10 – 12 APRIL 2005 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Microsoft Commerce Server 2002:

Introduction to Virtual Catalogs

Abdellatif Tarhine
Microsoft Regional Director for North Africa
Atarhine@Netopia-Solutions.com
Session Overview

Commerce Server 2002 overview

Key features of Commerce Server 2002
Commerce Server 2002 architecture
Product system catalog structure and schema
Types of catalogs in Commerce Server 2002
Virtual catalogs
Commerce Server 2006
Commerce Server 2002 Overview

Commerce Server 2002 is composed of

five major systems:
Product Catalog System
Business Analytics System
Profiling System
Targeting System
Business Processing Pipelines System
Anatomy of Commerce Server

Business Analytics System

Business Desk

Commerce Server Manager

Product
Targeting Profiling
Catalog
System System
System

Business Processing Pipelines System

SQL SQL
Server LDAP SQL
Server ODBC
Server
Other
Apps Commerce Server Catalogs
Data Warehouse Campaigns Profiles
Orders
Solution Sites
Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Product Catalog System

Manage millions of products.

Create multilingual and multicurrency catalogs.
Apply multiple search mechanisms so users
visiting your site can find what they need in your
catalog.
Import, export, create, and manage online
catalogs.
 Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Product Catalog System

Example code for Changing Non-Multilingual Properties to

Multilingual

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<UpgradeInfo>
<PropertyName>Description</PropertyName>
</UpgradeInfo >

CS2002Upgrade –L –N "connection string to the catalog database" –X

"path of the XML file"
Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Profiling System

Collect information you specify for any business-

related item - EX: anonymous users, organization
Profile information is stored in the Profiles data
store (Active Directory, SQL Server, or both)
 Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Profiling System
Code to Connect to the Profiles Store
1. Create a SiteConfigReadOnly object and initialize it for the
"Retail" site.
Dim oSiteConfigReadOnly Set oSiteConfigReadOnly =
Server.CreateObject _ ("Commerce.SiteConfigReadOnly")
oSiteConfigReadOnly.Initialize "Retail"
2. Retrieve the connection string to the Profile Store and release
the SiteConfigReadOnly object.
Dim sBDSConnect sBDSConnect =
oSiteConfigReadOnly.Fields("Biz Data Service")
_ .Value.Fields("s_ProfileServiceConnectionString").Value

Set oSiteConfigReadOnly = Nothing

Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Business Analytics System
Analyze site effectiveness by running Commerce Server
reports, or by creating your own custom reports.
Provide intelligent cross-sell capabilities, and
dynamically recommend products to users as they
navigate your site.
Divided into three main parts:
Data Warehouse
Predictor
Analysis Reporting
Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Targeting System

Personalize the buying experience with targeted

merchandising.
Create and schedule campaigns for customers who
compete within the same industry. The competing ads
are never shown on the same page.
Charge your advertising customers based on the number
of ad requests or clicks they want their ads to receive.
Charge your advertising customers based upon the page
on which they want their ad to appear.
Commerce Server 2002 Overview
Business Processing Pipelines System

Tailor your order and merchandising processes

to fit your requirements today, while being able
to easily modify them over time, as your
business grows and changes.
The Order Processing pipeline (OPP) provides
the sequence of steps that are used to process
purchases from your site
Commerce Server Tools

Commerce Server .NET Application Framework.

