On the road to Continuous Integration

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Continuous Integration is one of the twelve practices of Extreme Programming, applied during software development. It is a practice of merging the results of the development team’s work to the main repository. For modern e-commerce systems, it means a constant improvement of software and continuous development. Providing customers with new features and system updates more frequently is key to achieving competitive advantage.

Integration of subsequent code changes should occur at least once a day. Next, integrated versions of the code are covered by automatic tests, and then, after validation, they are implemented into the customer system. The main purpose of continuous integration is to increase team members’ efficiency because they have constant access to the current progress of work. CI also facilitates the prevention of possible errors. For customers, it means constant access to the current software version.

Process of Continuous Integration

All changes introduced to the repository by developers are tested automatically. First, unit tests are performed, that is, the correctness of code is checked. It is followed by code compilation process, the so called build, on which acceptance tests are performed. If errors are detected, the system immediately informs the relevant people assigned to the project. If the tests are successful, the changes are prepared for deployment and become candidates for introduction into the base version of the software.

The advantages of CI

Continuous integration has a lot of advantages. Firstly, the customer has always access to the latest version of the software. Secondly, the efficiency is increased by combining the development team’s work on specific projects, resulting in a significant saving of man-hours. CI also facilitates detection of possible errors and thus – quicker response to them. Also, when there is a need to withdraw changes previously made to the system, it ensures the security of the database.

Work on Continuous Integration is a part of a long-term vision of i-systems software development, which aims to systematically improve the quality of delivered solutions.

Release i-systems core 4.6

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The needs of the owners of online sales systems are constantly changing. New functionalities are being developed to increase sales and efficiency of internal and external activities of the business. For this reason, i-systems regularly updates the core version of the system. In response to changing e-commerce trends, release 4.6 has been created.

Dictionary Module

The translation module of the online store has been moved to the admin panel, where you can edit the translations into the appropriate language. The way of adding new and editing current translations has been greatly improved. Once downloaded, the translation is cached, saving the time and resources. The solution also helps to keep control of repetitions and eliminates conflicts when updating your store.

Calendar

The Calendar module has been expanded with new functionalities. Now you can add access privileges to groups and users of the calendars. The ability to automatically create calendars has also been added. For the record, the Calendar Module is a place that gathers all dates, associated with a given user, in one place. There can be entered meetings with customers, deadlines for individual tasks, passing deadlines to respond to complaints. With this module you can also track holidays, sick leaves, remote work, reservations of conference rooms, business cars or equipment.

Other solutions within this release

In addition, a discount delegate has been added to the discount policy module, which enables giving discount for product recommendation on Facebook. More about the discount policy module can be read under this link.  

There is also a new solution that allows to combine all the customer orders with the same email address, even without registration in the system database. Orders are assigned to a single account, and after registration, the entire order history, even those submitted before the account was created, is available.

The release is an update of the base version of the e-commerce system, where the new functionalities are regularly added. Thanks to the update, it is possible to develop the system and adapt it to the changing market. It is also possible to update dedicated solutions in subsequent releases.

Newsweek and PWC awards i-systems

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The i-systems company was awarded the title of “Innovation Initiator”. The 3rd edition of the competition was held on June 6, 2017 at the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw. The weekly magazine Newsweek Poland is the organizer of the project, and the content partner is – the global audit and advisory company PWC.

The purpose of the event was to distinguish companies for which innovation is the driving force. There were two stages of the competition, during which the jury assessed both achieved market success, internal innovation management, and implemented innovative solutions.

– We always wanted to make shopping on the internet a natural thing, but also fun. A few years ago we decided that we would make all the solutions ourselves. That is why the Innovation Initiator is a special honor for us, which shows that we are moving in the right direction – says Paweł Szewczyk, CMO i-systems


Photo during the Gala of the 2017 Innovation Initiator winners

Photo during the Gala of the 2017 Innovation Initiator winners

The jury appreciated i-systems for a thriving research and development department that creates pioneering e-commerce solutions, which have a real impact on the development of online sales – not only in Poland but also abroad.

