Method:Classic General Q&A

Re: Issues with Address Fields

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 20:00:19 GMT

Hey furrywombat,

Thanks for the post -- unfortunately, I"m going to have to be a bit of a disappointment as this hasn't been implemented site-wide yet. As Paul mentioned, this is ultimately at the behest of the Quickbooks SDK. We're phasing in a new sync engine now, though, so fingers crossed we can get that in soon.

Re: Issues with Address Fields

furrywombat — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 01:37:03 GMT

Also, to confirm, I have tried this through Method CRM as well as Method API. Neither option clears the data. I've tried every possible non-printing ASCII character, decoded HEX, HTML characters and special characters... nada. Nothing. I am very interested to know how Paul and David actually accomplished this as mentioned on the first page of this thread. Love you guys, but seriously!! Come on... :)

Re: Issues with Address Fields

furrywombat — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 01:31:11 GMT

I would very much like to know if there is a solution to this yet. The idea that there is NO WAY to send blank data to QuickBooks is preposterous. I've been told repeatedly for the last six months that the dev team is working on this yet still no solution. Are the devs really not capable of solving this issue? Or, is it simply not a priority?

Re: Issues with Address Fields

furrywombat — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:40:13 GMT

Tried that too, and no, it appears that Method trims spaces before sending the XML or Quickbooks still refuses the data. Still looking for an answer to this. Paul & David appear to have had some success, but still have not received any solid answers from anyone as to HOW this was accomplished.

Re: Issues with Address Fields

mlongacre — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:12:42 GMT

Can you send a space ( ) instead of a null value to clear the fields?

Re: Issues with Address Fields

furrywombat — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 23:08:24 GMT

Well, here's the problem--I am TRYING to only send Addr1-Addr3 + City, State, Zip, but Quickbooks is throwing a sync error due to some fields already being populated with information on the QB side. I'm assuming it's either Addr4-Addr5 and/or AddrNote. We all know that QB pretty much does whatever it wants with the data that you put in those five lines. Half the time, for international orders, I see it place city, state and zip in the AddrNote field, or in the CITY field... there does not appear to be any consistency, ESPECIALLY for Non-US addresses. Apparently Quickbooks/Intuit runs on the assumption that the United States is the only country in the world even though half their staff are stationed in South Asia. Funny! Like Joe Pesci funny...

My intended solution:

was to place the Addr1-3, City, State, Zip fields in Method in temporary variables, then send BLANK data for Addr1-5 + City, State, Zip, Country, and AddrNote, force a desktop push, then update the fields with Addr1-3, City, State, Zip, and force a second push to eliminate any possibility for error. But this is not working because Method apparently does not send blank fields to QB in the XML. I checked myself in the sync error log... when attempting to send blank fields, Method just ignores it when constructing the XML so OF COURSE Quickbooks is not going to accept it. It's like wondering why someone never got your letter when it's sitting right there on your desk!

The question remains... how am I supposed to accomplish the clearing of all Addr fields before syncing back the proper data to eliminate any margin for error? The only solution I've found is to blank out the Bill-To & Ship-To addresses directly in QB then push the data from Method immediately after. Everything works this way, but our goal is to eliminate Quickbooks altogether except for accounting reports so this is not an option for us.

Please advise...

Re: Issues with Address Fields

mlongacre — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 22:43:25 GMT

Hi Nick-

I can't address the SDK or API question, but it's important to understand how QuickBooks uses Addr4 and Addr5. Thos e fields are essentially "reserved" to hold information from City, State, Zip (Addr4) and Country (Addr5). As Paul pointed out, QuickBooks parses the info in these fields and copies it back and forth between the two sets of data. When you put non-conforming information in the Addr4 and Addr5 fields, QuickBooks will attempt to fit it into the City State Zip Country format and you can get some ugly resuilts and truncated data. I find it best to consider the fields for Addr4 and Addr5 in both the Bill To and Ship To addresses as unavailable for use in Method. Just let QuickBooks have its way with them.

-Mary Longacre

Re: Issues with Address Fields

furrywombat — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 18:04:57 GMT

I am having the exact same problem, most often with international orders. Here's the current process:

Item ordered on our website
Pulled into QB via ECC/Webgility connector as SalesOrder
Sync to Method
Unable to sync back

Even when fields are manually cleared in Method, when attempting to sync back to the desktop, the empty fields are being IGNORED by QuickBooks. Example:

Acme Inc
ATTN: John Doe
123 Fake Street
Widgets Department
City, State 12345 USA

I edit the address in Method to eliminate the ATTN: Line, pull "123 Fake Street" to Addr1 position from position 2, move "Widgets Department" up to Addr2 from position 3 and leave position 3 blank. The resulting address in Quickbooks is:

Acme Inc
123 Fake Street
Widgets Department
Widgets Department
City, State 12345 USA

When looking at errors under QUICKBOOKS >> RESOLVE CONFLICTS (when there is a conflict) I'm looking at the XML being sent from Method to Quickbooks. Lo and behold, when a field is EMPTY, it doesn't even ATTEMPT to send the empty field to QuickBooks!!

This is obviously very frustrating. As you have mentioned, the synchronization process has nothing to do with the API. Based on what I'm seeing here, there is a flaw in the Method synchronization engine in that it does not even attempt to replace valid data in Quickbooks with NULL or EMPTY values.

