Commerce Server Blog

Yesterday Microsoft has released his new commerce server version CTP to the public and you can download it from Microsoft website. Here is the nice quotation from Microsoft on their product release

“We invite you to install this pre-release of the next version of Commerce Server 2009 “R2” into a non-production environment to learn how Commerce Server 2009 “R2” provides an improved business management experience, enhanced cross-channel enablement with 3-tier development and deployment support, and a more streamlined deployment experience.”

The August CTP release includes the following new features:
• Multi-tier development support
• Business Administration Ribbon
• Integrated template pack
• Configuration wizard

Couple of observations.

• One of the nice feature I am looking in commerce server for past few years is Multi-site development – where we can separate commerce server from application server. Once I install this version, I want to see how robust is this feature?
• This CTP works on 64 bit computers. Not sure, if I can able to build my VPC soon. Hopefully Microsoft gives a VPC (with their 90 days time bomb embedded in it) copy to me .
• No upgrade path from CS2007 or CS2009 to CS2009 R2 – you need to uninstall ALL previous versions of Commerce Server before you can install Commerce Server 2009 "R2" August 2009 CTP. Hopefully this will not repeat it in RTM.

I will blog my findings soon.

Note: CTPs are for evaluation purposes only and are intended only for short-term use in a test environment. This CTP will not function after March 2010.

In this post, I am trying to explain what are the steps involved in extending commerce server 2009 sub-systems. The process for extension is the same as CS2007 but some additional steps are added.

1.    Adding Fields in LineItem Table ( Database )
2.    Create Extended Line Item Class
3.    Configure the assembly information in Web config.
4.    Configure the Fields information in Order Mapping.
5.    Configure the Fields information in Order Pipeline.
6.    Execute Ordermapping.exe tool and execute output sql statements in transaction database.
7.    Create new Extended Translator Class to translate entities to CS2007 objects or vise versa.
8.    Configure the assembly  information in Channel Configuration.
9.    Configure the Property Mapping in Mapping Configuration.
10.    Modifying XSLT of the web part so that the updated field is shown.

Note: Green means existing process Blue means new process.

In next posts, I will be going in details explaining the steps involved creating custom translator (in detail).

I came across a typical requirement where we are developing a website for each distributor but the commerce server site is same for all distributor’s website. I.e., the same product catalog data store for all distributors. They have typical requirement concerning which accessories that are to be shown on each product.  For example, distributor will show one accessory within each product  (for example charger for a mobile).  The other distributor wants to show the accessories which are compatible with the product (may be Bluetooth for mobiles).

I have suggested virtual catalogs for each web store and this typical requirement can be easily achievable using product relationship. First create all products in the base catalog and in the next step, create virtual catalog & build them. Now you can able to see all base catalog product and their relationships in the virtual catalog.If you try to remove them then you may get error – “The Relationship XXX could not be removed because it has been inherited from the base catalog.” 

Relationships created in base catalog cannot be removed in virtual catalog  but it will give flexibility to add new relationships to the virtual catalog product.

Now if you rebuild virtual catalog – it will not have impact to the newly added relationship in the virtual catalog. Now if you add any new relationship to the based catalog product and if you rebuild the virtual catalog again, you can able to see the newly added relationship in the virtual catalog and also the entries we have made to the virtual catalog.

For past few years I am working on different ecommerce projects outside India. Many new entrepreneurs believe that ecommerce web sites will not work in India. Well there is some truth behind that with many live instances, where business spends millions of rupees and generated revenue in thousands. I believe, we can able to show miracles in ecommerce space in India. Entrepreneurs bought ideas from US/Europe and tried to rub the existing ideas on Indian customer and forgot simple business rule – “Know your customer”.

Indian customer is very difficult to understand the his trends are changing fast. If you would like to know how few entrepreneurs have done miracles, you have to read the book “IT happened in India” – where how some small companies became giant retailers in few years. One thought I got while reading that book is to incorporate bargain feature within ecommerce website. Yes this feature will attract most of the Indian customers. Middle class Indians will get satisfy when they buy items after bargaining and in live if you see all small retailers will follow this rule. Instead of you giving discount to the customer, let customer say how much he can pay for that product and let the system decide whether to give that product to for that price. For example, I came to the site to buy a optical mouse and the price is shown as 2000 rupees. Instead of you giving discount, you configure your pricing to allow bargain till 1400 rupees. If I bargain for 1000 rupees, the system should denied and can offer 1800 rupees and then if I bargain for 1200 then the system can offer for 1750 rupees and the bargain negotiation continues till a final price is achieved. Once the price is fine with the customer, he will add this product to the cart (with adjusted price) and goes through checkout process.

To make this feature work – start targeting bargain price based on user history and his sale history. If you take same optical mouse example where you can target 1400 Rs. for golden customer 1700 Rs for silver customer and 1900 Rs for new customer. If you observe, the concept is same as targeted marketing discounts but the difference is the (seamless) user experience. The customer feels that after bargaining, he is really gaining some profit out of the transaction.

Coming to technology side – I feel commerce server is not capable handling such complex pricing model. The only option we have is to build custom price bargaining feature and once the deal has happened – using marketing promotion codes we will make the price affect in commerce server subsystems.

We have to rely on Axapta or SAP for such pricing feature. Is it possible to incorporate these features as part of core commerce server.

Every year Avanade will give its prestigious MVP award for its employees. From each country, at the most they will identify a resource and identification is based on an analysis of asset contributions, community postings, and community replies. This year, I received MVP award for my contributions to Avanade communities and asset contributions (especially in commerce server technology).

To receive this prestigious award, I flew to Seattle in the month of June, attended Avanade tech summit. During this event, I received appreciation certificate & award from Aziz Virani, Avanade Executive Vice President, Global Technologies and Solutions(you can also see Avanade CTO – Tyson Hartman in the image). I was delighted and thankful to all people who supported me to achieve this award.