Building Solutions with Microsoft Commerce Server 2002

No matter what your organization sells, a well-executed commerce solution can extend your business globally, boost profitability, and help you seize new opportunities faster. Drawing from their extensive, in-the-field experience, online business experts Clayton Peddy and Derek Armentrout teach you to quickly build and deploy a scalable, high-performance site using Commerce Server 2002. They detail how to customize your own solution—incorporating components such as a product catalog, a shopping cart, user profiles, content management, and data-warehousing and analysis capabilities. You get focused, field-proven techniques and hands-on instruction—along with reusable Code Candy from real-world solutions. Discover how to: Determine the business and technical requirements for your site Create and manage user profiles and implement authentication Use Microsoft Content Management Server to manage page templates, images, product data, and other resources Design product catalogs that are easy to use and manage Build the browse, registration, and shopping cart pages Exploit little-known pipeline capabilities, such as inventory calculation and third-party order processing Capture and analyze data on user demographics and buying patterns Create campaigns, promotions, and awards for targeted users Manage site operations using the Business Desk modules Test, stage, and launch your solution

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xi Introduction xiii PART I GETTING STARTED 1 Taking on the E-Commerce Challenge 3 The Challenges of Commerce Sites 4 The Business Challenges 4 The Technical Challenges 5 What Are the Options? 6 Introducing Commerce Server 7 The Commerce Server Systems 8 Administering Your Site Using Business Desk 13 Introducing Content Management Server 16 Choosing a Site Architecture 18 Choosing a Development Language 18 Should You Use the Solution Sites? 20 2 Defining Site Requirements 23 Preparing to Gather Requirements 24 Organizing Your Requirements 25 Documenting the Requirement Details 27 Functional Areas 27 Global Functionality 31 Administration 34 Data Integration 35 Technical Requirements 36 PART II GLOBAL FEATURES OF COMMERCE SITES 3 Authenticating and Managing Users 41 Creating a Profile 42 Choosing a Data Store 43 Creating a Data Store 45 Aggregating Multiple Sources 49 Defining Profile Keys 51 Property Data Types 52 Using Profiles in a Site 56 Implementing Transactions 57 Creating Custom Profiles 59 Using Custom Objects in Profiles 61 Encrypting Sensitive Data 63 One-Way Encryption 66 Two-Way Encryption 68 Designing an Authentication Strategy 68 AuthFilter vs. AuthManager 70 Using Authentication Tickets 71 Writing Tickets Using AuthManager 72 Tracking Anonymous Users 74 Encrypting the Tickets 77 Ticket Tampering 81 Authenticating Users on Site Pages 82 Profiled Pages 82 Nonprofiled Pages 86 Authenticated Pages 87 Granting Authorization to Pages 89 4 Designing Catalogs 93 Creating the Catalog Definition 94 Organizing Products by Using Categories 96 Creating Category Definitions 96 Creating the Category Hierarchy 98 Managing Products 99 Creating Product Definitions 100 Product Variants 101 Pricing 103 Product Relationships 105 Product Sets 108 Using Multiple Catalogs 112 Base Catalogs 112 Catalog Sets 113 Virtual Catalogs 115 Aggregated Catalogs 117 International Catalogs 118 Building Catalogs for the Enterprise 119 Providing Catalogs to Trading Partners 120 Integrating Your Catalog with an External System 122 5 Using Content Management Server 2002 127 The Need for Content Management 127 Introduction to Content Management Server 131 Using Templates in Web Page Design 134 Organizing Pages Using Channels 139 Publishing Content 140 Managing Site Resources 142 Managing the Workflow 143 Integrating CMS with External Sites 145 Using CMS with Commerce Server 146 Content Connector 147 Integration with the Product Catalog 148 6 Targeting Users 151 Building Campaigns 152 Targeting Criteria 153 Ads 158 Discounts 164 E-Mail Campaigns 175 Inside the Content Selection Framework 177 The Selection Process 178 Extending and Customizing the CSF 180 7 Creating the Page Framework 183 Using Pipelines 183 When to Use Pipelines 184 Looking Inside the Pipeline Framework 187 Creating Scalable Sites with Caching 205 Improving Performance with Software Caching 206 Sharing the Load with Hardware Caching 218 Managing Caches 220 PART III BUILDING THE COMMERCE