Commerce Server 2002 - General Discussion (July 20, 2005)

Article
01/21/2022

Posted: July 21, 2005

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

Alex (Moderator):
Hello All, we are about 5 minutes from starting the dedicated chat for Commerce Server 2002.

Alex (Moderator):
Let go ahead and start this chat with some introductions - My name is Alex and I am part of the BPID Customer Response Team.

jamwest (Expert):
Hi, I'm Jamie Westover, a technical writer for Commerce Server.

Sudha (Expert):
Hi, I am Sudha from the Commerce Server Test team.

Chad Ray (Expert):
My name is Chad Ray. I'm an Escalation Engineer in PSS currently supporting Application Center 2000. I'm beginning my migration over to the Commerce Server team as an Escalation Engineer.

Greg Good (Expert):
Hi, I am Greg Good. I am the team manager for the PSS Commerce Server team.

davidme (Expert):
Hello, David here from the development team (H). I hope to get some good technical questions today!

Ankur (Expert):
Hi. I am Ankur, Program Manager in the Commerce Server team.

Charles (Expert):
Hello, I'm Charles from Commerce Server support group.

Laurie (Expert):
Hi, I'm Laurie, the Technical Editor for Commerce Server.

Start of Chat

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Yes, well how are you helping to keep this software from being leaked, or illegaly being downloaded.
A: What specific software is in question. Commerce Server or Visual Studio?

jamwest (Expert):
The updated CS2002 documentation will be posted to MSDN next week. You can get the updated CS2002 FP1 Documentation from https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A1BBE70D-CCC5-444B-95B3-C61E3DC64781&displaylang=en which will also be available next week.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Is there anything to be aware of or limitations using FP1 and displaying Discounts on a website's product page? I'm confused as to where to setup the campaign? through BizDesk? through The new discount manager program? or both?
A: Campaigns are setup in the discount manager application for using discounts.

Alex (Moderator):
Q: Visual Studio.
A: We can't say for Visual Studio (their chat was in the previous hour). I would check with their newsgroups, forums, and blogs.

Ankur (Expert):
campaigns also need to be set up in Bizdesk for Ads and Direct Mails.

davidme (Expert):
Q: Since 2006 is designed to be more SOA, it can easily be setup as the heart of generic transaction/product system ...This being the case, in terms of the product catalog, will items like OID be more easily accessible as opposed to relying on catgoryname?
A: OID should be considered an internal implementation detail of the catalog system. Categories are identified by name. Products by ProductID, Variants by ProductID and VariantID.

Charles (Expert):
Q: I'm trying to automate the packaging step in a build process but the Site Packager keeps popping up looking for the schema scripts for the Profile resource. Is there any documentation on automating this step?
A: In the Commerce Server documentation look for the topic "Running Site Packager from the Command Line". To have the packager run in silent mode you will need to use the /i: switch to specifiy the response file to use. In the .ini file you can specifiy the settings to use for the package.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Is there anything to be aware of or limitations using FP1 and displaying Discounts on a website's product page? I'm confused as to where to setup the campaign? through BizDesk? through The new discount manager program? or both?
A: In FP1, Ads and Discounts were separated in two applications and so that necessitated setting up campaigns in both places.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Is there an easy script/tool/etc that can be used to promote campaigns from one environment to another?
A: Are you referring to PuP. Pup and Unpup can transfer campaigns from the management server to the production server (or any other box).

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Ankur, So the answer to the duplicate campaign question is YES.
A: Yes. Two campaigns need to be created.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Ankur, So the answer to the duplicate campaign question is YES.
A: Of course, in CS2006, we will have only one application for Discounts, Ads and DirectMail etc

Ankur (Expert):
Q: what happens if the pc have a lot of errors from registry
A: could you give some more context please

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Ankur, So the answer to the duplicate campaign question is YES.
A: Yes. Two campaigns need to be created

