.NET eCommerce Blog

EPiServer + Mediachase – A ‘Weaving in e-Commerce, CMS and Community’

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:37:00 GMT

With EPiServer eCommerce official, here is a great article by cmswire.com that walks through the EPiServer Commerce module powered by ECF G5.

Perfect weekend reading.

New Office Addresses

Richly Chheuy — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:05:00 GMT

Our Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. office locations have changed; we’re getting some new scenery!

Here are the new addresses:

Los Angeles

8447 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 102
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Washington, DC

529 14th Street NW
Suite 1206
Washington, DC 20045

Find the rest of our contact information here.

New Confluence-Based ECF G5 Documentation Site Launched

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:40:00 GMT

We are proud to announce and launch our new documentation site for ECF G5. It’s cleaner and easier to use and navigate. You can find our Commerce Manager User Guide, Developer Guide, Installation and Deployment Guide, and Release History. New documents and articles will be added every week to cover the range of features, functionality, and capabilities that surround ECF.

Feel free to offer us any feedback. Do you like it? Hate it? Any improvements you’d like to see? Any documents you want to see but don’t see?

The URL is the same: docs.mediachase.com. Take a look and explore!

ECF G5 Spotlight: CO-OP Furniture, Body Style, Youth Sports Live, MusicRadar, CPS, CROW

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:17:00 GMT

Customers from around the globe have launched world-class eCommerce sites. They offer products and services ranging from furniture, to live video streaming of youth sports, to music equipment, showcasing the flexibility and power ECF G5 offers.

Here are a few of the sites launched on the ECF G5 platform since last year.

UK based company using EPiServer CMS and ECF in a combined solution

CO-OP Furniture

Multi-site, multi-currency, and multi-language Commerce Site

BodyStyle

Live video on-demand subscription service for watching youth sports games

Youth Sports Live

Top seller of music equipment, including guitars and drums

Music Radar

Educational consulting services based in the Netherlands

CPS

Non-profit organization for CROW, a “technology platform for transport, infrastructure, and public space”

CROW

Beta News: ECF G5.1 Build 23 Update

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:34:00 GMT

ECF G5.1 is in development as the first major update of the ECF G5 platform. ECF G5.1 is in the beta development stage, with improvements pushed with every new build. A wealth of fixes and improvements were made since the last beta release made available to select partners and customers.

If you have questions about ECFG5.1 and its enhancements since 5.0 and would like to request a trial of the beta package, please email us at sales@mediachase.com or contact us at our Los Angeles, CA office at 323-988-1071 or our Washington, DC office at 202-355-7125.

Updates since ECF G5.1 Beta Build 19

Installer

Enhanced: changed the links and description on the initial installation wizard screen.

Enhanced: field validation check added to give warning not to use "-" in the database name.

Enhanced: Relabeled "Install Sample Site" to "Install Sample Site and Catalogs"

Enhanced: edited to warning message to overwrite existing databases.

Enhanced: When hitting the tab key while "Use SQL Authentication" is selected, "SQL Admin Username" and "SQL Admin Password" gets skipped over the cursor goes directly to "Back"

Enhanced: Version number now gets displayed on the installation wizard.

Fixed: SDK install fails when trying to access the database.

Fixed: Selecting the Windows Authentication option for Database Owner in the installation wizard causes an error

Fixed: Using a comma "," in database server name causes an error.

Fixed: Entering a slash "/" in the Site Application Name field on screen 3 of the installation wizard leads to an error.

Fixed: Unhandled exception ('System.Exception') occurred in CatalogImport.exe.

Content Management

Fixed: Changing Contact's Account password from the CommerceManager will immediately direct users to permissions denied warning page even for administrator.

Fixed: Trying to access the page contents from the Folder List returns a Web Error.

Fixed: in the front-end CMS screen, selecting a non-default catalog name for the Catalog Node View Control returns a server error.

Customer Management

Fixed: The fields in the Address Info screen accessed from the Contacts and Organization section should be reordered.

Fixed: Server error when changing Contact's Account password from the CommerceManager

Fixed: Missing Unauthorized.html link that show a warning message when unauthorized users try to log into the Commerce Manager

Catalog Management

Enhanced: Delete command exists only in the catalog export screen. Can we also have it in the catalog import screen?

Fixed: Exporting and re-importing incomplete catalogs (missing required fields) and browsing to the catalogs in Commerce Manager leads to a server error

Fixed: Catalog item moved to another folder remains in the original location for about 50+ seconds.

Fixed: Batch Update feature for Meta Description leads to an error when trying to save the changes.

