Open RETS Client HOWTO
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5. Common Tasks

This section covers a number of tasks often used when running the ORC. When appropriate, distinctions will be made to differentiate between Windows and Linux.

5.1 Starting the ORC (Console Mode)

First, open up a console (command-line) application.

Windows

Select Start->Run... from the Task Bar.

Type cmd in the text box provided

At the prompt, change directories to C:\Program Files\orc-x.x.x\bin.

Type orc.bat --console at the prompt.

Linux

Open a console application (e.g., konsole, xterm, gnome-console)

At the prompt, change directories to /usr/local/orc-x.x.x/bin.

Type orc.sh --console at the prompt.

5.2 Starting the ORC (GUI Mode)

Windows

Follow steps 1-3 of Section 5.1, then simply type orc.bat

Linux

Follow steps 1 & 2 of Section 5.1, then simply type orc.sh

5.3 Creating a Search Transaction

In GUI mode, to create a Search Transaction for a given MLS perform the following:

Select Edit->Services... from the menu. This should open the Service Profiles window.

In order to create the Search Transaction, expand the service.

Select the Search node. If this is the first time a Search Transaction has been created for the selected MLS, then a message will appear notifying the user that a Search Transaction does not exist; simply accept the message and proceed.

Create a description by clicking on the Add button and type your description into the text box provided in the Add A Description pop-up window (try give the description a name relevant to it's purpose).

Select the Search Type / Class tab.

Select a Search Type from the dropdown provided.

Select a Class from the dropdown provided.

Select whether the field names provided in the search, should be Standard Names or System Names.

Select the Optional tab.

Choose from one or more of the Optional Request Details. NOTE: these are optional to the Search Transaction. The user may opt to select nothing from this group.

Click on the Query button, and type in your search query. Once satisfied with the query, click the OK button.

Click on the Select button, and optionally, type in the fields you would like to retrieve. Once satisfied with the fields, click the OK button.

5.4 Deleting a Search Transaction

In GUI mode, perform the following:

Select Edit->Services... from the menu. This should open the Service Profiles window.

Select the Search node. It's assumed for this operation, that one or more Search Transactoions have already been created.

Select the description to delete by choosing from the Description dropdown.

Click on the Delete button.

Click the Yes button. This will delete the selected Search Transaction and all it's attributes (i.e., Search Type, Class, Query, etc.)

5.5 Creating a Search Transaction to Retrieve All Active Listings

In GUI mode, perform the following:

Select Edit->Services... from the menu. This should open the Service Profiles window.

In order to create the Search Transaction, expand the service.

Select the Search node. If this is the first time a Search Transaction has been created for the selected MLS, then a message will appear notifying the user that a Search Transaction does not exist; simply accept the message and proceed.

Create a description by clicking on the Add button and typing your description into the text box provided in the Add A Description pop-up window (try to name the description relevant to it's purpose).

Select the Search Type / Class tab.

Select from the Search Type dropdown provided. For the sake of an example, let's say that this particular MLS has the following choices, and the user has selected Property

Property

ActiveAgent

Agent

Office

Select from the Class dropdown provided. Again, let's say this particular MLS has the following choices, and the user has selected Residential

Residential

Multifamily

Condo

Commercial

Select System Names from the Search Field Names grouping.

Click on the Query button, and type (STATUS=|A). The value of (STATUS=|A) is specific to this example. Each MLS will vary. Check the METADATA to determine the listing status field name and values to use.

Repeat steps 1 through 9, for each of the remaining classes. At the conclusion of this process, a total of four descriptions will have been created - one for each Class. For the sake of this example, let's say that the following descriptions were created at Step 4: Residential - Active Search, Multifamily - Active Search, Condo - Active Search, Commercial - Active Search. You can name your descriptions anything you'd like, but try to keep the names short and descriptive.

Once satisfied with your choices, click the OK button of the Service Profiles window to activate your selections.

5.6 Creating a GetObject Transaction

In GUI mode, to create a Search Transaction for a given MLS perform the following:

Select Edit->Services... from the menu. This should open the Service Profiles window.

In order to create the GetObject Transaction, expand the service.

Select the GetObject node. If this is the first time a GetObject Transaction has been created for the selected MLS, then a message will appear notifying the user that a GetObject Transaction does not exist; simply accept the message and proceed.

Create a description by clicking on the Add button and type your description into the text box provided in the Add A Description pop-up window.

Select the Resource / Type tab.

Select a Resource from the dropdown provided.

Select a Type from the dropdown provided.

Select the Multimedia Objects tab. If this is the first time this tab has been selected, then the contents of the Multimedia Objects tab will be empty.

Click on the Retrieve Media button. This will begin the process of retrieving a list of all available images for the selected Resource and Type (see steps 5 - 7).

Once the list has been generated, the user should be presented with a table of data containing three columns: Enabled, Resource Entity, and Object ID List.

Scan the list and click the checkbox to enable those images to include in the download. Enabling two or more Resource Entities, results in a comma-separated list being generated and shown in the Multimedia textbox.

To alter the Object ID List values, simply double-click on the desired cell and then type the list of values to retrieve. Examples include the following: 1:3:5, 1:3, 1:2, where 1, 2, 3 and 5 represent the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th images to retrieve. The asterisk (*) signifies a request to retrieve all images.

5.7 Retrieving Resource Data Using a Description

In console mode, there may be times where a user would prefer to retrieve a specific set of listing data. In those circumstances, it's best to first define a Search Transaction (reference Section 4.2 & Section 5.3). Once the Search Transaction has been defined and a description created, then the user can access the information by typing the following at the console:

Windows

orc.bat --console -e "Residential - Active Search, Condo - Active Search" "My MLSID"

Linux

orc.sh --console -e "Residential - Active Search, Condo - Active Search" "My MLSID"

Where "Residential - Active Search, Condo - Active Search" represent descriptions created within ORC's GUI (reference Section 5.3)

Note: That there may be one or more descriptions passed to the -e option. If the user would like to retrieve data for more than one type of predefined description, then a comma-separated list must be provided. In additon to the -e option, the user may prefer to use the --descriptions option - the outcome will be the same.

5.8 Retrieving All Active Resource Data

IMPORTANT: This assumes that you have already performed the steps outlined in Section 5.5 and Section 5.6.

In console mode, to retrieve all of the listing data for a given MLS simply type the following at the console

Windows

orc.bat --console "My MLSID"

Linux

orc.sh --console "My MLSID"

This should retrieve all of the enabled Search Transactions as well as retrieve all of the enabled GetObject Transactions.

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