Back office processes

Explain what Back Office Processes are and why your organisation needs them -Topshop needs back office processes to ensure that all ordering, payment and reporting of the transactions on the website run smoothly. Accounting, record keeping of clients' orders, stock control and the management of the website are all functions of the back office.

What processes are involved in Stock Control? What is at the centre of this type of system? Stock control is a process of the back office which keeps track of items that are for sale. Its main motif is to make sure that there is always enough stock available to meet the demand from the customers. Stock control ensures that no single items are sold twice to two different customers. The stock is kept on a database so that when a customers wants to buy an item, the back office can refer to the database (which is at the centre of the system) to see whether it’s in stock or not.

Explain what ASPs, and how it can update a database. - ASP stands for Active Server pages. It is a code that allows the customer to read and update the database. They can so this by logging onto the database by using the website. The ASP is run every time someone uses a search engine, the code then reads the database and looks up the item price and details.

How do organisations maintain the virtual shopping basket for a customer, what processes are involved? - Whilst a customer is browsing through the website and ordering goods, it is necessary to hold the details of the items to be purchased. In topshops case, they have an online shopping bag which is shown on the computer screen. At the end of the customer's shop and they are happy with what is in their shopping bag they can then purchase the items by clicking check out. To maintain this, Topshop calculates the total of items each time they are added to the bag. The added items are then reserved for the customer so that they are not sold twice. The customer has the option to remove items from the bag at any point and they are made aware of delivery costs that have been added to the total.

Draw an example flowchart for your organisation to illustrate these processes. - On sheet

P143, Explain briefly the difference between, HTTP authentication, and cookie identification. - HTTP authentication produces the familiar login/password browser sequence where as cookies are placed onto a persons computer without them knowing at the time

What advantage do cookies have over HTTP authentication? - There are some cookies which enable you to save your username to that computer so when you go back to the website, you only have to type in your password, this saves time where as HTTP doesn’t offer this. Cookies are an automated way of knowing who is looking at your website where as HTTP it isn’t as instant.

What is a cookie? Why does a transactional website need them? See page 153 for more info + wikipedia has some good starting points here. - Cookies are small text files that are sorted on a computer's hard disk when the user visits a website. They are kept in chronological order and recognise the preferences of the user. This is useful for transactional websites, as they can use the cookies to see what items the customer are most commonly interested in, so the next time they visit the web site they get a better experience and would be impressed with the advanced knowledge.

P144, why is it useful to get a customer to log in the website? Do the activity. - It is useful to get a customer to log into the web site as they can be anonymously tracked with a personal ID number. This random number is sent to a cookie, once the customer has logged in they can be tracked for everything they do in more detail, and can be rewarded for things such as consistency and loyalty to the company’s website. They can also see if the customer is misusing the website.
A list of the tables that might be involved in tracking customers' actions:
• Affilates & Transfers
• Bundles
• cartRows options
• Categories and products
• Country codes
• credit cards
• currency static
• customer types
• dbSession cart
• discounts per quantity
• emails
• options and groups
• orders
• payments
• rentals
• reviews
• stock & stock movements
• tax
• visits
• wish list
At what point is HTTPS encryption used? Why? - It is used when they want to encrypt credit card data so that all the detail remains secure so others cannot access or even read the data. Credit card data is very important, for if someone should find out the details they could use them to pay for things with other peoples money. If the details are encrypted then unauthorised people that may access the database cannot read the card details.

Why is this method safe even if some one intercepts the data travelling the website? - It is safe because the intercepting person will not be able to read the data unless they have authorisation to do so.

P145, Explain why a stolen card is unlikely to be used for online shopping. - A stolen card is unlikely to be used for online shopping as the details of the card can only be used if the billing addresses match with the delivery address. If the card has been used by the rightful owner on the internet then it can be tracked for unusual use of the credit card.

What is stock control? How are stock reorders managed by computer? - Stock control refers to all the processes involved in ordering, storing and selling goods; it makes sure that the same product isn’t sold twice as it is in real-time. It's run on a computer system for a website. It makes sure there is always enough stock for demand and too much out on the shelves as this can waste money. The reorders are managed by a computer through links to other suppliers. This way the reorder can be ordered automatically.

P146, List the processes involved in Despatch and Delivery of goods. -
• Address labels to be printed with dispatch notes and invoices
• Package goods
• collect goods by courier
• Tracking will be handed over by the organisation
• Customer is informed via email or logging into the website that their purchase has been dispatched and the customer can then track the progress of consignment.

Draw your own version of the diagrams on pages 146-7 for your own organisation. - On sheet