there was a region issue, but now I just have the one box in my store and, thus far (for the last 9 months or so) have still had no issue.

Personally, and I know I'll likely be flamed for saying this, but I am 100% AGAINST DD.

[Dark Larkspur]

Su - If you used a Magic Box for your store before and did not need to use ANS, you will most likely not need it now. As I understand ANS, it is a way to send your Store Sales Records to an 'Outside Database' and / or helping to link your SL Store with other WEB Based Activities. 

Your Computer STATS look fine. When I first started SL; if something did not work, we switched Viewers to see if it worked in another... It often did ....

If the Merchant Outbox Window is not properly connecting to the Marketplace Servers; That will have to be the first thing to 'resolve' before any 'meaningful work' can be done.... Often trying in a 'Lag-Free' Region can help...

In case anyone has not found these videos yet; let me see if I can paste in the links ;-} 

 

•  (YouTube Video)
•  (YouTube Video)

 

[Dark Larkspur]

I empathize with the issue of people with PCs that just can not manage to run the 'Newer (what are they calling them, Viewer 3 Code) Viewers, required to operate the 'Merchant Outbox' Folder.

It may sound less than desireable; but you only need a certain amount of time on a capable machine with the proper viewer installed; log in; move items, upload, log off, thank you. All the rest of the 'work' is not dependant on that PC / Viewer now. I am saying; as a last resort; can you borrow time on a friends computer just long enough to do the 'uploading'. One time the IT Guy from where I work downloaded and installed something for me on his laptop because it was better than my PC ;-0

I Loved my Magic Box; I had it on multiple Regions too; lately with it only in 1 Region I have still had no problem; almost never had any failed deliveries. 

I feel for the Merchants who have to Migrate 100's or even 1000's of Products, it's a good deal of work even on the Products I didn't change, but we have to endure change for the hope of improvement ;-}

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Wondering exactly at what point in the chain that the notification is sent. A chart might be nice here explaining the transaction flow. Not because people who know how to code can't use ANS easily, but generally wth a tool like this you explain the flow.

Are there factors after this that may invalidate the transaction (failed delivery, refund, etc.) and if so is ANS capable of sending these adjustments?

The verbiage on your wiki article is horrid.  In so many words the vibe is that you grudgingly supported and actually tweaked ANS during its life cycle. You didn't want to do it, you don't like it, you refuse to implement the full functionality it had before, as with other features. It reeks of you coding for yourselves and not your customers and that when you do, you hate it.

Also the brief bit of history is wrong on the wiki. It wasn't SL Exchange when you acquired it, it was already called XStreet for some months unless the deal was made many months before you announced it.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Ah, I see the original post had changed to explain user generated docs on that page. Basically blame Darrius for that, so be it. Tapping Darrius on the shoulder on that bit.

Still tapping on yours commerce team about the flow, where the transaction happens and whether it's after any other possible points of failure in the transaction/delivery chain, or before or in the middle.

[purreta Mint]

thanks for the explanation, we'll see how it works in future

[Darrius Gothly]

*startles awake* ... huh what? Oh howdy Dart.

Yeah, I got the history wrong. I'll "adjust" that part.

The flow of data is that after the product is delivered and the payments have all been made to their respective parties (commission paid, split proceeds paid, merchant paid) the ANS transaction is fired off to the outside processor. It is guaranteed to be irreversible at that point, so there is no "Batch Posting" or "Settlement" process needed to handle any back charges.

If the Merchant subsequently decides to issue a refund for whatever reason though, that transaction is outside the purview of SLM anyway, so that's not a change in the transaction as far as ANS is concerned either.

BTW: I thought that LL "bought in" to SL Exchange and then because of their ownership position "motivated" them to change the name. At least that was the scuttlebutt I remember hearing. That's probably why I got the name thing wrong. But you were a lot more involved in the comings and goings on the business side of things, so I'll take your word and fix it up. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Thanks, bud. No slur intended ... silly me thinking these were official docs, so context and tone had something to do with it as a company statement.

Great to hear about it being more or less a post-processed reporting if that's the case.

The only downside is that I was under the impression that ANS would have, if not at the least a delivery confirmation receipt that it would happen after it had received a delivery confirmation event.

Meaning that all payments are made, there's no adjusting left, any errors would be caught before the ANS notification, and that only after the item is verified as received by the customer would the ANS event complete.

Still a tad flawed if it doesn't include delivery confirmation. The assumption is that DD is "there" and that delivery is dependable at this point.