Fixed: Catalog Entry Search - Search By Keywords returns an empty result.

Order Management

Fixed: Adding a new item to the Carts folder in the back-end leads to a webpage error.

Fixed: Extend shipment lineItems indexes to line item quantity.

Marketing

Fixed: Selecting "OK" or "Cancel" on the Expression Edit page gives a Server Error: A potentially dangerous Request.Form value was detected from the client (ctl21$ViewControl$DefaultTabContainer$ctl00$ctl00$tbXml="<RuleSet Name="x-ecf...").

Administration

Fixed: Rebuilding Search Index after a successful installation with the installer causes an access denied error for the segments.gen file.

Fixed: Trying to import previously exported Meta Data leads to an error

Fixed: Meta Data delete command does not work

Fixed: Saving a GUID ID in a guid type filed causes a server error

Fixed: The GUID Id saved in a field does not get displayed in the Edit page.

Fixed: Server Error when browsing a published object with the default GUID ID field added to its form --Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Fixed: The existing objects with extensions have a link that is incorrectly using a friendly name instead of system name, which leads to an error.

Fixed: The View pull-down menu for a newly published object contains many pre-defined view all named "General View"

Fixed: Left Menu page has check boxes, but nothing can be done even when multiple menus are selected. Removed.

Fixed: Meta fields in published objects become duplicated if once deleted and created again.

Public Site

Fixed: Catalog Item Checkout hangs and gives error: Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerServerErrorException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.

Fixed: Specifications tab in the product details page is invisible until you click the general area with a mouse.

Fixed: Item checkout gets stuck and hangs after the Shipping Address page.

Fixed: Issue with "Register" button on customer registration page; updated adapters.

Full Source

Fixed: BareSite Compile in Visual Studio fails

Fixed:Moved membership.sql file to the more correct location.

Major Enhancements and Improvements for ECF G5.1 Order Management

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:24:00 GMT

One of the core components of ECF G5 is getting a facelift for ECF G5.1.

Order Management will soon benefit from our new Business Foundation technology, which already serves the Customer and Asset Management systems. Business Foundation, in a nutshell, is this:

It is a new generation of Meta Data Engine that allows no-code customization of the Data Model. We enhanced our Meta Model in this new version. In the previous version you could only add fields to the existing meta objects and now you can define new objects and relations between them.

The form is fully customizable so you can define layout and specify which fields you want to display. You can also work with system fields which was previously impossible.

The current implementation of Business Foundation only supports the Customer Management and Asset Management Subsystems.

Right now, Order Management (along with Catalog Management) utilizes its own set of meta data. The new Order Management system will incorporate Business Foundation logic for creating business object relationships, custom forms, and even more extensibility—all without having to touch a lick of code.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg on what’s planned for Order Management. Stay tuned for more news as ECF G5.1 develops.

If you have any follow up questions, ask them in the comments below or email us.

Customer Management Enhanced in ECFG5.1

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:26:00 GMT

We’ve heeded customer feedback on the Customer Management subsystem. It’s even more flexible and customizable because of its connection to Business Foundation functionality (and Business Foundation in of itself an incredibly powerful end-user business tool.)

Here are just some of the few enhancements made thus far on Customer Management:

Customizable View for Contacts and Organizations lists
Organizations can now but put in a tree structure (organizations vs. organization units). Also new organization types can be created (e.g., regional offices, departments, committee, teams etc.)
Organizations and their subunits can contain information such as corporate credit card info, contact info etc. These items are extendable via the new Business Foundation.
Contacts also contain more detailed information to individual customers or Commerce Manager Site users. For example, you can now view the purchase history of each customer, any shopping items in their shopping carts, the list of organization the each customer belongs to, etc.

Customer Management has been enhanced to make it easier for end users to make their own customizations without having to dedicate a developer resource to just add an additional field or create a form. With Business Foundation and the new Customer Management subsystem working in tandem, business users can effortlessly better track contact and organizational information.

ECF G5.1 Installation is Easier than Ever with the New Mediachase Installer

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:08:00 GMT

Those with any experience with ECF 5.0, you are fully aware of the old manual installation method. For newbies or non technical types, manual installation of ECF can be a pain. In a computing world where a single click or drag and drop can install a piece of software, we took strides to make ECF G5 much easier to install.

That is why with ECF G5.1, we’ve developed a user-friendly installer to get the SDK (and soon the Full Source package) install in your environment. Rather than manually configuring files and setting up the database, simply enter in your credentials and parameters and the installer gets you up and running in minutes rather than a half hour.