Solution Sites
Commerce Server Site Packager
Commerce Server Business Desk
Commerce Server Business Desk

Business Desk hosts business management

modules that you use to configure, manage, and
analyze your sites.
Business Desk applications are provided in
Solution Site packages.
Business Desk has two parts: the Business
Desk application and the Business Desk client
Commerce Server Business Desk
Key Features
The ability to scale up to support the largest Internet
commerce sites
Improved out-of-the-box operations and manageability
Feature and performance improvements
Support for multilingual and multicurrency
implementations
Catalog System Design Goals

Need to be able to:

Define rich catalog content for any type of products
Define customer/market specific catalogs
Describe products in multiple languages
Control who can change what
Allow buyers to easily find relevant products
Exchange catalogs with trading partners
 Catalog Architecture
Commerce
Commerce
Server
ASP.NET Site Server
ASP Site Caches SQL Server™

Catalog Catalog
Schema
Design .NET FW Collection
Classes
Catalog Catalog
Exchange Editor
Catalog
BizTalk
®
COM API
Server Business Desk Layer Catalog DTS
Catalog modules
Export/
Business Desk Import
Framework
Commerce Server Business
Catalog XML,
CSV
DW
Catalog System Features
Business Desk administration interface
Simple catalog design UI
User-definable product types
Security
Sample catalogs – Adventure Works
Multiple search mechanisms
Import/Export/Merge of catalogs through XML
XML-data schema for catalogs
Catalog exchange through BizTalk Server
Export to business data warehouse for reporting
COM and .NET APIs
Catalog Structure
Catalog
Collection

Catalog A Catalog B Catalog C

Category 1 Category 2

Category 1a Category 1b

Accessory Product Y
Product X

Variant1
Variant2
Variant3
Product Definition
Template for a product describes a type of
product
For example,
Guitar has:
Brand name
Model number
Image
Description
Type
Number of strings
Body type
Weight
List price
And so on
Products Can Have Variants
For example, Movie
has: Instance of “Movie”
Title
“Movie Title”
ID
Description MV131
Director
Stars …
Synopsis
Director Name

And variant properties that change for different “versions”

of the product: Actor, Actress
Variants of MV131
SKU
Format 131001
… 131002 131003
Price DVD VHS LD
24.50 16.50 35.00
Property Definitions
Can be one of the following types:
Text/Multilingual Text Filename
Number Decimal
Currency Date/time
Multiple choice/Multilingual Multiple Choice

And can have the following attributes:

Display on site, display name
Free-text searchable
Export to Business Data Warehouse
Minimum, maximum length/value
Specification searchable
Additional properties can be defined through API
Catalog Schema
Category Properties Product
Definitions Property Definitions
‘name’

Catalog Property
Category Type ‘size’ Product Type
Schema ‘DEPT’ ‘PANTS’
Property
‘color’

DEPT
Catalog ‘Jeans’ PANTS
’Designer’
Data

Size: 36; Color: Green

Retro Closet
Size: 34; Color: Black
Size: 34; Color: Green
Size: 32; Color: Blue
Size: 32; Color: Green
Virtual Catalogs
Powerful way to define customer or region
specific pricing and/or product selection
Subset or aggregate content from “base”
catalogs
Can be used to apply a currency exchange
rate
Catalog Type Comparison
Commerce Server 2000
Base catalogs
Custom catalogs
Catalog sets

Commerce Server 2002

Base catalogs
Virtual catalogs
Catalog sets
Multilingual catalogs
Creating a Virtual Catalog
When you create a virtual catalog you specify:
The name of the catalog.
The currency that will be used to price products (for
example, USD).
You can create up to 10,000 virtual catalogs.
Defining Virtual Catalogs
Virtual catalogs are defined by a set of rules.
Those rules are:
Inclusion rules.
Exclusion rules.
Price rules.
Managing Virtual Catalogs

You can easily manage virtual catalogs in the

Business Desk.
You can configure security in the Business Desk.
System administrators can use the Product
Catalog System APIs to manage virtual catalogs.
Performance
Virtual catalogs are by default implemented as SQL
Server views.
Run-time performance of virtual catalogs is less than
base catalogs.
To improve run-time performance of virtual catalogs,
you can materialize them.
Materialize your virtual catalogs by using the
MaterializeVC.vbs script provided with the product.
 Virtual Catalog – Example 1
“Wingtip Toys” enters contract with “Tailspin Toys” to offer them motorcycle
wheels at 20 percent off regular price.