The Innovation Initiator 2017 was awarded in three categories: large companies, small and medium enterprises and startups. Alior Bank won in the first category, while in the startup category, the competition jury awarded three more companies. These companies were: Smart Fluid, mReh and Hector24. IDN InDaHash Media Limited was the winner of the startup category. In addition, Business Insider, media patron of the event, has awarded a special prize to G2A company.



See Case Studies e-commerce



Log server – application in e-commerce

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The term „log server” for many people probably sounds quite enigmatic. To fully understand what this term means, you first need to know the meaning of the word “log” itself.

Every service, part of an e-commerce application, such as a store application, particular modules, databases, web server, mail server, or integrations – generates logs. They are created automatically, chronologically and independently of the user. They are saved in text files describing the event.

Individual logs may also have different degrees of detail. A single entry may include: information about the date and time of the event, its type, the name and IP address of the user, download data, and a text description of the event.

The main use of logs is an analysis of the way information systems work. They allow to check server’s performance, detect system malfunctions, as well as create statistics and detect security breaches.

A modern e-commerce system consists of multiple distributed services and components physically located on different servers. This allows scaling of the system, but it has consequences – the logs of the operations are also scattered across multiple servers. Analysis of one problem is therefore extremely time-consuming. The log server cumulates all events in one place with full-text, advanced search engine and analysis tools.

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Thanks to this solution, there is one machine for each system that transfers logs from all servers and provides a unified interface for their viewing. This facilitates the monitoring of the system’s condition. When it is necessary to check or analyze the operation mode of the system, both searching, comparing and graphing takes seconds because the logs are indexed. In the absence of log server, these actions can take several hours. That is why the log server is part of a modern e-commerce server infrastructure.

New era of B2B solutions

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Business is changing, both this oriented on the retail client and on the business partner. New technologies makes the customers’ demands evolve quickly, affecting the rules of running business in a significant way. In order to grow a business, it is important to respond dynamically to the current market needs, because as Darwin’s theory says, only those most responsive to change will survive.

Large business has to be simple

Modern entrepreneurs, using the latest technology, want to run a business in a convenient, simple and useful way. When buying online, they expect to find a specific assortment, a personalized offer, an intuitive navigation, and, above all, the ability to get information in real time.

B2C companies for a long time understood the needs of today’s customers, actively introducing newer and newer e-commerce solutions. However, the wholesale companies must also match the sales to the needs of the modern market. The new B2B era means decline of the wholesale systems, which are discouraging by the look and allow only to check the offer and place an order. Modern B2B platforms comprehensively address business needs, provide advanced analytics, full integration with external systems, and tools to support the daily work of sales team. This is a combination of functionalities, which are mandatory for building long-term collaboration between businesses, with solutions previously reserved exclusively for B2C.

Integration with ERP, meaning the consistency of data

For companies operating in the B2B model, merging the sales system with other external systems is especially important. Business partners have individual prices, terms of payment, or merchant payment limits. In addition, the B2B sales system is not just a tool for the company’s employees – it is primarily a solution for contractors who expect to be able to check their current prices, payment status or order status. Entering all data manually, on a regular basis, would be extremely time-consuming and it could generate errors.

The success of a business depends on long-term relationships

In business to business sales, tools to build customer loyalty are much more important than in the case of retail sales. This kind of sales is based on solid business partners, not individual orders, made by occasional users. It is therefore worth to implement such solutions as: the offline product catalog, the function to create individual wholesale prices, or call centers, which makes it easy to organize telephone campaigns of a sales or information nature.

In modern B2B platforms, it is common to provide knowledge bases or forums for the customers. With this tools, the system administrator passes to the contractor the necessary knowledge of the product offer, such as detailed descriptions, photos, or information about promotional campaigns. The solution also allows to focus the work of sales department on sales activities by minimizing phone or email inquiries about basic product details.

The line between the online stores and wholesale platforms is blurred. Not only retail customers, but also business partners are looking forward to make good purchases with an intuitive navigation system. Dedicated e-commerce solutions, that meet business needs of the particular entrepreneurship and ensure the good UX of the system, are the evidence of a modern approach to the business and give the opportunity to grow one.

The article was originally published in Fashionbusiness.pl.



