It is up to you to decide how often you update your on-line inventory. As you process orders and add and remove books from the Standard Online Catalogue the status is being automatically updated to record these changes. Of course you have to connect to the Internet to have these changes reflected in your inventory at the OLBs.

Whether you do this once every day, every week or every month is entirely up to you. A major factor influencing this decision will be how you wish to be perceived by your customers. Remember that customers can get irate if they continually order books which have been sold but have not removed on-line. This is equivalent to leaving books on the shelves at your bookshop and informing customers coming to the desk with them that they have been sold already. This will do your reputation no good. Just because you are in Cyberspace does not mean you are anonymous. As we all know losing existing customers is much easier than gaining new ones. You must still provide a good service for your customers in Cyberspace if you wish to carry out on going business with them in the future. A good motto to adhere to is to treat them like you would someone who comes into your shop to buy books, i.e. do not waste their time or they will quickly go elsewhere which is all too easy to do on the Internet. In light of this you should aim to update changes as regularly as is practicle and convenient.

Changes are reflected in your inventory on the OLBs server only after you Refresh the Online Catalogues. This is achieved from the Output form (click the Setting up and refreshing Online catalogues tab) by invoking the Refresh Online Catalogues command button. When invoked you will be informed of the number of items to be updated and asked to confirm if you want to continue.

If you continue the following occurs for each OLB you subscribe to:

1.The most recent upload files are archieved. (These are useful if the upload file gets lost after sending or the OLB were not able to process it)

2.Items in the Standard Online Catalogue with status Send are output to each OLB's Add file.(See setting the filename used for an OLBs upload files. If using the UIEE format this file name is the same for all four upload files) The status is changed to Online.

3.Items in the Standard Online Catalogue with status WithDraw are output to each OLBs Delete file.(if using the UIEE format this file name is the same as the Add file.) The status is changed to Removed.

4.Items in the Standard Online Catalogue with status Wanted are output to each OLBs Wants file. (if using the UIEE format this file name is the same as the Add file.) The status is changed to Online Want.

5.Items in the Standard Online Catalogue with status WithDraw Want are output to each OLBs Wants Delete file. (if using the UIEE format this file name is the same as the Add file.) The status is changed to Removed.

5.Items in the Standard Online Catalogue with status Removed are deleted from the catalogue.

All the items in the Standard Online Catalogue which have a status of “Send” are output to Add files, one for each OLB you subscribe to. See how to associate an add file with an OLB. The format of each of these Add files is determined by the Add format associated with the corresponding bookstore. . See how to associate an add file format with an OLB.

The files produced are stored under a separate directory with the names you specified when you associated the OLB with an output file. If using the UIEE format to send your records the four outputs are saved in a single file. In either case the file or files produced must be sent to the corresponding OLB via Web upload, FTP or as email attachments.