Still wondering on this point about the stability of DD, but time will tell. If the last bit to work in DD is no copy items, it tells me that it's not solid enough to depend on for "one off" objects that could be lost forever should there still be delivery failure on no copy objects. I suppose that's a smart move, although I haven't heard the "why" no copy items are being held back.

[Czari Zenovka]

---

Dark Larkspur wrote:

I empathize with the issue of people with PCs that just can not manage to run the 'Newer (what are they calling them, Viewer 3 Code) Viewers, required to operate the 'Merchant Outbox' Folder.

It may sound less than desireable; but you only need a certain amount of time on a capable machine with the proper viewer installed; log in; move items, upload, log off, thank you. All the rest of the 'work' is not dependant on that PC / Viewer now. I am saying; as a last resort; can you borrow time on a friends computer just long enough to do the 'uploading'. One time the IT Guy from where I work downloaded and installed something for me on his laptop because it was better than my PC ;-0

I Loved my Magic Box; I had it on multiple Regions too; lately with it only in 1 Region I have still had no problem; almost never had any failed deliveries. 

I feel for the Merchants who have to Migrate 100's or even 1000's of Products, it's a good deal of work even on the Products I didn't change, but we have to endure change for the hope of improvement ;-}

---

Hi Dark,  thank you for your post.  I, too, am a relatively small merchant.

It does make me feel a bit better to know that I only need to use the newer viewers for listing products. I was made aware of this when DD first rolled out so I've been thinking of possible options.  I could conceiveably use a family member's PC, but haven't broached that to him yet.

One thing I've been wondering - let's say I list my products on a PC not in my home.  So, I couldn't *see* my products in Merchant Outbox back on my home computer (although a Merchant Outbox has mysteriously appeared recently in my Phoenix viewer), thus would I have to go back to the family member's home to make any changes to the product, even something as minor as re-doing the included notecards/instructions?  I'm assuming I would.

The other question I have is - once I have the items uploaded into DD on another computer, does that affect any changes I might make to my MP store, such as uploading images, changing the item description, etc.?

Using another PC may be the only option available to me, at least temporarily, but I still have this feeling of not being able to "control" my listed inventory when the PC isn't in my home.  Although I'm not convinced that the DD system is "better" at this point,  I do understand changes are inevitable.  I don't have to like it, though. *grins*

Ah well...in the current state of the MP, DD may be delayed beyond June 1...or not...nothing would surprise me at this point.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Thanks, bud. No slur intended ... silly me thinking these were official docs, so context and tone had something to do with it as a company statement.

---

No worries, I didn't take anything negative from your comment. I've been carefully (and relentlessly) guiding ANS to proper completion because it really is one of the more trustworthy (as far as "is this data true or not") functions that has survived over the many iterations of the various SL virtual goods sales sites. The folks that wrote SL Exchange really "got it" when it comes to handling money, but the SLM sort of treats money transactions as an afterthought.

I've also been watching how the ANS transactions arrive, paying particular attention to their arrival at my ANS Processor versus when the product is actually sent by the Magic Box. I then did some playing with ANS/SLM early this morning when I saw it was enabled, and determined that the ANS Transaction is indeed showing up after the money has shown up in my SL Transaction history. (I quickly shut off ANS/SLM after discovering the bug though as this would have created some NASTY duplicate records in my database .. I often test by "buying" a bunch of the same item in the same order.

I actually discovered it with a single item order though. I had both ANS/XSL and ANS/SLM enabled, and both detect duplicate ANS transactions by using the Order ID and Location as a two-column unique key. On duplicate key, it only updates the price and recipient info. But since the ANS/SLM record came in with the wrong value in the Location field, it did NOT detect the ANS/XSL transaction (which arrived after the ANS/SLM transaction) as a duplicate; it created a whole brand new sales record for it. BOOOO! BAD BAD!

They are now talking about doing something complicated and strange, like turning the field into a string and concatenating the values together.. etc. etc. Again they're way over-thinking it. Heck, they could even just generate a 1-10 number .. a unique number for each line in the order, and that would work. There's no need to get all crazy with it. They're already generating an internal ID number now, which also shows up in the "Download CSV" function that is available from the Reports > Orders page, but there's some concern that the number may wrap or whatever. It's a "who cares" though just as long as each line item in an order has a unique Line Item ID#.

Anyway, last I heard, they're now talking about delaying another 3-4 weeks before they fix it .. and it's NOT a 3-4 weeks worth of thinking. Just go put the value in there they already have .. unique across the entire order history or not .. and release it. *facepalm*