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The summary of Q2 2017 at i-systems

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Another quarter of 2017 has come to an end. As announced, we present the most important events from this period.

New projects

Over the last three months, six new projects have been started. The companies that decided to begin a cooperation with i-systems, operates among others in furniture, cosmetic, fashion and sanitary industry. A company from chemistry sector has decided to carry out a business analysis. This shows the broad spectrum of modern B2B e-commerce solutions.

At the beginning of the Q2, e-commerce systems for Vistula Group joint-stock company have been launched. The scope of works included new sales platforms for brands: Vistula, Wólczanka and W.Kruk. More information on those implementations will be published in the nearest future.

Trends in system development

Increasingly important in B2B transactions are tools that are typically associated with the B2C sales model. They can build the loyalty of the target customer as well as increase satisfaction from the daily use of the systems. Examples of such solutions introduced in the second quarter of the year in company’s customer’s systems are: the ability to create personalized price lists for wholesale customers, the optimization of order fulfillment in a furniture company or multicart module in a company specializing in wholesale of fasteners.

Another trend is the development of sales through the use of external network marketplace.

Strategic development of the organization

To continue the adopted strategy of i-systems development in the international markets, i-systems representatives participated in Retail Business Technology Expo in London. At the biggest retail fair in Europe, they exchanged experiences with foreign entrepreneurs and customers. Polish conference, E-commerce Summit, has shed a new light on the progress and development of e-commerce, and during the Marketing Forum, the future of e-commerce has been outlined. The above-mentioned meetings and conferences have resulted in new business contacts.

The company also develops employer branding activities. As a result of participation in job fairs in Q1, Career Days were organized in i-systems. During the meeting in April, jobseekers were not only able to see what the company’s life was like from the inside, but also talk to the current employees about their day-to-day work, as well as leave their CVs for selected job positions. These and other activities have made the i-systems team grow by 10 new people in the last three months. Further recruitment is planned.

Internal projects for quality improvement

At the end of May, training on unit tests was organized for employees. Participants learned new solutions for unit testing. Moreover, scenarios for testing the upgrades of the base version of e-commerce have also been completed. Both solutions increase the quality of software delivered to the customers and are part of a long-term vision of software development.

In the last quarter, a log server service has been launched. The solution is part of a modern e-commerce server infrastructure. It facilitates work on a system and raises security.

Selected awards

Over the past three months, i-systems has been awarded four distinctions. The company was placed among the fastest growing companies in Europe, the ranking was created for the first time by the Financial Times, in collaboration with the Institute of Market Research – Statista.

– Being placed among the 1000 fastest growing companies in Europe gives us a sense of well-performed everyday work. We are doing our best to make a measurable impact on the development of e-commerce, not only in Poland. Being listed in the ranking of such a prestigious magazine as Financial Times is extremely motivating for us – comments Paweł Jaczewski, CEO at i-systems. 


Business Center Club awarded i-systems with European Medal. It is a distinction for companies with products and services which meet European standards and are innovative in the market.

The company was also honored with the title of Firma Dobrze Widziana [Goodwill Company] for its CSR activities. What is more, the i-systems research and development department directly contributed to the receiving of Innovation Initiator award. This contest was organized by the Newsweek weekly, and PWC was the content partner of the event.

We invite you to read another summary of i-systems events. The next one will appear in early October. Should you not miss the Q3 summary, we invite you to subscribe to the newsletter.



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Release i-systems – version 4.5

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A new update of the base version of the i-systems e-commerce system has been introduced. Release 4.5 includes significant improvements in price interpretation and memory optimization. A new Price List Module has also been created.

Prices in the product

Products in the database have their prices assigned. In release 4.5, it was possible to pin down any price source for a product, such as a price list module or a database of previous prices stored in products. This means that when a customer wants to use a price from another source, they will automatically be downloaded without importing them to the i-systems database.

Optimization of the store

A number of modifications have been introduced to speed up the store’s operation and reduce the amount of memory required. The profiling of the store was conducted, which resulted in accelerating the operation of the store, thanks to the reduction of the amount of memory needed. The time needed to render a page: the home page, the product listing, and the product sheet has been reduced. From now on, less memory is required, and the basic version of e-commerce system has been significantly accelerated. This means that the server response has been optimized as well as the memory requirement per query.