Laurie (Expert):
Colinbo, I've asked the Program Manager your question about Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition. I'll get the answer asap.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: How can we to secure (prevent edit) of specific fields in CatalogManager? It doesn't seem to take the security from Bizdesk into consideration.
A: It does and more. There is Authorization Manager that can be used to control security. The implementation has changed. Give the task for "Edit Property Content" to a role and assign a user to that role. This person will have access to edit the value of the property

davidme (Expert):
Q: When a customer service person needs to update a customer's profile via BizDesk, what is the recommended approach for refreshing the related profile if it cached, without affecting other cached profiles?
A: You could set up an ASP/ASP.NET page on the site and from within it, call Profile.Refresh. You'd need to have a process to hit this page on each server within your Web farm.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Will there be more code examples added in the CS2006 documentation release? I'm finding that I need to rely on user groups to get simple how tos when , like MSDN there are many examples for all languages.
A: Yes. We will be adding code samples in the SDK. There will be a lot of PAG also.

Alex (Moderator):
Thanks for all the great questions. The experts are researching answers and should be posting them shortly. Keep the questions coming.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans for CS2002 SP4 or at least a rollup of the maze of hotfixes available post-sp3?
A: We are looking into a SP4 for CS 2002 after CS 2006 ships. As far as a rollup hot fix, we are not looking into this at this time.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: With regards to CS2006 please include more examples related to multi-currency catalog design would be appreciated.
A: I am in the process of doing so. There are two approaches that can be used.

davidme (Expert):
Q: Is there a way to add to the "application default config" properties for custom properties? If so, what object.method would be used to access it? I need to store some global information and I would prefer not to use the web.config file.
A: You could create your own custom resource but you cannot extend an existing resource like AppDefaultConfig. See "Adding a Custom Resource" in the CS2002 documentation.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: How can we carry the catalog's DefinitionName to datawarehouse?
A: As part of the DTS task, the definition name gets imported with the product catalogs

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: Greg - That's quite a long time to wait for a rollup of all the hotfixes. Can a list of recommended hotfixes to apply to new environments be made available in the interim?
A: I agree that it will be a while before the Service pack is released, but we are focusing our resources on CS 2006.

Charles (Expert):
Q: Is there any documentation to speak further to the format of the various site packaing INI files (e.g. bizdata.ini)? Or do we have to dig around the SiteCreate example and try and infer what it is really means?
A: The bizdata.ini has not been documented very well. I will look into getting this corrected. I will post sample data to review if a bizdata.ini file in multiple replies.

Charles (Expert):
' This Section contains the names of the Files to use for Importing. If not given then the
' default names will be used
[BizDataSchema]
catalogSchema=catalogSchema.sql
expressionSchema=es_create.sql
expressionSprocs=es_stored_procs.sql
profileDefs=profileSQL.xml
siteTermDefs=siteTerms.xml
expressionDefs=

[BizDataStoreFlags]
IsSilentMode=True

Charles (Expert):
'The following sections will contain the datasource information for the profile store
' The UPM_SQLSource section is for a SQL data source. In this section,if the IsBizDataStore flag is set to True, then the 'connection information given during the configuration of the Bizdatastore will be used. If this flag is False, then the connection 'information given below will be used. The schemaDefs and dataDefs are optional SQL scripts.
[UPM_SQLSource.SQLSource]
IsBizDataStore=True
Provider=
DataSource=
UserID=
Password=
InitialCatalog=
ProviderString=
schemaDefs=Profilesql.sql
dataDefs=

'The BizDataSchema section(if present) will be used during both the silent mode and the non-silent mode. The schemadefs and datadefs for each data source, should be given for both modes(silent and non-silent) if the files have to be executed.

davidme (Expert):
Q: Is there a way to pull and ad directly by name? We currently have to create a targetPage for each specific ad that we want to pull by name.
A: I assume that the question is how to get a specific ad at runtime for a specific call to the ContentSelector. It is possible to pull by name, but simpler to do by ID (item_id). The reason is that the item_id is loaded into the advertisements cache at runtime while ad_name is not. You can create a dictionary (Commerce.Dictionary) with name/value pairs to filter on (so "item_id" is the key and value you supply). Pass this in to the ContentSelector using the key "FilterRequire". See the CSFLoadAdvertisements and FilterContent component reference pages in the docs.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Is there any documentation that speaks to what Profile Validation is looking for? I've noticed if I have less than 255 characters and an nvarchar for sql fields it doesn't like it - nor does it really explain what has failed in validation.
A: Since you are using less than 255 characters, this should not happen. Even if the validation fails, it may be a perfectly valid profile and the way to test it would be to go to the profile service and create a profile.

