User Guide

Chapter 10232
Known Issues With Using UPS
Shipping Contracts
The UPS shipping contracts allow you to present UPS shipping options and
calculate shipping costs based on input parameters for an order in your online
store. Currently, the contracts only support shipping calculation for UPS.
The shipping calculations rely on passing input data from your order to a UPS cgi
script. Because the cgi script returns its own page, there is no direct way to grab
and manipulate the returned information from within Drumbeat. To accomplish
the latter, the input data is passed to the Microsoft Internet Transfer Control
(ITC), which calls the UPS script and gets the cost calculation back. We can then
access the UPS info from the ITC and manipulate it within our page, which
allows the display and storage of the data.
The use if the ITC requires that you register the MSINET.OCX file on your
server. Do this by selecting Run from the server's start menu. Then type "regsvr32
MSINET.OCX" to register the control.
Please note that several problems have been observed when using the UPS
contracts due to problems with the ITC under ASP. A variety of sources, including
Microsoft's online Knowledge Base, acknowledge several problems using the
Internet Transfer Control in ASP. We have encountered one particular error in our
testing: The ITC occasionally generates a "Still Executing Last Request" error.
This can usually be overcome by refreshing the page. The contract to populate a
dropdown list with available shipping options handles this error and displays a
message prompting the user to refresh the page.
Also, we have observed 'Server.CreateObject' errors with the ITC. Apparently, the
ITC was originally designed for use in desktop applications built with VB or
VC++ and must be licensed to create the object. This licensing typically requires
a qualifying MS development product installed on your machine (i.e., some
component of Visual Studio). This is an obvious problem because most ISPs
have no reason to install an MS development product. We currently have no
remedy for this problem, although we are pursuing the possibility of licensing the
control via Drumbeat or creating our own COM object to mimic the ITC
functionality. If you host your own site and have a licensed version of a qualifying
development product, you can install that product on your server and use it with
no problems. Otherwise, you might negotiate with your ISP to install a qualifying
product. Finally, there are third-party shipping solutions of varying cost you
might consider.