Price List Module

The new Price List module allows you to manage prices not only for products, but also for sets. Up to now, there have been four types of prices attributed to the product: standard, promotional, wholesale, variants. Nowadays, it is possible to create an infinite quantity of price lists and add an infinite number of prices to them. They can also be hierarchized by setting a pricing strategy based on the criteria. This provides a great price management option. This also applies to foreign price lists, which are not part of the price list module. An example of such a price list may be the currency price list, which retrieves data based on its exchange rate. Thanks to the Price List module you can download price lists from another module in real time.

Release 4.5 also includes other improvements, such as changing the way currency and the country are selected. The customer stores information about the country and the currency is assigned to the country. There has also been unified form generation for ordinary payments and multi payments.

The release is an update of the base version of the e-commerce system, where the new functionalities are regularly added. Thanks to the update, it is possible to develop the system and adapt it to the changing market. It is also possible to update dedicated solutions in subsequent releases.

The furniture industry invests in e-commerce

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Nobody is surprised that the fashion industry can show of innovative e-commerce solutions area. Whether it is clothing or footwear, online stores are introducing new, dedicated ways, not only to attract the attention of the customer, but also those supporting building customer loyalty towards the brand. Trends, however, permeate further sectors for which other functionalities need to be prepared to provide efficient shop management and customer service of top quality. The example can be furniture industry and the online store KARE24.pl, implemented by i-systems.

KARE24.pl is part of the DESIGN AG Anna Guenther group. KARE Design since 1981, thanks to its creative ideas, has been constantly successful, offering designer furniture, lighting and decorative accessories. Its showrooms are located not only in Poland but also in Germany, Austria and outside Europe. It also has 200 industry partners and 2000 commercial customers.

As the brand emphasizes, its main recipients are people of all ages, but with „young spirits”. In pursuit of modern trends, the company has decided to implement the e-commerce system, in cooperation with i-systems.

After the analysis, the solutions have been identified to match the specificity of the brands from the furniture sector. In addition to modules, such as discount policy or newsletter signup coupon, the new e-commerce system is equipped with modules designed particularly for business needs of the company.

– We decided to invest in e-commerce, because we are constantly tracking fast-changing trends and trying to match them. Online sales give more and more opportunities and are an effective channel to reach the customer – comments Anna Guenther, owner of DESIGN AG Anna Guenther.

The new e-commerce system, created for KARE24.pl, is another step in the company’s online sales strategy. Further activities are planned to expand the company’s activity in this area.
The new online store can be found here: KARE24.pl.

The benefits of working with upseller

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Very good knowledge of the product, awareness of the customer needs and ability to match the best IT solutions to meet these needs. This is how the work of upseller looks like in telegraphic brief. In conversation with Gosia and Krystian, our upsellers, we present the secrets of their work, the purpose of the profession and the benefits that their actions bring to their clients.

What is the job of the upseller, what are your duties?

Krystian: Our company creates dedicated e-commerce software that allows for unlimited system development. A customer can develop his online store for many years and adjust functionalities to changing market trends. Our task is to directly cooperate with the current customer and support the development of his e-commerce system. As every business relationship, in order to last long, it can not be based solely on e-mail or telephone contact. So we visit our customers and have direct talks with them. We inform about the solutions that R&D team introduces within the new software release. We also explain the principle of operation of the modules and advise which solutions are worth to implement as they will be effective for the particular client. Based on the plans, we estimate the IT resources needed and prepare the appropriate contracts.

Gosia: Our task is to support the customers who started e-commerce journey with us. As a part of supporting the development of their systems, we provide advice and, consequently, up-sell solutions that enable them to effectively build competitive advantage. There are brands that have a well-defined development policy, they know what solutions, and when, they will implement. On the other hand, some partners do not have such a well-defined action plan. In this case, our task is to inspire customers, prioritize individual ideas, or choose the best solutions that will give the customer the greatest business value at a given moment. Then, together with the customer, we create plans. They feel safe and know that we also participate in business creation with them.

