Orders System Description

The Orders System provides the data storage and functionality for placing orders on a Web site and maintaining status of orders after Commerce Server captures them for customer service purposes.

The Orders System includes support for the following:

Track in-progress orders, referred to as "baskets", and placed orders, referred to as "purchase orders".
User definable Orders schema.
Name baskets, in order to implement special types of baskets such as wish lists.
Process orders using pipelines during the order's lifetime.
Represent orders as .NET classes, as name/value pairs, as columns in a database, or as XML documents.
Maintain purchase orders in the Orders database for later search, retrieval, and processing by other Commerce Server systems or external, third-party systems.
Integration with other Commerce Server systems, such as the Inventory System, Marketing System, and the Staging System.
Integration with Microsoft BizTalk Server; import and export APIs to support line-of-business systems integration.

Features

The following table describes the Orders System features and enhancements:

Table 1. Orders System Features
Feature	Description
Data Management	Extensible order system. Extend order objects and data models based on custom properties. Multiple baskets per customer. Allows for multiple baskets per site, repeating orders, wish lists, and gift registries easier to implement. Split tender payment methods. Support multiple payment methods per order. Default payment methods include credit card, cash card, gift certificate, and purchase order. Edit and delete orders. Edit and delete orders without recalculation and easily update status columns throughout captured orders to provide order status information to customers.
Application Programming Interfaces	Basket search and delete API. Search, retrieve, and delete baskets programmatically. Orders search API. Search and retrieve orders from the system and integrate with an external ERP system for processing. Also, locate orders for corrective actions, such as data collection or customer service intervention. Orders schema extensibility API. Extend the Orders System object model and add new properties and collections programmatically. Web Service API. Perform distributed management of the Orders System programmatically.
Applications	Customer and Orders Manager. Manage customer orders and baskets by using a Windows Forms-based Web service.
Staging	Caching. Support for run-time and design-time data caching of Orders System payment and shipping method configuration data.
Command Line tools	Order mapping tool. Validate user-defined orders and schema mappings, and generate SQL Server and XSD schemas. Order and basket clearing. Remove all old orders and baskets based on specified criteria.
Formats	Orders XML serialization. Lets you represent orders as XML instead of a binary large object. This makes interoperability with other systems easier. Orders XSD format for XML representation. Support for user-defined orders storage schemas and the ability to save orders to disk without binary storage. This makes interoperability with external order systems easier.
Security	Granular security. Use Windows Authorization Manager scopes, roles, tasks, and operations in the Orders System. Collection or View-level Security. Security levels are included on each of the individual view states throughout the Customer and Orders Manager to allow for role-based access. Task-based roles. Support for the following task-based roles: Orders Adapter. Members can search orders for order processing and updates. Orders Administrator. Members can manage data integrity and cleanup issues. Orders Configuration Editor. Members can manage orders configuration data for the site. Orders Viewer. Members have read access to view orders.
Supportability	Windows event tracing. Use to help with troubleshooting.
International	Multilingual. Support localized basket display string for discounts.