10 – 12 APRIL 2005 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Microsoft Commerce Server 2002: Introduction to Virtual Catalogs Abdellatif Tarhine Microsoft Regional Director for North Africa

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 Commerce Server Manager Solution Sites Product Catalog System Targeting System Profiling System SQL Server Commerce Server Data Warehouse SQL Server Catalogs Campaigns Orders LDAP ODBC SQL Server Profiles OtherApps Business Processing Pipelines System Business Analytics System Business Desk

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 Description 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

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

Business Desk Framework Business Desk Catalog modules Schema Design CatalogEditor Catalog Architecture Catalog COM API Layer SQL Server™ CatalogCollection Export/ Import Commerce Server Catalog XML, CSV Catalog DTS BusinessDW Commerce Server ASP Site Caches BizTalk ® Server Catalog Exchange Commerce Server ASP.NET Site Catalog.NET FW Classes

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 C Catalog B Catalog A Category 1 Category 2 Category 1a Category 1b Product X Variant3 Variant2 Variant1 Product Y Accessory

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: Title ID Description Director Stars Synopsis And variant properties that change for different “versions” of the product: SKU Format Price “Movie Title” MV131 … Director Name Actor, Actress … DVDVHSLD Instance of “Movie” Variants of MV131

Property Definitions Can be one of the following types: Text/Multilingual TextFilename NumberDecimal CurrencyDate/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 Catalog Data Category Type ‘DEPT’ DEPT‘Jeans’ Properties Product Definitions Category Definitions Property‘name’ Property‘size’ Property‘color’ Product Type ‘PANTS’ Retro Closet PANTS’Designer’ Size: 36; Color: Green 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.

Tailspin Virtual catalog Motorcycle wheels Product P1 $ Truck wheels Product P2 $ Product P3 $ Virtual Catalog – Example 1 “Wingtip Toys” enters contract with “Tailspin Toys” to offer them motorcycle wheels at 20 percent off regular price. Motorcycle wheels Wingtip Product P1 $ Truck wheels Product P2 $ Product P3 $ Base catalog $ $ $ $ % -20%

Shoes Product P1 $50.00 Dresses Product P2 $ Product P3 $ 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 Shoes Clothes Product P1 $50.00 Dresses Product P2 $ Product P3 $ Product P1 $89.93 Product P2 $ Product P3 $ Clothes-CAN Virtual catalog Base catalog

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. Shoes Clothes Product P1 $50.00 XYZ Product P2 $ Product P3 $ Shoes Product P1 $50.00 Product P2 $ Clothes-FRN Virtual catalog Base catalog

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 Books Product P1 $89.93 Product P2 $24.82 Product P3 $60.79 Visual C#™.NET Visual Basic ®.NET Southridge Virtual catalog Base catalog Publisher2 Books Base catalog

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.Microsoft BizTalk Server 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 Integration with Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005Microsoft.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.SQL Server Reporting Services

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.