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Is it popular to hire upsellers?

Krystian: Unfortunately not. The generally accepted model of work in the market is often based on new implementations rather than development of running systems. As such, collaboration is often limited to providing a call center or a single email exchange. Our e-commerce system allows long-term development. Several updates a year make it possible for our customers to keep the system up-to-date with changing market needs. Hence, we can make long lasting business relationships. We want the customer to know that the company that creates the e-commerce system takes care of both the technical aspects of the software and the effectiveness of the solutions.

What are the benefits for the customers working with you?

Gosia: Customers who work with us expect to understand their position, empathy, support in choosing the best solutions, and knowledge sharing. We talk with the customers about the latest trends in e-commerce and show how given solutions function in other implementations. Knowing thoroughly the specific tool, the customer can tell if he needs a similar solution or the completely remodeled one. Thanks to direct conversations the client also gets to know our company. We want our customers to know in what business environment we operate and what drives specific decisions.

Krystian: The Upseller, for every customer, has a well-prepared plan for system development. We treat each company individually, we check the tools it already has and verify if these functionalities meet its business needs. Often at the meetings, the customers say what they would like to implement and ask us for feedback. Due to the many years of experience in e-commerce and constant observation of market trends, we are able to determine what solutions will be valuable for the customer. In addition, we try to match our resources to the needs of the client, so that he had the optimal amount of contracted hours. Customers who are in constant touch with us can feel secure about the level of their e-commerce system.

How to verify affiliate partner settlements?

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Online stores more and more often choose to work with bloggers or internet users whose fans are the brand’s target audience. Affiliate marketing is an effective form of reaching potential customers, but sometimes problems arise in the efficient management of this collaboration. However, i-systems company has created an Affiliate Partner Module for its clients, which, from the e-commerce system, monitors the effects of individual affiliates.

Affiliate Marketing – What is it?

Affiliate programs are special agreements between the seller (for example, an online store) and affiliates (bloggers, website owners, etc.). Affiliates promote online store on their own advertising surfaces through mailing, themed posts, banners, social media, and video. Regardless of the type of methods used to reach the consumer, there is always a special link at the end of the ad that identifies the partner.

Trust or control, meaning settlement problems

When deciding to work with affiliates, the owner of the affiliate program determines for what action and how much he will pay. The most common are the three forms of payment. In the CPL model, or cost per lead, this means paying commission for obtaining contact data. The CPC, or cost per click, means paying for the number of clicks. The CPS, or cost per sale, means the commission for the successful completion of the sale. The last model is chosen the most often by online stores.

Once in a specified time in the partnership agreement, usually in a monthly cycle, the affiliate transfers the list of transactions that were made as a result of his advertising activities. It is the verification of these settlements that worries many online stores. Brands want to check the listings they receive from affiliates, often by using a variety of tools for web analytics, such as Google Analytics. However, among the transactions coming from affiliates links, there may also be those that did not complete with success. When the customer did not pay for the order, did not pick up the product or returned the goods, the affiliate should not receive a commission. Manual checking and matching to the appropriate affiliate of these orders is time consuming and error prone. On the other hand, the boundless trust towards reports sent by affiliate can be quite risky.

Efficient and faultless verification of affiliate settlements

The i-systems Affiliate Partner Module allows you to gather all affiliates in one place. For each affiliate, an individual link is created that he places in the ads. After clicking, the consumer is transferred to the online store, his browser stores a „cookie” and after the purchase, the transaction is credited to the affiliate account.

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Functionality guarantees correct accounting. It allows you to generate a detailed summary of all transactions from the given link, at any time interval. The report shows both completed, paid orders, refunds, missed and unpaid shipments. Thanks to the solution, an online store employee can efficiently verify the settlement sent by the affiliate, as the data comes directly from the sales system.

In addition to verifying affiliate activities, the solution also enables you to analyze your marketing activities. The module allows you to check the effectiveness of your ads, such as banner campaigns on the internet media.

Affiliate Partner Module is a modern tool for effective and efficient collaboration with affiliates. Thanks to the solution the brand can be sure that the invoice issued by the affiliate is consistent with its actual sale.