Commerce Foundation Server Systems

The primary development task in Commerce Server 2009 R2 is the creation of a Web site that leverages Commerce Server 2009 R2 features to facilitate the display and acquisition of a set of products. This is done by accessing the core systems of Commerce Server 2009 R2 through the Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation. The Catalog System and allows you to provide your customers with more information about the availability of particular products. The Marketing System helps you make your Commerce Server 2009 R2 Web site more successful through the use of advertising and content targeting. The Profiles System allows you to keep track of your customers and to help provide them with a personalized experience within your Commerce Server 2009 R2 Web site.

Catalog System

The Catalog System is a collection of operations that you can perform on the Commerce Server 2009 R2 Core Catalog System data types that import, export, create, and manage online catalogs. Commerce Server 2009 R2 stores catalog and product data in the Catalog database. Developers use the Commerce Foundation Catalog System APIs to define products, categories, base catalogs, and virtual catalogs.

The Commerce Foundation Catalog System supports the following features:

  • Retrieval of site, catalog, category, product, variant, and inventory data

  • Full text search of site, catalog, category, product, and variant data

  • Integration with SharePoint to support site content search

Marketing System

The Commerce Foundation Marketing System is a collection of operations that you can perform on Commerce Server 2009 R2 Core Marketing System data types to perform targeted personalized e-marketing through the Web. It assists e-commerce businesses in effectively communicating relevant messages to shoppers in order to improve sales either directly or indirectly.

The Commerce Foundation Marketing System supports the following features:

  • Retrieval of targeted advertising content

  • Retrieval of discounts applied to a customer's shopping basket or purchase order

  • Retrieval of simple discounts that are applicable to a specific product or category of products

  • Recording key advertising events (such as request, click, or download)

  • Integration with Microsoft Bing Maps to support store location searches

Orders System

The Commerce Foundation Orders System is a collection of operations that you can perform on Commerce Server 2009 R2 Orders System data types to place orders. These functions are represented as create, delete, update, or query operations. In general, the configured Commerce Foundation Operation Sequence components are responsible for performing the appropriate calls to the Commerce Server 2009 R2 layer and then using translators to convert the data back to CommerceEntity objects. There are a few differences between the Commerce Foundation Order System and the Commerce Server 2009 R2 Core Order System, for example:

  • There is only one basket object instead of a packet and a purchaseOrder

  • Multiple order forms are not supported out-of-the-box

  • The payment object has been split into related Payment, PaymentAccount, and PaymentMethod entities

Profiles System

The Commerce Foundation Profiles System is a collection of operations that you can perform on Commerce Server 2009 R2 Core Profiles System data types to create, collect, track, store, and use business data objects. The Profiles System stores two main business data object types: profiles and site terms. User profiles characterize users, addresses, credit cards, and other objects to support business objectives. You use site terms to provide a limited set of choices for users when they enter personal preferences or other information in your Web site.

See Also

Other Resources

Developing with the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Catalog System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Marketing System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Orders System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Profiles System