SITE PAGES 8 Building the Browse Area 225 Functional Areas of the Consumer Site 225 Browse Path Overview 226 Developing the Browse Pages 228 Home Page 229 General Navigation 230 Options for the Home Page 235 Category Page 239 Product Index Page 241 Product Detail Page 245 Adding Browse Page Features 251 Category Navigation 252 Price and Discount Display 253 Personalization 256 Store Closure 257 Implementing Search Functionality 258 Types of Search Functionality 259 Search Pages 266 9 Building the Registration and Profile Area 269 Registration and Profile Area Overview 270 Global Considerations for the Registration and Profile Area 271 Address Book Class 272 Shopping List Class 275 Company Class 278 Developing the Registration Pages 280 Login Page 281 Logout Functionality 286 New User Registration Page 287 User Profile Page 290 Shipping and Billing Address Pages 291 Address Book Pages 296 Credit Card Information Page 298 Event Notifications 299 Shopping List Page 301 10 Building the Buy Path 303 Overview of the Buy Path 303 Developing the Shopping Basket Page 305 Using the Commerce Server Shopping Basket Components 305 Shopping Basket Actions 308 Shopping Basket Features 314 Developing the Checkout Process 322 Authentication 322 Shipping Information 326 Billing Address 330 Gift Information 330 Order Review and Payment 332 Order Confirmation 339 Speeding Up the Checkout Process 341 PART IV MANAGING THE COMMERCE SITE 11 Managing the Product Catalog 347 Site Management Using Business Desk 348 Business Desk Modules 348 Overview of the Business Desk Architecture 351 Creating Your Own Catalog Management Tools 370 Customize or Develop from Scratch? 370 Extending the Business Desk Catalog Modules 373 Creating a Custom Catalog Interface 377 12 Managing Campaigns 383 Managing Campaigns with Business Desk 383 Building Custom Tools 388 Campaigns Behind the Scenes 389 Creating a Campaign and a Discount in One Step 392 Creating Target Expressions 396 Implementing Sale Prices Using Discounts 400 Changing Advertising Templates 403 Working with Distribution Lists 404 Assigning User Discount Codes 406 13 Managing Users and Orders 409 Managing Users 410 Building the Customer Support Framework 411 Searching for Users 412 Displaying User Details 418 Managing Orders 422 Searching for Orders 424 Displaying Order Details 427 Printing Order Details from Business Desk 428 Managing Payments 430 PART V BACKOFFICE INFRASTRUCTURE 14 Sending E-Mail from the Commerce Site 441 Sending E-Mail from Site Pages 441 Using the SendSMTP Component 442 Sending an Order Confirmation E-Mail 445 Sending E-Mail in Web Pages 448 Using the Direct Mailer 448 Creating Direct Mail Content 449 Configuring the Direct Mailer Pipeline 450 Measuring the Effectiveness of Direct Mail Campaigns 452 Dealing with Invalid E-Mail Addresses 456 External E-Mail Systems 458 15 Processing Orders 461 Fulfilling Orders Manually 462 Printing the Order Information Templates 464 Printing Shipping Labels 469 Updating the Status in Commerce Server 470 Integrating with BizTalk Server 471 Exporting Orders to BizTalk Server 472 Importing Order Status from BizTalk Server 477 Receiving Orders from BizTalk Server 478 Integrating Directly with a Third-Party System 479 Reporting Order Status to Users 480 Order Lookup Page 480 Order Details Page 483 Tracking Shipping Status on Third-Party Sites 484 Managing Returns 485 16 Migrating from a Legacy Site 489 Migrating Users 490 Migrating User Data 490 Replacing Old Profile Cookies 499 Migrating Distribution Lists 501 Migrating the Product Catalog 503 Creating the Catalog Structure 505 Migrating the Catalog Data 511 Migrating Orders 515 Designing a Migration Strategy 518 17 Analyzing Data with the Data Warehouse 523 The Structure of the Data Warehouse 524 Data Warehouse Logical Schema 525 Data Warehouse Cubes 531 Extending the Data Warehouse 534 Loading the Data Warehouse 539 Loading Commerce Server Data 540 Loading External Data 553 Using Reports 557 Static vs. Dynamic Reports 557 Business Desk Default Reports 559 Creating New Reports 561 18 Deploying Your Site 569 Configuring the Environments 569 Development Environment 570 Quality Assurance Environment 574 Staging Environment 575 Production Environment 575 Building a Deployment Release 576 Using Commerce Server Site Packager 577 Creating a Custom Build 586 Pushing Your Site Through Multiple Environments 590 Pushing Web Pages 591 Pushing Content 591 Pushing Data 592 APPENDIX 595 INDEX 599