The user interface

TRADElube runs entirely in the browser: navigation on the left, content on the right. The areas behind it differ a great deal, but they are all operated the same way. This page walks through the elements that recur in every area, so you learn them once and recognize them everywhere.

The application after signing in, the navigation bar on the left and the dashboard on the right

The areas sit below one another on the left, in a thematic order.

Dashboard is the start page of your client and reports what is currently not running smoothly.
Products, Manufacturers, Categories and Media are your master data.
Orders and Customers are the order data coming in from the connected systems.
Channels, Tasks and Traces belong to the transfer: what you are connected to, what runs when, and what came of it.
Settings collects everything that applies to the whole client, from the languages through to the stores.

Set apart below them is the navigation entry Documentation. It opens this documentation in the language you are currently working in. So there is no address to remember, and no need to leave the application.

If one day only Dashboard sits there next to the documentation, there are two possible reasons: either your client is under maintenance, or there is no client for your user account yet. The dashboard tells you with a message which of the two it is.

At the top left sit the product name and the version number, below them the name of your client. Three things sit next to each other at the top right: the buttons DE and EN switch the language of the interface, your user name leads to your User Account with the profile, the contracts and the invoices, and Logout ends the session. What there is to set in each of them is described under access and client.

List pages

Every area starts with a list.

Product list with a selected row, the filter field and the paging bar

Above the table sits the toolbar with the buttons New, Edit and Delete.

One click on a row selects it. Edit and Delete stay pale until a row is selected. That makes it unambiguous which record the button acts on.

Type a search term into the field Filter above the table and TRADElube searches several columns at once, on products the product number, the manufacturer product number, the EAN and the name. For everyday work that is enough. For combined conditions you build a filter through the button Filter By, which the reference describes in detail.

Every list has a fixed sort order, by its leading column, on products the product number. Clicking a column header changes nothing about that. To see less, narrow the list down, with the field Filter and with Filter By.

Below the table sit the page numbers, the field Items per Page and, on the far right, Total with the number of records the current filter leaves over.

Detail pages

A click on Edit opens the selected record.

Detail page of a product with its trail of links, save bar and collapsed sections

At the top, a trail of links shows the way back to the list, and one click takes you there.

Below it sits the checkbox Active. It is placed above all the sections because it applies to the whole record.

The record itself sits in collapsible sections, on a product from Common through Prices and Stocks and Shipping to Channels. You do not need most of them on an ordinary working day. Collapsed, the page stays manageable, and you open the section that is currently at issue. The section Properties only appears when the product has properties. The reference describes it under Products.

At the very bottom sits the record's identifier. You do not need it day to day: it is the internal identifier TRADElube keeps the record under, and it is there for the places that genuinely use it, a script in the transfer plan for instance.

Saving

Below the trail of links sits the save bar with Save and Discard. Both are active as long as unsaved changes exist. Discard asks first and then restores the last saved state.

You save explicitly, because TRADElube saves nothing in the background. The reason lies outside this page: whatever you change here is taken along into the connected systems by the next transfer, see tasks. An intermediate state that saved itself would be in the shop shortly afterwards.

If you leave a detail page with unsaved changes, TRADElube asks instead of discarding them silently. The message Save Changes offers Save, Discard Changes and Cancel.

Messages for invalid input

If an entry does not fit, the message appears above the form, immediately rather than only on saving.

Delivery time with a red message because the maximum duration is below the minimum

The color tells you where you stand. A red message stops you: while it is open it blocks saving, and the attempt ends with the message Saving Aborted and the request First fix the error messages.. An orange message is a warning and lets you save. It draws your attention to something without taking the decision away from you. Both name the field they are about, so you do not have to go looking for it.

Messages

What TRADElube has done in response to an action, it tells you with a short message. It appears and disappears again after a few seconds by itself, because it records a result and not a state.

The message Saved at the top right above the header, with the save bar below it

What it holds is the result of the operation you have just set off: Saved after saving, Execution finished after a task, the error message when something failed. Some of them lead further, and a click on the message then opens the details.

That they disappear again is deliberate. Whatever has to stay available is not held in a message but in the traces.