Of course, the manual installation method is still available for power users who want more control over the installation of ECF.

The Mediachase Installer has been available since Beta 12 released back November 9 of last year. Since then the installer has been improved and enhanced with the latest Beta Build.

Mediachase and EPiServer Proudly Announce Partnership to Deliver Unique Commerce, Content, and Community Platforms

Richly Chheuy — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:42:00 GMT

Mediachase and EPiServer announced a strategic partnership to position the EPiServer platform to “power commerce, content and community,” thus giving retail and B2B vertical market companies competitive advantage with rich online experiences. With the Mediachase eCommerce Framework G5 working in tandem with the EPiServer platform, developers have the tools and foundation they need to build first-class online stores with “multi-branding, multi-language, and multi-channel capabilities,” just to name a few.

CEOs of both companies are equally excited about what this partnership means for customers and the future. Peter Larsson, EPiServer CEO, says “Our objective is to shorten the online sales cycle by providing a game-changing set of features to marketers. Our partnership with Mediachase helps us rapidly achieve this objective.” Chris Lutz, Mediachase CEO, stated that “the relationship between EPiServer and Mediachase is breaking new ground in ways the CMS market has never seen.”

We hope you’re as excited as we are about partnering with EPiServer. If you have any thoughts or questions about this announcement, call us at 202-355-7125 or email sales@mediachase.com.

[Press Release]

New Partnership with i3solutions: Working Together to Build the Best Business Solutions Available

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Mediachase and i3solutions, a highly experienced IT consulting firm that specializes in Customer Application Development, have announced a partnership to deliver compelling and powerful eCommerce solutions to the market using ECF G5 as the core foundation.

Mediachase is excited to be working in tandem with i3solutions because that means better eCommerce and business solutions for you and all of our customers.

Please contact sales@mediachase.com or call 202-355-7125 if you want to learn more about how this new partnership will build the best eCommerce and business solutions out there.

[Press Release]

Guidance and Specialized.net: A Case Study

Richly Chheuy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:29:00 GMT

One of the most notable features of ECF G5 is the inherent ability to adapt to different business needs and requirements. Guidance, using ECF G5 as a base to build Specialized.net’s new website, delivered its client’s goals.

You can read about the Specialized G5 implementation right here.

On the Heels of Build 200, ECF G5 Build 201 Update Released

Richly Chheuy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:26:43 GMT

Through the contributions of our developer community and the rapid-fire work of our developer staff, we promptly released Build 201 to fix a few critical issues with the Catalog Import and Warehouse/Inventory subsystems. If you’re on Build 200, it’s highly advisable you update to Build 201. If you’re on an earlier build, but looking to upgrade, please skip Build 200 and grab Build 201.

The list of fixes are available here. Here’s an excerpt from our Release History wiki:

Catalog Management

Fixed Inventory Tracking and Status Functionality
- The “In Stock,” “Preorder,” “Backorder” quantities in the Pricing/Inventory tab of a SKU/Variation were not getting correctly adjusted as new orders were placed in the front-end public site.
- When Inventory Status was enabled, the shopping basket was not correctly preventing customers to checkout items that were out of stock.
- Low Stock Reporting in the Reporting subsystem was not reflecting the changes made in the decreased number.
Fixed Import Catalog bug
- The full number of products was not getting imported for the initial attempt and trying to delete the incomplete catalog was giving an error.
- Work around in build 200 was to delete the subfolders in the catalog first, then delete the catalog folder, and finally re-import the catalog (see here for more details).

If you have further questions about ECF G5, feel free to contact us at sales@mediachase.com or call us 323-988-1071 (on the West Coast) or 202-355-7125 (on the East Coast). For support, please email us at support@mediachase.com.

Jump for Joy! ECF G5 Build 200 is Here!

Richly Chheuy — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:09:00 GMT

Photo by clspeace

As is the norm here, we’ve been busy refining ECF G5 to fulfill and satisfy wants and needs. After countless cans of Diet Coke and drops of blood from mild paper cuts, we’ve delivered Build 200.

You can find the complete release history here. If you’re new to ECF G5 and want to know more in detail about what it can do to better your eCommerce needs, please call us at 323-988-1071 or email us at sales@mediachase.com. Our sales team is ready to accept your questions and help you out as best as possible.

ECF Showcase: Specialized Products Company

Gina Consumano — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:26:00 GMT

Developed by Guidance, Specialized Products Company’s new website flaunts its new features proudly. They offer the same great products and service but now in a more accessible way with the help of ECF and Guidance.