Base Wingtip Virtual

catalog catalog
Tailspin

Motorcycle Truck Motorcycle Truck

wheels wheels wheels wheels

%
-20
Product P1 Product P2 Product P3 Product P1 Product P2 Product P3
$150.00 $125.00 $145.00 $150.00
$120.00 $125.00
$100.00 $145.00
 Virtual Catalog – Example 2
Multicurrency scenario
“Fabrikam, Inc.” wants to offer its products priced in Canadian dollars to Canadian
shoppers.
Create Clothes-CAN, Include Clothes, div prices by 0.556.

Base Clothes Virtual

catalog catalog
Clothes-CAN

Shoes Dresses Shoes Dresses

Product P1 Product P2 Product P3 Product P1 Product P2 Product P3

$50.00 $125.00 $145.00 $50.00
$89.93 $125.00
$224.82 $145.00
$260.79
 Virtual Catalog – Example 3
“Fabrikam, Inc.” doesn’t sell certain products to France – needs to exclude those
products.
Create ‘Clothes-FRN’ catalog, exclude category XYZ.

Base Clothes Virtual

catalog catalog
Clothes-FRN

Shoes XYZ Shoes

Product P1 Product P2 Product P3 Product P1 Product P2

$50.00 $125.00 $145.00 $50.00 $125.00
Virtual Catalog – Example 4
Aggregation scenario
“Southridge Video” sells technical books from a number of publishers.
Create VC Southridge, Include Publisher1 catalog, Publisher2 catalog.

Publisher1
Base Books Virtual
catalog catalog
Southridge

Publisher2 Visual C#™ Visual Basic®

Base .NET .NET
catalog Books

Product P1 Product P2 Product P3

$89.93 $24.82 $60.79
Catalog Security Support
Commerce Server 2002 introduces the ability to
secure certain catalog items within the Business
Desk.
Leverages Business Desk security framework.
Supports control over which Business Desk users
can edit:
Each catalog.
Categories within a catalog.
Particular properties.
Catalog XML Format

Provides a mechanism for getting data into and

out of our catalog database
Represents both catalog schema
and data
Suitable for mapping using BizTalk Server
mapping tool
Catalog XML File Validation
Commerce Server 2002 provides the ability to
validate catalog XML files.
Helps to identify bad catalog XML files and
common mistakes in creating them.
New API:
ValidateXML
Returns a recordset of (up to 100) errors, or a
success code.
Also exposed within the Business Desk:
Validate only check box on XML import dialog.
Displays errors within the Business Desk UI.
Scale Points

Up to 5 million products per catalog database

Up to 10,000 product catalogs (total base +
virtual)
Up to 10,000 virtual catalogs
Up to 10,000 rules/virtual catalog
Up to 1,000 properties per catalog
Virtual Catalog Summary

Virtual catalogs
Implemented as SQL Server views
Can be subset of a base catalog
Can be created from multiple catalogs
Can be associated with specific languages
Can be associated with a specific currency
Support for up to 10,000 virtual catalogs
Commerce Server 2006
Connect seamlessly to internal and partner
applications and systems like SAP, MBS, JD
Edwards, and others through
Microsoft BizTalk Server adapters.
Manage and share business data through
industry-standard Web SOAP XML protocols
Provide customers and partners with Web-based
self service through access to order status and
inventory availability
Commerce Server 2006
Exchange and aggregate product catalog
information from across your business and from
trading partners to present expanded product
and service line offerings
Develop solutions more quickly with an
integrated development environment through
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Integration with
Visual Studio 2005 and the
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.
Commerce Server 2006
Automate the distribution and movement of data
and sites across multiple environments with site
staging and replication.
Take advantage of new deployment and
configuration tools that simplify the
implementation of secure commerce solutions.
Expand business visibility across your channels
with SQL Server Reporting Services, which will
be included in Commerce Server as the reporting
interface.
© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.