jamwest (Expert):
Jamie - Just to clarify re: documentation - you are saying it will be included with the MSDN Library? I know the FP1 documentation is already available as a separate HTML Help file download. No the FP1 documentation will not be included in the MSDN library. YOu'll have to download as a separate HTML Help file.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: I'm receiving an errorwhen I try to setup New Targeting Expression for a discount (using FP1 Discount manager). The field name is from a custom property I added to the UserObject profile. It is of type boolean. the program present the field to choose.
A: What is the error message

davidme (Expert):
Q: When creating a new orderAddress object from the profile object, we are getting different values than what has been configured in the addressMap in web.config. IE, state_name gets populated with state_code and state_code gets populated with null. Ideas?
A: Jason, we haven't come across this issue before (I've consulted the expert here on the team). We'll try to reproduce this issue but if you cannot get past it, it sounds like you may need to engage our support experts on this one.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: Can you guys update your KB articles with the proper keyword tags (e.g. kbcommserv2002presp4fix) so we can find them easily? Some of the fix articles aren't tagged or are incorrectly tagged (e.g. Article re: FP1 is tagged as SP1)
A: That is good feedback, I will see what we can do with the keywords.

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Ankur - Ok, so what you are saying is the Validate Profile Definitions function in CSM is not a required step to pass to go to deployment.
A: Yes, profile definition validation is not a required step to go to deployment. So long as your site code can read & write to the profile, you are good for deployment.

Sudha (Expert):
Q: I downloaded the trial version and i'm have trouble displaying the demo site(cs2002startersite) can anyone help me
A: Could you be more specific on the exception/errors?

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Using the CS2002 manager MMC how do you validate a profile wehich contains an assymetric encrypted key? Is it possible? the errors indicate that there is something wrong with the KeyIndex. Is this a false positive type of error?
A: You can validate a profile with asymmetric encrypted key by having both public and private keys configured for the profile service. If you see an error with KeyIndex, it means the encryption is not correctly configured. Refer to the documentation on specific profile properties you need to configure.

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: I'm having problems locating the (retail.pup) file how can i locate it?
A: Retail.pup file is no longer shipped. It was originally shipped with Commerce Server 2000. You should be using Commerce Server Starter Site now. This is available at: https://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/downloads/solutionsites2002.mspx

Laurie (Expert):
colinbo, with regard to Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition on MSDN, it's in the works. It will be there sometime in the future. It's just takes time to get it done.

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Further to the profile validation question - Is it possible to have a KB article or documentation addendum written about what profile validation looks for?
A: Good suggestion, for immediate results you can use SQL Server Trace capability to see what SQL statements and values are issued during profile validation.

jamwest (Expert):
Q: Jamie - It would be nice to have it inside the VS IDE. Will this change for CS2006? The MSDN Library concept seems defeated if the groups are not keeping the content up to date in this centralized place. Plus HTML Help really sucks. :)
A: Our new tools will allow you to view the CS2006 documentation inside VS. It will also be posted to MSDN and the new tools will also allow for easier documentation updates.

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: Greg - Here's an example of an article that is mistagged : https://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=892479 ... There are quite a few others as well.
A: Thanks, I will see what we need to do to address this.