Specialized Products Company website

This is just one of many examples of how ECF can be used. For more examples see our earlier “ECF Showcase” blogs or contact us for more information.

Rejoice, for ECF G5 Build 190 is Out, Baked, and Ready

Richly Chheuy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:36:00 GMT

It has been nearly four months since our last major build release. Within those four tight months of refinement, polish, and cleanup, we’ve added some fresh new features and capabilities to make you grin from ear to ear.

As with any new release, you must FIRST evaluate the impact of this upgrade (or any upgrade for that matter) BEFORE you perform the actual upgrade to your staging/QA/production environments. I can’t make this font bold enough.

Here are the release notes for Build 190 in full gory, glorious, and gut-busting detail. You also find the full release history on our documentation site by visiting http://docs.mediachase.com/doku.php?id=ecf:50:start:release.

You can also get a hands-on view of Build 190 by going here and following the instructions to access both the front-end and the backend Commerce Manager.

New Features and Capabilities

Support for Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 on the Front-End CMS and the Backend Commerce Manager
New Marketing expression builder and customization options for catalog entry, order promotions, and customer segments

As a result, end-users can create customized promotions—no longer will you have to tap developer resources to create whatever special promotion options you need

You can now add custom sale types for sales prices in the catalog by editing the configuration file.
Under Administration, you can now setup recurring payments using the Authorize.NET Recurring Billing API
We’ve added a new meta field type named “File” that lets you upload different files into a specified meta class. This is all done under the Administration tab.
The ability to add dropdown meta fields and indexing for dictionary type meta fields is now available in this new release

Bug Fixes

This latest major build has stamped out a slew of bugs. Here’s the exhaustive list:

General/UI-related:

UI layouts and appearances have been fixed so that they are compatible with IE 8 and Firefox 3
Added the missing refresh button at the top of the navigation frame in Firefox 3

Content Management

Fixed a bug where the command box in the Menu Item Edit page did not get updated real time with Firefox.
Disabled the checkbox for "[..]" (Go-up-one-level) icon. Deleting it caused all the files/folders and root level "/" to be also deleted.
Fixed the field box layouts in the Catalog Edit page.
In “Move/Copy to folder” feature, the ability to select folder location used to be disabled.
"Move Folder" command renamed to "Move Folders/Pages."
Navigation Command Type causes all the menus to stop working and generate a Server Error.
Fixed a Server Error that occurred when creating new menu items with a missing page link.
Fixed bug that prevented catalogs from being deleted in a non-US environment.
Fixed bug where the node and entry templates often have a single parameter repeated over and over in their XML files.
Fixed bug that prevented the renaming site folders or pages.
Changing a password of existing users no longer logs you out from Commerce Manager.
Minor bug fixed that prevented user from saving a new page, or accessing the Design View in CMS Editor.
Fixed bug where creating a new Top Menu generated a server error.
Site Copy does not correctly copy over the contents in the Top Menu folders. It just creates an item called "no localized version"

Customer Management

"Recover Password" command is now enabled after having SMTP configured.

Catalog Management

Fixed CSV catalog import bug where Data and Time information in the CSV file were not getting imported for "Variation w/ Inventory."
Fixed CSV catalog import bug where load mapping file to edit existing setup does not fully load the Meta Class data.
Changing the expiration date of the Mobile Phone catalog does not turn on the "Mobile Phones" menu bar in the public site.
Asset Field is missing a pull-down control in the Assets tab under Variation/Sku Edit page (Firefox 3)
Missing pull-down arrow for "Modify Existing Association" field located in the Associations tab for Variation/Sku Edit page.
Fixed an error for importing catalogs.
Added missing pull-down arrow for "Modify Existing Association" field located in the Associations tab for Variation/Sku Edit page.
In the Entry Search page, the "Search by Code/ID" field is being partially hidden by the More Actions tool bar below.
Fixed a bug that prevented catalogs to be deleting in the non-US environment.
Commerce manager product editing validation error for non-US environment.
Trying to delete existing catalogs gives a "Concurrency Violation" error.
Fixed a catalog export bug that was related to CSV catalog import when the title field was DBNull by default.
In a Variation/SKU Edit page, German and Spanish attributes such as "Display Name" and "Description" get duplicated each time a catalog is deleted and re-imported.
CSV Import: System error on Association type: "Cannot find column [AssociationType]."
Starting and Ending time can now be set for Variation/SKU.

Order Management

The Order Summary of a newly created purchase order is fully functional.
"Item to Ship" line was missing when an order is created from the back-end.
Creating a New Purchase Order generates a Server Error: "Specified argument was out of the range of valid values."

