Basic requirements

Requirements for inventory management systems

Hexon greatly values the independence of software suppliers. As such, Hexon does not impose many requirements, but rather has a few recommendations.

• A inventory management system should be able to send the objects to be advertised in a fully automated way to DV. The various methods of transferring the data are described in section II.2. Data transfer.
• As Hexon does not enrich the data¹ it should contain all the necessary information the users wish to publish. Although Hexon imposes no specific requirements on the data itself, sites usually do. If those requirements are not met the objects will still be accepted and stored by DV, but cannot be sent to the sites. Furthermore, supplying richer vehicle information results in more detailed advertisements, allowing the ads to be found more easily.
  As an example, if someone is looking for a car with a particular power output and a vehicle satisfies this requirement but the power output has not been entered or not sent to DV, the car will not show up in the search results.
• Hexon also encourages creators of inventory management systems to have their users enter their data in a structured way. By using a list of predetermined options where applicable, for instance for the bodystyle of a car, very accurate data mappings can be made by Hexon allowing the objects to be advertised more successfully.
• The method of sending the data and the fieldset should not change without prior communication with Hexon. Hexon needs time to adjust the DV software to the changes.

Additional requirements for resellers

As resellers represent large groups of advertisers it is even more important for the daily operations to run smoothly. Therefore some additional requirements apply.

• Since Hexon has no direct relation with the advertiser the reseller will need to offer the necessary support to end users. Hexon will provide the reseller with second and third line support.
• With a larger user base the amount of administrative actions (creating new advertisers, processing address changes, link requests, etc.) will be significant and can only be processed in an automated manner. Hexon provides an API to facilitate this.
• Resellers should support the site selection functionality in their system, preferably on a per object basis.
• Feedback supplied by DV should be relayed to the end user. This allows them to check the status of the ads and solve potential problems on their own, thus avoiding unnecessary workload for your help desk.

¹ DV automatically adds the NAP Weblabel in certain circumstances, which is a type of enrichment.