Gael Duhamel [MVP]

I will be in Berlin from 9 to 13rd of November for the EMEA’s tech-ed. During that week, you’ll can meet me and the Commerce Server team at the Technical Learning Center (TLC). The TLC is a one stop knowledge shop for all your questions relating to the Microsoft platform. Packed with the product gurus, get one on one face time, answers to your questions and solutions to your challenges.

You can attend as well to the Commerce Server session on the 10th of November: Build Custom E-Commerce Solutions Faster and Easier with Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 (OFS06-IS)

Hope to see you there!

In the Commerce Server enterprise edition, you can have access to the analytics reports and to a data warehouse.

In this post, I will show you how to configure them, and in the same time have a quick look on what it’s look like.

Before to start the installation, you have to install and configure:

• SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Please, be sure that you have the mandatory prerequisites:

• For SQL Server 2005
  • Install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2
  • Install Microsoft SQL Server 2000 DTS Designer Components
• For SQL Server 2008
  • Install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components
  • Update all the reports to SQL Server 2008. For that, open it all with the SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio 2008. The RDL’s files are stored in: %commerce_server_root%\RDLs

Now it’s time to unpup the ressource file for the data warehouse (the file takes place in %commerce_server_root%\Pup Packages\DW.pup). This ressource will create the database which will be the cube’s data source.

Beware: if you install your data warehouse in another language than english you must change the file %commerce_server_root%\Data\CommerceOlap.xmla  line 9679 and replace the “Everyone” string by “Tout le monde” for the french environment.

<Roles>
  <Role>
    <ID>All Users</ID>
    <Name>All Users</Name>
    <Members>
      <Member>
        <Name _loc="locData">EveryoneTout le monde</Name>
      </Member>
    </Members>
  </Role>
</Roles>

Read the rest of this entry »

To follow up a thread in Commerce Server forum: How could i sort by property1 ASC and property2 DESC in a catalog search?, I was surpised that one of the basic Commerce Server feature was not understanding.

It’s a common task in e-Commerce to sort a products’ list (or for a category) in different way for different properties, ie property1 ascending and property2 descending and keep the paging stuck to those properties ordering.

The Ravi’s solution was to use a dataview. But the main issue here is that you can only sort the result returning by the CatalogSearch! What append if you have multiple pages? And on top of that, the poor performance to sort with a DataView…

To achieve this, you simply need to use the common search CatalogSearch class. You just have to surround the propery with sqaure brackets and then the order way:

CatalogSearch catalogSearch = catalogContext.GetCatalogSearch();
catalogSearch.CatalogNames = "MyCatalog";
catalogSearch.SearchOptions.ClassTypes = CatalogClassTypes.ProductFamilyClass;
catalogSearch.SearchOptions.PropertiesToReturn = "ProductId, cy_list_price";
catalogSearch.CategoriesClause = "CategoryName = 'CatId";
catalogSearch.SqlWhereClause = "Display = 'OK'";
catalogSearch.SearchOptions.SortProperty = "[ProductId]ASC, [cy_list_price]DESC";

Be careful, it’s very important to haven’t got any space between the ordering way and the right square bracket.

For information, our Commerce Server developer senior, Anoir, have already wrote a post about it (in french ): Recherche d’un produit avec plusieurs colonnes de tris différenciés in the Altima’s blog.

During a configuration of one of mine Commerce Server Staging (CSS) project, I discovered a small bug in the scheduling configuration.

This bug is firing during the creation or the modification of a CSS project.

So, here is the scenario…

For scheduling, the CSS, I used the CSS’s mmc:

Once you click “ok” (for creation or modification), CSS creates automatically a windows task in the Task scheduler:

The issue is that one of the parameters for this task is wrong. If you edit the task, you can see that the action text box uses a wrong call format to the program:

The call to the executable is not demarcate with the double quote (“). So the task tries to run “c:\program” with the argument “Files (x86)\Microsoft Commerce Server 2007\Staging\Bin\CSS.exe”… Which is wrong ^^

To correct that, just demarcate the path to the program with double quotes :

”c:\program Files (x86)\Microsoft Commerce Server 2007\Staging\Bin\CSS.exe”

Least but not last and for your information, the task is running under the default account of the CSS Service. So, if you want to change it, you have to configure it in the scheduled task. In the two cases, check if your account has the “Open the session as a task” permission.

Attention: On the create or modification event, the task is fully re-created. So, make sure to check your scheduled task configuration for each action in the CSS Schedule.

I received an e-mail from Microsoft today presenting me with the 2009 Microsoft MVP Award for the work I’ve done with Commerce Server.

It’s a great honor for me, and I would like to thank all my colleagues at Altima who work with me and the customers, I have worked for.

Let’s this new MVP year begin!

In this article, I will try to explain the way to install and configure all the software stuffs for a SharePoint & Commerce Server virtual dev environment.

Software Architecture

First, I created two virtual machines, one for my domain controller and the other one for my web front end. Here are the details:

• Domain controller box :
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard Core. My domain name is:ALTIPOC.LOCAL
• WFE box:
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard
  • SQL Server 2008 Standard
    • SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1
  • WSS v3 with SP1
    • Infrastructure update x64 / Infrastructure update x32
    • February cumulative update package
  • MOSS 2007 with SP1
    • Infrastructure update x64 / Infrastructure update x32
    • February cumulative update package
  • Commerce Server 2007 Enterprise (Be careful guys, the Commerce Server Developer edition is not supported by Commerce Server 2009, you have to choose between the standard and the enterprise edition)
    • Service Pack 2
  • Commerce Server 2009

Users

I’m not explaining the way to setup a domain controller because there are plenty of good articles about it. But I can recommend you an excellent one on Server Core Installation Option of Windows Server 2008 Step-By-Step Guide.

Service accounts you have to create for SharePoint

MOSSfarm (Execute the SharePoint Service – Must be a domain administrator)

MOSSRunTimeUser (Application Pool for the SharePoint Commerce Application)

MOSSsspPool (Application Pool for the Shared Service Provider)

MOSSsearchService (Execute the MOSS search service)

WSSsearchService (Execute the WSS search service)

WSScontentAccess (Get the content outside of the farm)

MOSSsspService (Execute the Shared Services Provider (SSP))

MOSSprofile (Get the profile information in the active directory)

MOSSsspMySite (Execute the SSP My Site)

Service accounts you have to create for SQL Server

SQLservice (Execute the SQL services)

Service accounts you have to create for Commerce Server

CatalogWebSvc (Application Pool for the catalog web service)

CSDMSvc (Execute the Direct Mailer service)

CSHealthMonitorSvc (Execute the Health Monitor service)

CSStageSvc (Execute the Staging service)

CSStagingUser (staging user)

MarketingWebSvc (Application pool for the marketing web service)

OrdersWebSvc (Application pool for the order web service)

ProfilesWebSvc (Application pool for the profile web service)

SQL Server 2008

In order to install SQL Server 2008, you have to check if the required components are installed. For that, you just have to click on the verification tool:

Once the prerequisites are validated, you can run the install:

In my case, I selected all the features, because I would like to use the Commerce Server Data Warehouse (an article about it will coming soon).

For all of my SQL Services accounts, I’m just using one. It’s not best practice, but for a development environment it’s acceptable.

Beware, it’s important here to use the SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS collation

Here we go, our SQL Server 2008 is up and running. We just need to enable the « Named pipes » for SQL Server.

You can install the service pack 1 for SQL as well (next, next,… finish).

Read the rest of this entry »

The Altima’s Commerce Server team is more than happy to celebrate the “go live” for the new ecommerce web site of Camaieu.

Ladies, to your blue card!

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