Commerce Server

Please note:Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Hosts:

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
It is time to start this chat. Thanks for attending. We will first introduce our hosts today.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
My name is Ben Miller. I am the MVP Lead for Commerce,Biztalk and CMS Servers as well as ASP.NET/XML and Web Services. I will be your moderator for this chat.

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Hi, my name is Henry, I am part of the Microsoft Services organization focusing on E-Business application development projects.

Host: Andrew (Microsoft)
My name is Andrew Iseminger. I'm a Release Manager for Ebiz Servers.

Host: Jamie (Microsoft)
My name is Jamie Westover. I'm a lead technical writer for Ebiz Servers.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Good Morning, I'm a Program Manager in charge of the Order Capture System (including Pipelines, Baskets, Purchases Orders etc) for Commerce Server 2002. Please let me know how we can help you today!

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
Let's begin.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: Any recent updates to Retail2002 or any expected?

A: Not at this time.. I'll confirm that no changes were part of CS Service Pack 2

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: Is there a tool that will allow me to examine the contents of a pup?

A: Not at this time.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: Ok. How problematic will it be to upgrade our Commerce installations to SP2?

A: Most installations of SP2 have been performed without any difficulty.

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: If developing a site in VB.NET could anyone summarize which routines should be kept in pipeline and which could be coded?

A: Basically, pipelines components are great for encapsulating distinct bits of logic that are going to be run multiple times - usually tied to a specific part of the order process.

A: So, if you have something you need to do every time you display the basket (like adjust prices or add data from a custom databse), this is a great use of a pipeline component.

A: Other examples would be something you need to do at checkout time (like checking/updating inventory held outside of the product catalog).

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: Regarding pipelines isn’t it just as easy now to do those things in vb or c#. i find scripting pipelines cumbersome.

A: Agreed, the scripting interface leaves much to be desired. From a reuse and ease of development perspective, it's best to write them as components, not script

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: I'd like to know what is your best estimate of the efforts taken (in man-days maybe) to implement a plain vanilla e-commerce web sites using Commerce 2002? Q:

A: Really tough question. Even the most "vanilla" typically have their own special challenges.

A: Given the 5/10 for developers, realistically, you are looking at 3 months from vision through design, develop, test and deploy.

A: It's just hard to get the first one out the door in less time due to many factors.

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: Based on jrosick's question, I'm suggesting that people are not sure Why they Should use a pipe

A: The pipeline framework provides a "well-known" interface into the Commerce Order System.

A: By writing a pipeline component, you gain the ability to plug this component into any pipeline process simply by configuration.

A: So, when you need to reuse a specific component, it's a matter of configuration, not additional coding.

A: Additionally, by following the pipeline framework, you can easily plug and play other components if your needs change.

A: For instance, you can start off with a simple, custom written tax component, and then easily plug in a more robust 3rd party component when your needs change.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: If we set the CommerceContext.EnableCaching property to true, is the ProductCatalog automatically cached?

A: The cache only works with "simple" objects eg: strings, string-collections, scalar-values etc. It doesn't cache "complex" objects (eg: product catalog which may be holding references to other objects) or "large" objects (eg: datasets).

A: I believe there is more information on this in the documentation.. I can look it up if you weren't able to find it.

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: I am interested in using CS 2002 to build a solution where different entities will maintain their own product catalogs. The catalogs will be identicle in structure but different in the products they contain. Can commerce server handle this?

A: Yes, CS can handle this. You could utilize the BizDesk Permissions to restrict access, or you could utilize the abilty to import XML, and have them maintain the catalog outside of CS.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: We have a developed CS2k2 site but found a problem when it came to deploying the system. We have 2 web servers and a single db server. There is a firewall located between the DB server and the web servers, the problem occurs when we run Basket.SaveAs

A: Nick, take a look at this article..http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306843

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: could you also give a target client profile for a full MSIB solution > what are the characteristics of a client that would benefit from this robust solution?

A: First off, MSIB offers a robust, fully tested, set of components, code, reference architecture and documentation/procedures.

A: On top of that, the primary features are providing the ability to integrate content stored in Content Management Server - and managed by marketing or other non-developers with Commerce Server data.

A: Example 1: Ability to let marketing manage the product description, images, etc. inside of CMS, while core product data (size, price, sku, etc.) are stored in CS. MSIB provides solution to manage this process.

A: Example 2: Ability to use the CS profiling and targeting engine to personalize and target CMS content to particular users.

Host: henryw (Microsoft)
Q: con't, what if I wanted to add catalog maintance functionality into the site itself, so used could purchase items on part of the site or retailers could logon and maintain products on another part?

A: Yes, you could do this via the API. One thing to be wary of, the Catalog Base Class Library doesn't expose update capabilities. You will need to use the Primary Interop Assemblies that expose the previous COM functionality.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: We can have multiple CS sites for both Standard and Enterprise version. My question is what is the difference between a CS site and a CS application?

A: A CS site can have many applications, for example: www.foo.com can is the site, but the Business Desk and the site itself would count as 2 applications

A: a site is a collection of resources and applications

A: an application is a single IIS application

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: Can you comment on any real clients having implemented an full integration of Commerce 2002 Product Catalog with Microsoft CRM product catalogue?

A: I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, but I know it has been done. I'll see if I can get this answered for you before the chat is over

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: dennis_msft: how can we have access to anyone of you after the chat is over...just to make sure that I can follow up with you for the CRM integration (and maybe some other questions)

A: The newsgroups would be one method of continuing the conversation.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
We will take the questions that we currently have. Then we will conclude this chat.

Host: Dennis (Microsoft)
Q: what is the microsoft recommended solution for caching the product information? the .net cache? or the LRU object which is mentioned in the documentation?

A: If would be best if you used the caches Commerce Server provides for development with CS

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
This has been a great chat. Great Questions and fantastic experts. Thank you for attending todays chat.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
We have Chats on Commerce Server 2002 (and other versions) on Every 2nd Thursday at 10:00 AM PST. Please mark your calendars and bring all your questions and we will see you then.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
Be sure to go to the newsgroups if you have further questions that either were not addressed by this chat, or if you have other questions.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
The newsgroups are microsoft.public.commerceserver.*

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
Thanks to our hosts and thanks for all your questions. See you next month.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
Be sure to also check out the transcripts on the Microsoft Technet Chat Transcript Archive.

Moderator: Ben Miller (Microsoft)
Have a great day.

For further information on this topic please visit the following:

Newsgroups: Commerce Server

Commerce Transcripts: Read the archive of past Commerce chats.

Website: Visit the Microsoft Commerce Server site.

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