Merlin Business Software has developed a new offline solution that enables customers to continue trading when their internet connection is down.
Used simply as a reference, the offline solution gives a user visibility of their customers and their special pricing, stock information, and availability up to the last update of data. Users are also able to perform standard Merlin operations, giving businesses continuity whilst the offending issue with a user’s internet service provider is resolved.
The new solution was produced by Merlin’s engineering team of specialists who recognised that businesses were leaving their fate in the hands of their internet service providers. Martin Williams, Merlin’s head of engineering, said: “A particular customer’s branch had no access to Merlin at the head office as their internet service provider had decided to do maintenance work on the local exchange on a Saturday morning. The users asked if there was any way they could have a separate copy of recent trading data available so they could at least avoid turning customers away while their data service was being restored.”
Martin spoke to John Barber, Merlin’s senior technical consultant, about the problem and John reacted quickly by putting together a specification and prototype application, which ultimately resulted in the Merlin offline solution.
Martin continues: “The beauty of the offline solution is that a full backup is automatically copied to a master station on a daily basis, with the ability to have as many offline ‘slave’ clients as you require. This could be a single client for customers with a single site and server or in the case of companies with multiple branches, each branch can have its own ‘master’ client that can feed other ‘slave’ clients within the branch. This solution is ideal where a large branch has more than one trade counter or office. The offline solution also offers an additional safeguard for customers using our hosted cloud services who may lose connection to their hosting centre for whatever reason.”
www.merlinbusinesssoftware.co.uk
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Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 15 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe.
Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the Magazine is renowned.