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: I noticed the Starter Site has a Site Term which uses an SQL int value. The Profile Editor will not allow me to replicate this in my own profile, instead forcing me to use strings. How do we leverage int's for Site Terms?
A: You would have to customize BizDesk's Profile Editor module. It is a rather onerous task that I wouldn't recommend as we are replacing BizDesk with a much better application in Commerce Server 2006. I would recommend using Site Terms as is.

madhur (Expert):
Q: Jamie - It would be nice to have it inside the VS IDE. Will this change for CS2006? The MSDN Library concept seems defeated if the groups are not keeping the content up to date in this centralized place. Plus HTML Help really sucks. :)
A: For the next version of Commerce Server, we are considering making help available to developers while they are in the Visual Studio IDE.

jamwest (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans for updating the MSDN Library with the CS2002 FP1 documentation? What about for CS2006?
A: The CS2006 documentation will be posted to MSDN when the product ships.

davidme (Expert):
Regarding the site terms as integer values, you can't do this via Business Desk, but you can export the profile definition XML, edit it, and reimport it.

jamwest (Expert):
Q: Jamie - Just to clarify re: documentation - you are saying it will be included with the MSDN Library? I know the FP1 documentation is already available as a separate HTML Help file download.
A: There are currently no plans to publish the FP1 documentation on MSDN.

madhur (Expert):
Q: Is there any documentation to speak further to the format of the various site packaing INI files (e.g. bizdata.ini)? Or do we have to dig around the SiteCreate example and try and infer what it is really means?
A: Colinbo: I think Greg answered this question earlier. Please let us know if you need any additional information about the bizdata.ini format. As a side note, you should not require this file unless you are using the Site Packager in silent mode.

commerce (Expert):
Q: A number of the CS2002 post-SP3 hotfixes have SQL updates in them or replace catalog DLLs. Is there any chance of getting a list of recommended hotfixes that should be deployed to a new CS2002 SP3/FP1 application?
A: I would not recommend installing a hotfix just because there is a hotfix available, so no list. What I would recommend is to wait for the KB and read about the details of it and if you have that same issue then install the appropiate hotfix. Hofixes are usually very much center on one issue that is not very common; otherwise, you would have seen it and would have installed the fix already (or at least be looking into it).

davidme (Expert):
Q: The 'is-true' operator cannot be used with an operand of type 'Boolean'
A: It turns out that this was a bug in the FP1 Marketing Manager. Please contact customer support for a hotfix.

Laurie (Expert):
Q: Will CS2002 Enterprise Edition ever make it to MSDN given that it is part of the Certified Partner licensing benefits? I see that Standard Edition is finally there.
A: colinbo, with regard to Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition on MSDN, it's in the works. It will be there sometime in the future. It's just takes time to get it done.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Ankur: were you able to see the error message? I had to break it uall up into several part to send it.
A: I am sorry. Could you email it to me at ankura@microsoft.com please.

davidme (Expert):
Q: WE desperately want access to the OID, we attempted a trigger that would turn the CategoryName into OID as that is an abosulte with no special characters that have jacked us up in the past. This of course fails...due to that we created a property theoid
A: I'm sorry I don't understand what you are trying to do, but I would reiterate that the OID should be treated as an internal implementation detail. Anything you do with OID may change in a future release of Commerce Server and break your code.

Ankur (Expert):
Q: Ankur: were you able to see the error message? I had to break it uall up into several part to send it.
A: I am afraid not. Could you email the error message to ankura@microsoft.com

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: i'm having trouble using the cart button on the cs2002startersite. When i click on it (cs2002startersite/Default.aspx) it gives me an error saying("the page cannot be displayed"). The same thing happens when i click on the login button. Can anyone help me?
A: This is likely caused by security requirements. The cart and login buttons likely redirect/post to a secure page. You need to enable SSL (i.e. install a certificate), or disable SSL requirements.

Charles (Expert):
Q: When debuging the DTS tasks to the DW, you have to run CSDWDbgSrv.exe, but I can't find any documentation on what switches to enable for the different tasks. Are these posted anywhere?
A: In addition to the steps outlined in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 295931, you can also use the following command line to give additional information. "CSDWDBGSrv.exe Set TRACESYNC=T > c:\dtsimport.txt"

Greg Good (Expert):
Q: A number of the CS2002 post-SP3 hotfixes have SQL updates in them or replace catalog DLLs. Is there any chance of getting a list of recommended hotfixes that should be deployed to a new CS2002 SP3/FP1 application?
A: Let me look at see if we can get a KB on this.

