Commerce Server Blog

Today Microsoft has released December version commerce server 2009 VPC and you can able to download it from connect website. This VPC is same as CS2009 September/November VPC but expiry date was updated and there are no changes to the content. To download this VPC, you have to fill a survey. Once you submit the survey (by providing all details), it will take 1-2 business days to get your copy and it can be seen from downloads folder. No e-mail notification will be sent to you confirming its availability. So, what are you waiting for – click on the link below and download your copy.

https://connect.microsoft.com/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=10038&SiteID=643&wa=wsignin1.0

One of my friend (Amit) has given a try to install commerce server November CTP on SharePoint 2010 (with Windows 2008 x64 Enterprise, SQL Server 2008 SP1& VS2010) but when we run SharePoint commerce services configuration, he got below error.

When I approached Microsoft support team, I came to know that current commerce server (November) CTP version is not supported and currently CS support team is working on it and hopefully availability of SharePoint 2010 support will be in in new year (in January CTP).

This blog is continuation to my blog entry “Creating custom display types in commerce server”. In my previous blog entry, I have explained how can we display adobe flash advertisements and in this blog post, I will explain how can we display silver light advertisements in commerce server. The steps are pretty simple –> Each advertisement will store template ID and the properties. Based on the template Id, commerce server loads the template structure are replace tokens with properties and file output is rendered to HTML.

The steps for creating silverlight display type is pretty simple.

1. Create the HTML required to render for silver light: If you are not aware of the HTML structure – open any silverlight website (silverlight.net) in your web browser, go to code behind and copy the silverlight loading object tag – as shown below

2. Identify the properties that needs to get updated from Marketing manager: In this step, we will identify the tokens when are required to get input from the customer. For example, here I have identified following tokens

• Source Param
• Background
• Height
• Width

so, my template structure will become like this

3. Create a display template into marketing system: You can find the code block on this blog to create or modify the DisplayTemplate and the URL is http://microsoftblog.co.in/commerceserver/creating-custom-display-types-in-commerce-server/

That’s all… Now you can able to see silverlight template in your marketing system. In coming days, I will try to write a blog entry on how to show Google advertisements in commerce server.

Knowing the condition of a SKU is compulsory during checkout process. The sku condition can be “In stock”, “out of stock”, “Pre-ordered”, “Back Ordered”, etc. The status calculation is based on commerce server global settings as well as settings on sku. In this post, we will learn how commerce server calculates inventory.

Commerce server inventory behavior is driven by site resources. To see inventory site resources – follow below steps.

• Open commerce server manager.
• Expand commerce server manager –> commerce sites –> [Your site] –> Site resources –> click on Inventory.

Two site resources setting will play key role in determining the sku condition

1. Ignore missing SKUs: This resource is used to specify whether a missing sku can be treated as in-stock or out-of-stock. If the value is set to –1(true) then the missing sku is treated as in-stock and if the value is set to 0 (false) then the missing sku is treated as “out-of-stock”.
2. Stock Handling: This resource is used to specify whether pre-order and back-order can be associated to a sku. If the value is set to –1(true) then the stock handling exist for SKUs(i.e., a sku can be pre-ordered or back-ordered) and if the value is set to 0 (false) then stock handling doesn’t exist for SKUs.

The below flow chart shows how commerce server calculates the inventory.

In the first condition, we will check whether a product catalog is mapped to an inventory catalog. If it is not then we will determine inventory status on site resource –“Ignore missing Skus”. If the product catalog is associated then we will check the inventory condition based on sku status. If the status is set to disabled then the inventory condition is “out of stock” and if the status is ignored then the inventory condition is “In stock”. If the sku status is “enabled” then commerce server calculates inventory based on site resource “stock handling”.

In recent commerce server training, new commerce server developers have raised quite good number of questions which has triggered me to create more blogs in next few weeks. One of the question they have asked is – “I would like to give 50% discount to a corporate from a particular city”. Their perception is that the targeting will work with only UserObject profile and they have some work around to implement this functionality.

Commerce server provides us functionality to target all profile objects i.e., we can able to target a discount or advertisement to a user based on his profile properties like credit card, address or organization profile. When you install commerce server, by default, you can able to see only userobject and targeting context in the targeting dropdown.

If you want to show other profile objects in field dropdown – follow below steps.

1. Open Marketing Manager

2. From left pane, under views -> click on “Expressions”.

3. From left pane, under tasks -> click on “Set targeting profiles”

4. A popup opens. All available profiles are shown on left side list box and already targeted profiles are shown on right side list box.

5. Use Add button to add a profile from profile list box to targeted list box and use remove button to add a profile from targeted list box to profile list box. Use remove all button to remove all profiles from targeted list box.

The student query can be easily achieved by targeting organization profile.

	If you try to save the window without selecting any profile under targeted list box – the application throws following error – “You must specify at least one profile in the targeted profiles list.”.
	If you try to remove a profile but it was used by another target expression the application will throw following error – “The Expression Category object cannot be deleted because another Expression object depends on it.”