What I am wondering here, obviously, is simply HOW do I initiate a synchronization with QuickBooks where previously non-null values in QB can be replaced with NULL or EMPTY values. Does this have to be done with an API call? I don't get why this would be the case when API calls have nothing to do with Quickbooks synchronization.

Thanks in advance!!

Re: Issues with Address Fields

Method_David — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:50:52 GMT

Hi nick_warren,

Rather than wait for the sync to happen, you can invoke either of the following functions MethodAPIActionSendToDesktop or MethodAPIActionSendToDesktopV2. This should initiate a sync.

Can you elaborate on the rearranging address fields problem?

Dave

Re: Issues with Address Fields

nick_warren — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:51:14 GMT

Paul,

Sending the blank fields and then waiting for sync is not an option for us. We need this to be a so called, real time solution. We cannot keep syncing QB, go back to our software, send the address again and then sync again. It will make the work very tedious, which is what we're trying to prevent.

Moreover, my problem which I stated before and you guys did not address is that I am sending EMPTY values to the City, State, PostalCode and Note fields through the API but when the sync occurs, those are not shown in the XML request to QuickBooks. This is where the problem starts. Why can't we force these fields into the request, even if they are empty inside Method? On every request to Method, I'm "deleting" those City, State, PostalCode and Note fields. The wierd thing here that in the request to QuickBooks, Method sends the Note field with the empty value (<Note />) but not the City, State and PostalCode.

Another issue that I noticed is that when I update Method through the API, Method updates correctly. For some reason when SYNCING, QuickBooks "re-arranges" the address field and updates Method. I'm not sure why this is happenning.

Can you think of any other way to make this work?

Nick

Re: Issues with Address Fields

Method_Paul — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:59:12 GMT

Nick -

These are the same addresses that I used when I was trying to help you before and gave you the solution of sending blank addresses.

Can you confirm that you have tried what I suggested, and that is:

(1) Send blank values for all of the fields I listed above.

(2) Checked after a sync to see if QuickBooks accepted all the blanks as requested.

(3) If not all blanks were accepted, send the blank values request a 2nd time.

(4) And then after making sure that all values are blank, finally sending the request?.

If you have followed those steps, then you are experiencing something different from what I am seeing. I would like to look at your audit trail so that I can see when those requests were sent and what was sent in the request so that I can learn more what is different between yours and mine.

I would also like your permission to reset this customer from my API calls to verfiy the same happens for me.

I will need you to private message me, using the link on my profile in this forum post, the Company Account, the RecordID of the target customer, and the dates and times you have been making these reset attempts.

I look forward to your reply.

Paul

P.S. in regards to my "failure" to respond to your post about blank values. I can verify that blank values are being sent to QuickBooks, even if they are being omitted in the conflicts.

Re: Issues with Address Fields

Method_David — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:31:12 GMT

Hi nick_warren,

You mentioned you have a conflict. Until that conflict is resolved the change will not occur in QB in this case. When a conflict occurs the sync engine does not know how to proceed, so to protect your data from being corrupted it waits for you to tell it how to resolve the conflict.

Here's a scenario, You change an invoice in QB, but in method at the same time someone changes the same invoice in method. If a sync occurs what set of changes to the invoice should be the final one? How does the sync engine know? So to play it safe the engine does not change anything, raises a conflict and waits for you tell it how to proceed.

Dave

Re: Issues with Address Fields

nick_warren — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:13:55 GMT

Well, you guys changed the location of the question to the API forum, not me :)

Dave, this has nothing to do with the conflicts. I suggest you access my account and see for yourself. Moreover, I'm pretty sure you are not replcating the issue here, because you are starting from a new customer.

Please try to do the following:

Add this customer to QuickBooks using the following ShipTo Address:

<addr2>100 Broadway St</addr2>

<addr4>Phone: 1111111</addr4>

After you added this customer please try to EDIT it through the API and send the following address

<addr2>Nick Warren</addr2>

<addr3>100 Broadway St</addr3>

<addr5>Phone: 1111111</addr5>

You will see a conflict. QuickBooks will not go ahead and make the changes.

After the API call the data do CHANGE in my Method account, but a confilict occurs. QB Sync is invoked from Method Desktop App.

Moreover, when you send blank fields, you do not see them in the request. For instance, I try to send a <city></city>. I do see it when debugging but when it reaches QuickBooks your Sync Engine is ignoring it and its now shown in the request.

Nick

Re: Issues with Address Fields

Method_David — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:19:00 GMT

Hi nick_warren,

The api is not the synchronization engine. The api manipulates data in your method account. The synchronization engine is what moves data between your method account and QB.

First question, have you followed the steps from Paul above? I have and the ship address fields clears just fine.

Second question, adter syncing if you have a conflict, have you resolved the conflict? Quickbooks may not update certain data...including ship address. fields...unless the conflict is resolved

Third Question, after your api call, have you checked that the data changes appear in your method account?

Fourth Question, How are you invoking the QB sync?

Dave

Re: Issues with Address Fields

nick_warren — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:12:20 GMT

Guys I understand all of you are exteremly busy but this issue is very urgent for us and I will really apprecaite it if you can attend to it.

My biggest problem at this time is that the Sync engine simply ignores all the empty fields that we send its way through the API.

Thank you!

Nick