About the Book
Get professional guidance for executing a
high-impact, high-performance commerce site.
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
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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 |