Marketing

Policy and Segment Expressions will now get deleted real time from the list without refreshing the screen.
For the Condition Dialog in the Segment Edit page, adding a new expression or using the pull-down menu to choose a condition resets the previously entered information
Trying to add members in Segment Edit page clears the Segment Name and Display Name that was entered in the previous step.
Fixed a promotion Bug where Maximum Redemption per Order Command was not working. Discount get applied only until the Max qty is reached.
Created Date for new promotion is not correctly being displayed
Campaign and Promotion Dates and Times entered in their edit pages do not get correctly reflected in the List page.
Fixed the bug on Segment Edit page where previously entered Segment Name and Display Name was getting reset to null when adding new conditions.

Asset Management

The checkbox for [..] in the Asset List is now grayed out so that the Move/Copy or the Delete action cannot be accidentally selected.
Selecting the Create New File command generates a Server Error: 'Void Mediachase.Ibn.Web.UI.WebControls.TableLayoutDataItem.set_Title(System.String)'.
New Folder command does not create a new folder.
Trying to upload with the "Upload Multiple Files" option generates a Server Error: Server Error in '/ConsoleManager' Application.

Administration

Added language label for Dictionary type meta data displays in the Catalog Edit page.
Fixed a server error that occurred when trying to create newly displayed meta data in a new catalog entry.
A friendly message added when attempting to delete page templates that are used by a site.
Template List page sorting will now be saved and will not revert back to default sorting each time changes are made to the individual templates.
Renamed some of the Edit pages to have more consistency.
Fixes made to some bugs affecting the CSV Tax import feature.
Tax Import does not correctly associate multiple Jurisdictions to a Jurisdiction Group.
A pop-up window for editing Tax Values in the Tax Edit page now renders correctly.
Tax CSV import: importing the same CSV file with edited contents does not update the preexisting tax information.
Adding a new city to the CSV file gives an error message saying "Column 'TaxId' is constrained to be unique. Value '48' is already present."
Tax CSV import: importing the same CSV file with edited contents does not update the preexisting tax information.
An error message is shown when going into the Edit Payment Method page for "Pay By Phone."
Server error when trying to change the Shipping Method Provider from Generic to Weight/Jurisdiction Gateway or vice versa.
Trying to edit Taxes leads to a server error: "Could not find stored procedure 'ecf_Tax_TaxName'."
Creating or Editing Shipping Jurisdiction Groups causes a server error "Could not find stored procedure"
Creating or Editing Shipping Jurisdictions causes a server error "Could not find stored procedure"

Public Site/CMS Editor

Publish button is not working, and clicking on it will cause you to lose any unsaved contents. You can only publish by saving as draft and then approving it.
Cancel Pending Changes button was not working. You can now cancel unpublished changes and revert back to the original contents.
Inactive Sites will not be displayed in the "Site" pull-down list in the front-end.
Some Lucene Searches in the public site generated a server error
Page template pull-down menu missing when using Firefox 3.
Fixed bug with dragging in toolbox.
Entering an email address in the Payment Options page during checkout gives a message incorrect message "Must use a valid email address."

Multi Application

When multiple Applications have been setup, you cannot delete the catalogs that originally existed in the 1stApplication

Development/Source Code/VS 2008 Solution/Package

Add missing code in the LoadByCatalogName(string) method of CatalogNodeAdmin: cmd.Parameters.Add(new DataParameter("ApplicationId", CatalogConfiguration.Instance.ApplicationId, DataParameterType.UniqueIdentifier));

Meta Data

Changing the object type to 100 characters and implementing a check and truncate all messages in the log function prevents logging error

Licensing

ECF now works for "localhost” environment without a license.

DokuWiki Documentation Updates

Tax Configuration
Multi-Site Functionality
Multiple Application Functionality
CSV Catalog Import
CSV Tax Import

And we’re done…

With this blog post at least.

We’re excited to get this release out the door before the weekend. As you can see, the Dev Team’s been working hard, fueled by Top Ramen, water, and the occasional indulgence of processed cheese.

The latest build is readily available to current G5 customers. If you’re a new customer interested in G5 (especially after reading this), shoot us an email at sales@mediachase.com or call us at our Los Angeles office by dialing 323-988-1071. If you’re on the EST, you can also reach Mediachase at our Washington, D.C. office at 202-355-7125. Our helpful sales team is ready to walk you through any questions you have about the product, Mediachase, or, if you wish, the Dodgers.

Enjoy the new release and the weekend!