| Author |
Is this an appropriate use of commerce server?
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| scottishsweetie 2005-07-29, 8:07 am |
| Hi
I am completely new to Commerce Server my only experience if 8 fun
packed hours yesterday reading "Building
Solutions with Microsoft Commerce Server 2002" book yesterday.
We have a client who builds houses. They are looking to have a site
that will allow users who have purchased a
house that has not been built yet to customize their house. For example
pick the colors of the walls or what
kitchen applicances to put in. This will be in the form of a shopping
cart.
The twist is that there is a different catalog of products for each
type of house they build. They only build
maybe 5 of each type and they build thousands of homes every year so
that is a lot of different catalogs.
A second twist is that some products aren't available if a part of the
houses build stage has passed. For
example you can't change the color of the walls if the kitchen units
are aleady up.
Can you do this kind of thing in Commerce Server? Is that what Virtual
Catalogs are for and pipelines?
Some advice please?
Mark
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| Colin Bowern 2005-07-29, 5:55 pm |
| Mark,
It sounds like it will certainly require some work. In fact I think the
implementation on any platform would likely require a bit of work based on
what you are describing. It sounds like your first job is to map out the
business rules. That is irregardless of the platform you choose. Once you
have those you can build the intelligence into the add to cart and basket
pipelines to achieve the result you are going for. Not having sufficient
detail I can agree that from a high level perspective virtual catalogs will
be helpful on a per-house model basis. Again, understanding the business
rules and workflows will help determine the exact architecture of the
catalog system.
I would recommend getting the Developer Edition, the latest Commerce Server
2002 documentation and the Starter Site to get comfortable with the API set.
It's in a transition state in the current release from the COM APIs of
Commerce Server 2000 to what should be a fully rearchtiected .NET API set in
Commerce Server 2006. As a result the current release has a few
idiosyncracis to deal with. I found the Building Solutions with MSCS2002
book neglected a number of key issues for production sites which the Starter
Site covers.
Hope that helps!
Colin
"scottishsweetie" <scottishsweetie@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1122628239.921907.17470@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi
>
> I am completely new to Commerce Server my only experience if 8 fun
> packed hours yesterday reading "Building
>
> Solutions with Microsoft Commerce Server 2002" book yesterday.
>
> We have a client who builds houses. They are looking to have a site
> that will allow users who have purchased a
>
> house that has not been built yet to customize their house. For example
> pick the colors of the walls or what
>
> kitchen applicances to put in. This will be in the form of a shopping
> cart.
>
> The twist is that there is a different catalog of products for each
> type of house they build. They only build
>
> maybe 5 of each type and they build thousands of homes every year so
> that is a lot of different catalogs.
>
> A second twist is that some products aren't available if a part of the
> houses build stage has passed. For
>
> example you can't change the color of the walls if the kitchen units
> are aleady up.
>
> Can you do this kind of thing in Commerce Server? Is that what Virtual
> Catalogs are for and pipelines?
>
> Some advice please?
>
> Mark
>
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| scottishsweetie 2005-08-01, 5:51 pm |
| Thanks that is a great pointer in the right direction. Is there a
release date for CS 2006? All I have seen is early 2006.
The current set up is that they have a back-end system that holds a
catalog and a mechanism that allows them to set what products are
available for each house type. The system also holds a list of bought
houses and the type of the house.
>From my understanding of CS we need to hook into back-end system and
populate a Base Catalog with all the products. We then need to populate
Virtual Catalogs based on what items are available for each house type.
This can be done with the object model.
At the front-end the user logs into the site and we will get the user's
house type and status of the build. We will then load items from the
virtual catalog for that house type and do some kind of filtering on
the catalog to only show the products that are available at the point
in the houses build. Is this sort of thing done in a pipeline? I was
also looking at doing a join to an external table
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/e....asp?frame=true)
that would provide a filter on what products were available.
Is this along the right lines?
Cheers,
Mark
| |
| Colin Bowern 2005-08-01, 5:51 pm |
| Hi Mark,
Is a product only available at a certain stage of the construction process,
or is it available before that stage is completed? If so I would put the
products into categories depending on their type and then create a property
to say the last stage that it can be selected in. Then when it comes time
to display you would filter on the product property (e.g. Select all
products where the building stage <= 4 - Interior Decorating).
It sounds like a good use of the shopping cart concept though and one that
people will be familiar with. The pipelines would be used to provide
product sub-totals, ensure the products in the cart match the building
stage, and create the final order.
CS2006 is due out next year mainly because of the dependency on the next
release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. Visual Studio 2005 will be
released around the beginning of November and then there will be a time
period of testing and release candidates after that to ensure that Commerce
Server 2006 works properly on the final version of the runtime. I can't
speak to the exact timing but given the name including 2006 I think it's
safe to say ti will show up in that calendar year.
Cheers,
Colin
"scottishsweetie" <scottishsweetie@lycos.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1122907230.763399.235280@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks that is a great pointer in the right direction. Is there a
> release date for CS 2006? All I have seen is early 2006.
>
> The current set up is that they have a back-end system that holds a
> catalog and a mechanism that allows them to set what products are
> available for each house type. The system also holds a list of bought
> houses and the type of the house.
>
> populate a Base Catalog with all the products. We then need to populate
> Virtual Catalogs based on what items are available for each house type.
> This can be done with the object model.
>
> At the front-end the user logs into the site and we will get the user's
> house type and status of the build. We will then load items from the
> virtual catalog for that house type and do some kind of filtering on
> the catalog to only show the products that are available at the point
> in the houses build. Is this sort of thing done in a pipeline? I was
> also looking at doing a join to an external table
> (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/e....asp?frame=true)
> that would provide a filter on what products were available.
>
> Is this along the right lines?
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
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| scottish 2005-08-02, 2:54 am |
| The products are only available up to a stage so your idea of a property is great.
Thanks for your advice I feel a lot more comfortabel that we can use CS for the project now.
Mark |
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