About Commerce Server Help

Commerce Server 2000 Help is designed so that users can quickly locate the type of information—workflow, concepts, procedures, or reference—they need to effectively manage, administer, or develop their commerce sites.

Structure of the Help System

Developer Help

Business Desk Help

Structure of the Help System

The table of contents is organized into several books, each one corresponding to a major functional area of the product. The nodes, or chapters, contained in each book correspond to major tasks that you will perform in that area, or explain key concepts or technologies that you will need to understand to complete those tasks.

The following table lists the Commerce Server books and provides a description of each one.

Book Description Users
Getting Started Describes Commerce Server features, tools, and concepts. Explains how to plan your Commerce Server site and provides a link to the installation instructions. All users of Commerce Server
Developing Your Site Explains how to set up your development environment, how to program with Commerce Server objects, how to customize pipelines, and how to integrate Commerce Server with other applications. Site developers
Deploying Your Site Explains how to use Site Packager to deploy a site that uses SQL Server or Active Directory, and how to make incremental updates to your site. Explains how to secure your site.

Provides two detailed examples for installing Commerce Server on a 4-computer, clustered configuration and on a 3-computer, non-clustered configuration.

System administrators
Administering Commerce Server Describes Commerce resources, sites, applications, Web servers, and the Administration database, and explains how to manage them. Explains how to manage Profiles, CS Authentication, Direct Mailer, Data Warehouse, and Predictor. Explains how to set up Commerce Server to use BizTalk Server. System administrators
Working with Business Desk Explains how to manage your site using Business Desk. Includes a tutorial that contains labs for learning how to manage a business-to-consumer site and a business-to-business site. Business managers
Extending Commerce Server Explains how to integrate a custom resource into Commerce Server, how to build new Business Desk modules, and how to build new pipeline components. Explains how to create custom reports, extend the Data Warehouse, integrate with third-party product catalogs, and integrate with Microsoft Passport. Site developers
Programmer's Reference Provides extensive reference material about the COM components that serve various functions within Commerce Server. Site developers
Troubleshooting Commerce Server Describes symptoms and solutions for problems you may encounter using Commerce Server. System administrators and site developers
Glossary Defines common terms used throughout Commerce Server. All users of Commerce Server

Within each book, you will find nodes that contain the following types of information:

  • Workflow diagrams. The documentation for each Business Desk category contains a figure illustrating the key tasks performed in that functional area, with links to the task topics that provide step-by-step instructions for completing each one.

  • Getting Started. Getting Started nodes appear for both Commerce Server and for Business Desk.

  • Basics topics. These topics describe common tasks and provide navigational information for using Business Desk, Commerce Server Manager, and pipelines.

  • Concepts. In the Business Desk topics and elsewhere, titles beginning with "About" indicate topics that explain key concepts for successfully using Commerce Server and its components.

  • Tasks. Task topics provide step-by-step instructions for completing the tasks shown in the workflow.

Developer Help

To assist you in finding only the information that is relevant to your programming environment, Commerce Server 2000 Help implements a language-filtering tool. On the title bar in topics contained in the Programmer's Reference, you will find a filter button that provides a language menu. Using this menu, you can choose to view documentation tailored either to Visual C++ or to Visual Basic. After you select a language, that selection remains in effect while viewing subsequent pages.

In addition to Help, see the following for developer information:

  • Commerce Server Software Development Kit (SDK). Includes code samples and documentation for developing e-commerce solutions with Commerce Server. For example, it explains how to develop code for related sells (up-sells, cross-sells, and inventory sells). The SDK is installed with Commerce Server 2000.

    To access the SDK, click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Commerce Server 2000, and then click Software Development Kit.

  • Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit. Provides detailed information about how to plan, develop, deploy, scale, and optimize your Commerce Server installation. The Commerce Server 2000 Resource Kit is published by Microsoft Press.

Business Desk Help

The Business Desk Help system is a subset of the Commerce Server 2000 Help system. Business Desk users have access to the help contained in the book, "Working with Business Desk," but they do not have access to the other Commerce Server books from their client computer.

To access help from the Business Desk, click  Business Desk Help Icon on the toolbar.


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