Commerce Server Blog

In most of the B2C web sites, the user account creation process is pretty simple, i.e., the user can able to login to the application once he register in the website. The same process will not be applied for B2B websites as the user has to go undergo some organization process (may be contract sign, security deposit, etc). So, how can we implement workflow in registration process.

For this, we can leverage user object’s account status field. It will take three values – “Inactive”, “Active” and “Requires Approval” and by default commerce server sets this field value to “Active” on user object creation. We will make the user’s account status to “Requires approval” in commerce server on account creation – that means he can’t log in to the application. The business user completes their formalities and can change the user account status to active from business tools. Once enabled, the user can able to log into the application.

I foresee couple of options for you

1. Create a class which extend OperationSequence. This class performs account status update operation through API. Inject this class in channel configuration at “CommerceUpdateOperation_UserProfile”.

2. The second option is creating insert trigger on UserObject as shown below.

After creation registration, if the user try to click on my Account, he may get SPS page with Not authorized exception and was able to find below entry in event log.

when troubleshoot further, I am able to found that the logged in user is not having proper privileges in MOSS site. To fix this, I followed below steps

• Open administrator website (using windows credentials)
• Click on “Site Action” –> “Site Settings” and click on “Modify all Site Settings”.
• Click on “people and groups” under “users and permissions” section.
• Click on “Registered Users” and add newly added user email Id to this group.

Now the end user can can able to access MyAccount page.

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

Recently I came across a post in MSDN communities where the query request says ‘how I can give access to the Merchants so that they can add/browse his products using catalog manager”.

The requirement is genuine and we will get such requests from customer regularly. Some of the commerce server developers think that it is not possible as the user of a role (say catalog Administrator or Editor) can able to see all catalogs in a particular site. In few some cases developers has created a separate site for their tenant/merchant to achieve this functionality. In this blog, I am explaining a simple tip which will allow access to provide multiple tenants to their catalog only.

Simple tip: You can achieve this using Authorization manager setting (Azman) and there are no changes to commerce server configuration settings.

• As you might of aware the Azman works with windows authentication. So, whenever you get a new tenant, you should create his user Id and password in Active Directory (AD).
• As a administrator, create a catalog for the tenant. Now if you reload catalogAuthorizationStore.xml in Azman, you can able to see new scope for the catalog.
• Now you expand the scope and assign proper privileges to tenant AD user id.
  
• Now if the tenant opens the catalog manager, he can able to see only his catalogs.

Note: All operations and tasks are copied from parent to scope level and I recommend to create proper roles and task at scope level too.

In this example, I have assigned my ID to catalog editor role in – Adventure works catalog but not in “Adventure 2 works” catalog. When I open the catalog manager, I can only see adventure works catalog but not the other one (as shown in the image below).

For more information on Azman, refer to msdn – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms914867(CS.70).aspx

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