This page documents advanced technical features for developers that wish to interface to Fieldpine Retail via the HTTP interface.
eLink defines a set of calls to HTTP endpoints. These calls can read and write most of the information stored inside the retail system. These eLink APIs are able to handle the variation on environments, database and configurations.
eLink is a large API with a wide spread of functionality. While the basic idea of a retail system is simple enough (products are sold to customers), they rapidly expand in scope into diverse areas such as stock management, ordering, receiving, CRM, security and auditing, system monitoring, statements, prepay vouchers, loyalty programs and more.
Fieldpine programs and reports all utilise eLink themselves, with some exceptions. The eLink API is the internal API used
Getting Started
The following guides may help you to understand the key features you need in order to use the eLink interface, we suggest you review the one closest to your requirements as a heads up to information you will need
This documentation is about creating new interfaces and reports for developers and programmers, it does not contain information about installing and configuring interfaces that have already been built
Guide to constructing API calls. Read this before attempting to create production code
You can use tools such as wget or curl to read and write the API from external scripts. Wget command line or the Fieldpine provided Tu Command Line Utility
Related APIs
The eLink API is an API for dealing with a retailers data. There are alternative API families for different purposes
Gds APIs available on the Gds server directly, which provide APIs of a general nature that do not directly use the retail database
sLink APIs. Supplier Link API to handle interfaces to and from supplier systems.
cLink APIs. Customer Link API to handle interfaces to and from customer portals.
API Function Calls
| Key | API to edit or write data | API to read data | API to read data, documentation in progress |
Most documentation of the individual API calls will display examples in XML. This is only because XML is more widely understood and makes the examples clearer.
Customers
| retailmax.elink.customer.edit | Add and edit customer definitions | |
| retailmax.elink.customers | Retrieve details about known customers in the point of sale database. |
Loyalty
| retailmax.elink.cardinquiry | Lookup details of a single card held by a customer. This can be a prepay card or discount voucher. |
Prepay
Pricing
| retailmax.elink.pricemap.list | Fetch the rule based price maps entries | |
| retailmax.elink.pricemap.edit | Create or edit Pricemap entries |
Products
| retailmax.elink.products | Details about individual products | |
| retailmax.elink.media.list | Retrieve details about media and images available for individual products | |
| retailmax.elink.product.edit | Create or edit a single product | |
| retailmax.elink.product.stocklevels | In depth details about stocklevels | |
| retailmax.elink.product.paretolist | Ranking of products using pareto techniques. Used to get "best product" |
Sales
| retailmax.elink.sale.create | Store a complete new sale into the retail system. | |
| retailmax.elink.sale.totals.group | Summarised totals of sales with ability to group totals in different dimensions, such as products, departments or suppliers | |
| retailmax.elink.sale.fetch | Fetch full details of a single sale | |
| retailmax.elink.saleflat.list | Return a "flat" view of sale(s) similar to a join of sales, items and payments |
Staff
| retailmax.elink.staff.list | Return details about individual staff members | |
| retailmax.elink.staff.used.list | Returns information about when various staff logins were used. | |
| retailmax.elink.staff.edit | Add and edit staff members into the system. A staff member entry is used to allow logins, implement per user security and record audit information | |
| retailmax.elink.teller.login | Verify a username/password combination is correct and set authorisation details for this connection |
Statistics Focused Calls
| retailmax.elink.stats.today.department | An specialised API to return sales for today summarised by department. This is often used on dashboards to show current progress without needing to reference full reports |
Stock Management
| retailmax.elink.stock.receive | Record inwards stock arrival from purchase order, ASN or unexpected delivery | |
| retailmax.elink.supplier.pricebook.decode | Decode a supplier pricebook into standardised format for use |
Stores and Locations
| retailmax.elink.locations | List store details | |
| retailmax.elink.location.lane.list | Details of individual lanes | |
| retailmax.elink.lane.edit | Update details for individual lanes |
Other Supporting Calls
| retailmax.elink.tubt.list | Recall list of transactions performed. This essentially provides and audit trail of API calls | |
| retailmax.elink.journal.list | Recall list of transactions requested. The journal is written before requests are processed and will include requests that were rejected. |