Commerce Server Blog

By default, when you install commerce server 2009, a help document (CHM) is created in your local machine. This document has lot of useful information on CS2009/CS2007. One of the disadvantage of this is that you can’t move this document to another machine. Finbar Ryan (MS CS support team) has created a CHM file using PackageThis tool. I thought of sharing the same to the commerce community so that people can start learning commerce server without installing the software. Thanks Finbar for sharing this document to the community. Click below icon to download the file.

At last, my waiting has come to an end when Microsoft has released commerce server 2009 template pack for SharePoint 2010 this week end (17th June 2010). With new CTP R2 and with manual deployment of R2, we can able to make the application work on SPS2010 with no errors.

What this template pack, we get following things

• Default OOB site with new look and feel (green, grey, etc ).
• Site can work on desktop browsers or mobile browsers (windows mobile, Iphone).
• Working code on SharePoint 2010 and support deployment in SPS2010 or SharePoint foundation 2010 environment.
• Supports only in windows 2008 or windows 2008 R2 operating systems.
• Partners SDK – can extend code to create new websites.

After installing the application, here is how it looks.

You can download this template pack from Microsoft site and the url is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=cfd0c459-5a11-4de6-9085-52d59e8d38e6

If this product got released four months before then I would have got a chance to work sps2010 but doesn’t matter, hope I get another opportunity soon to work on SPS2010. In next few weeks, I will start exploring the software and post my observations in this blog. So, stay tuned.

One of collage was facing issue when he tries to get Advertisement content selector.  On below code he used to get the error.

He was new to commerce server and he was getting System.NullReferenceException as shown below.

You will get such errors if targeting context details are not properly configured in web.config. Couple of checks you can make.

1. Make sure CommerceServerSelectionModule exist in <httpModules>

2. Make sure Advertisement entry is properly configured in contentselection settings

After performing both changes, we are able to get the advertisement content selector.

Today Microsoft has released new pre-release build (January 2010 CTP) for review. This CTP is valid through December 31, 2010 and supported in following platforms.

• Windows Server 2008 R2, with SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP2
• Windows Server 2008 SP2, with SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2
• Windows Server 2008 SP2, with SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007 SP2

You can download bits from Microsoft website and the url is.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d6cb6769-6c5e-46c2-a72a-a9911823ffd9

Some of the highlights in this release are

• New naming convention for all file handlers and other class name changes/additions.
• Commerce Server pipelines fail if the culture ID is not added to the ChannelConfiguration.config file.
• New public API changes.
• RequestedPromoCode section in MetadataDefiniton.xml file must be modified.
• The setup for Commerce Foundation Components does not include the assembly Microsoft.Commerce.dll
• Must add /pages to your site URL when using WSS
• Microsoft.Commerce.Application.Common.EtwTraceListener and Microsoft.Commerce.Application.Common API changes

Some of the low lights are

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 is not supported for this release.
• plus –> a bunch of known issues – http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/A/7/8A774702-9ECE-4353-A2CF-03A8E31118D6/Microsoft_Commerce_Server_R2_Readme_January_2010_CTP.htm#WhatsNew

This week Microsoft has released commerce server 2009 VPC and you can able to download it from connect website. This VPC is same as CS2009 September VPC but expiry date update and some minor changes to marketing material. 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/content/content.aspx?ContentID=14602&SiteID=643

Note: This VPC will expire on Feb.12th 2009.