Alex (Moderator):
We have about 5 minutes left in today's Chat. If you have been holding out a question, now is the time to post.

commerce (Expert):
Q: Any ideas on my question about profiles using the Advanced encryption attribute - Assymetric encrypted ?
A: A fix exist for this one, KB 903143, it may not yet be public, if so, is just becasue is going to the edit process.

Alex (Moderator):
If you haven't checked already, see an overview of Commerce Server 2006 at https://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/2006preview/default.asp

Caesar - MSFT (Expert):
Q: Caesar - you are saying that there are no issues around using the Assymetric Encrpytion attribute and i just need to read the documentation more closely?
A: Yes, take a look at "Managing Encrypted Profile Properties" in the documentation.

Charles (Expert):
Q: When debuging the DTS tasks to the DW, you have to run CSDWDbgSrv.exe, but I can't find any documentation on what switches to enable for the different tasks. Are these posted anywhere?
A: Variable Trace Meaning
TraceCRowCalls calls made to profile cache row entities
TraceAgLayerCalls calls to aggregation layer
TraceAccessorCalls calls to CAccessor
TraceDumpBindings dumps all bindings for CAsseccor on creation
TraceBinderCalls calls to CBinder
TraceCommandCalls commands executed by the CSOLEDB provider
TraceDataSrcCalls CDataSource calls - high memory consumption class
EnableDumpCatalog dumps entire profile catalog at load time
TraceHeapPoolCalls allocation / management of internal heaps

Charles (Expert):
TracePropsCalls individual property searches / updates
TraceRowImplCalls modifications made to profile columns
TraceRowsetCalls creation / refresh of profile row sets
TraceSessionCalls calls made to session objects
TraceCmdParserCalls detailed information on how provider commands are parsed
TraceSession creation / periodic status of session objects
TraceFreeSession cleanup of session objects
TraceCreateSession creation of session objects

davidme (Expert):
Q: davidme, I understand that but dependence on the CategoryName is bad as anything can be typed in there which then requires code to make it HTML friendly, as well as it makes the URL very long which is not good for getting crawled from search engines
A: You can control Category Name and make it a programmatic-like descriptor and then use Category Display Name as what you display on the site

Alex (Moderator):
Q: Are there any authors out there writing new books for CS2006?
A: According to colinbo - yes, but we don't have a list at this time.

Charles (Expert):
Q: How can we carry the catalog's DefinitionName to datawarehouse?
A: As part of the DTS task, the definition name gets imported with the product catalogs

Alex (Moderator):
Thank you all for attending today's Commerce Server Chat. We will be back next month on August 10th. Be sure to check out https://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/ for a list of all upcoming moderated chats.

Alex (Moderator):
We are working on our last answers for this chat.

Alex (Moderator):
Q: What will be the successor of "MSIB 2.1 and MSIB 2.5" in CS 2006 timeframe ?
A: There currently are not any plans for a successor to MSIB 2.5 at this time.

Charles (Expert):
Q: Is there somewhere I can find where the Assymetric Encrypted attribute is being used?
A: In the Commerce Server documentation look for the topic Encrypted Profile Properties

Charles (Expert):
Q: Charles: If the definitionName is carried to the DW, where is it located? We haven't been able to find it?
A: In the documentation look at the topic 'Selecting Catalog Properties for Import'.

Alex (Moderator):
Q: Why is the Commerce Server newsgroups not monitored regularly? Is there plans to monitor it more? I can place a question, and it might or might not get answered. If it does, it's usually several days to a couple weeks?
A: I am working with the product teams to better monitor the newsgroups on a more regular basis. You should see better results in the coming weeks.

Alex (Moderator):
Q: In the table in the bottom of https://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/2006preview/default.asp 4th line, what is coming to replace MSIB 2.5 ?
A: Sorry, I don't have any additional information at this time, other than what you see there.

Alex (Moderator):
Q: Alex: is a transcript dump of today's chat going be available?
A: Should be available in a couple of days. Check back to the main MSDN Chat page for a link.

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