8.2.1 Release Notes

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 Update-3 (May 2018)

1. What's New

A roll-up of fixes to previously reported customer issues.

Performance related improvements.

Compatibility with Sitecore 8.2 Update-7.

Extended the Sitecore 8.2 Update-7 technical guidance for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to include guidance pertaining to Commerce shopper interaction data. See the Technical guidance for GDPR (including EXM and Sitecore Commerce topic (for Sitecore Platform 8.2) for more details.

Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 Update-7, available on dev.sitecore.net.

Release notes information update (Oct 2017)

The Microsoft Azure Cloud support feature is terminated for Commerce 8.2.1. The development work started in the Commerce 8.2.1 Update-1 timeframe was not completed, and the feature not released.

Compatibility with the Sitecore Experience Platform is kept up-to-date on dev.sitecore.net. The sections below in this document are not updated to reflect newer Platform versions.

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 Update-2 (July 2017)

1. What's New

Compatibility with Sitecore 8.2 Update-4.

Minor robustness, stability and performance improvements.

Preparatory software updates, enabling new Commerce features that are in development: Sitecore Experience Accelerator Storefront, Commerce deployment in a Microsoft Azure Cloud environment.

2. Compatibility

Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2, Update-3 or Update-4, available on dev.sitecore.net.

3. Resolved Issues

• 26440: Merchandising Mgr display label "List Price" is incorrect; should be "Default List Price".
• 26913: High Memory consumption in CatalogItemHierarchyListControl.
• 26947: GetCatalogs call to Commerce Server is not caching correctly causing perf impact.
• 26953: Doc: Exclusive promotion applies across all cart lines, not just one cart line.
• 26955: Sample Habitat promotion Mira Laptop 50% Off Time (Exclusive) is not exclusive.
• 26965: Invalid column name exception is thrown when you try to add a product to cart.
• 27046: Performance: SellableItems are not caching, even if the configuration says that it should.
• 27047: Coupon is set to cache, but should not cache because a coupon is used once.
• 27133: Performance: Cart calculations are performed unnecessarily often.
• 27242: Paying as Paypal instead of a Credit Card in Braintree results in an obscure exception.
• 27289: SellableItem list prices do not correctly apply independently across product variants.
• 27342: SQL deadlock issues encountered while running high load checkout tests in parallel.
• 27669: Adding a promotion to a promotion book causes a 405 error when WebDAV is enabled.
• 27980: Ref Storefront takes too long to render the delivery option droplist.
• 28012: Exception thrown when adding a property without a value to the User Profile search index.
• 27961: Adding a PriceBook - part of the ServiceURL is omitted if it doesn't end with "/".
• 28522: Running a high user load against Commerce Engine causes threads to deadlock.
• 28580: Performance: negative caching is not working for entities. For example, SellableItems as designed.

4. Known Issues

Starting with Sitecore XP 8.2 Update-4, setting up Solr requires a new "user" field in the XML Schema for Commerce indexes. Follow the Commerce Setting up Solr documentation.

5. Breaking Changes

Not applicable.

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 Update-1 (April 2107)

1. What’s New

Update-1 adds robustness and performance improvements. Dependent software versions have also been updated.

Software Framework

• Updated dependency on .NET Framework, from 4.5.2 to 4.6.1
• Updated dependency on ASP.NET Core, from 1.0.0 to 1.0.3
• Updated dependency on Sitecore Experience Platform, from 8.2 Update-1 to Update-3

Sitecore Commerce Engine

• Robustness improvements.
• Configurable logging levels.
• Performance tuning.

Sitecore Commerce Engine Plugins

• Improved the consistent use of asynchronous patterns, to avoid ASP. NET Core deadlocks and improve performance.
• Improved item returns, including the calculation of refunds.
• Moved the functionality related to digital items to a dedicated digital items plugin.
• Added validation when initializing an environment to ensure connectivity to Sitecore XP and Commerce Server, with improved failure messaging.
• Improved testing, including automated testing.
• Removed unused properties, policies, etc.

Business Tools

• Improved localizability of user interfaces.
• Improved Private Coupon support.

Cloud Deployment Readiness

October 2017 update: This Cloud deployment feature development has been terminated. Commerce 8.2.1 does not support deployment in a Microsoft Azure (Platform as a Service) cloud.

Preparatory development to enable deployment in a Microsoft Azure Web Application (Platform as a Service). This provides product preparation for the Cloud deployment feature, but the feature is not yet available at the time of Update-1 release.

• Converted Commerce Engine database scripts to DacPacs; no database structural changes were made.
• Tested use of SQL Azure.
• Eliminated the requirement for the (legacy) Commerce Server services in the Content Delivery environment.
• Added support for logging to Application Insights.

Sitecore Commerce Release Package

Components in the Update-1 release package are updated as follows:

2. Compatibility

.NET Framework 4.6.1

ASP. NET Core 1.0.3

Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 Update-3 software, available on dev.sitecore.net. Previous Sitecore XP 8.2 versions (Initial Release through Update-2) are not compatible.

3. Resolved issues

• 25932: "View All" links appear in CUSTOMER & ORDER MANAGER\Price Books and cause an exception for IE.
• 26019: Order.Payment.PartyID is null when you get an order via OrderServiceProvider.
• 7986: A visitor cannot complete a checkout when the region and formats are set to regions other than Canada/US and English.

4. Known Issues

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 does not yet fully support deployment in a Microsoft Azure Web Application. This feature is still in development at the time of Update-1 release.

Solr 5.5 has a known issue that results in a blocking exception. To resolve, upgrade Solr to 5.5.1 or later. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-8793

During Sitecore Commerce deployment, an unexpected Sitecore.Commerce.Assemblies.Common package version is fetched from the sitecore.myget.org feed and installed. The expected version is 11.4.148, which matches the Commerce Server version that is previously stated. The actual version that is installed is 11.4.150. There is no functional impact of this version mismatch. This package is fetched and installed when you run the dotnet restore command. For example, during Step 2 of the Install the Commerce Authoring Service procedure in the Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 Deployment Guide.

5. Breaking Changes

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 Initial Release (January 2107)

1. What's New

The Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 software includes a combination of new components and updated versions of components from the previous Sitecore Commerce 8.2 release.

Sitecore Commerce Engine

A completely new, extensible commerce core framework built as a thin ASP.NET Core application, which enables higher level functionality implemented through using NuGet based plugins. The new Commerce Engine provides a new framework for Cart, Order, and Pricing & Promotions services.

Commerce Server

Release 8.2.1 is the initial release towards completely replacing the legacy Sitecore Commerce Server technology. This release continues to include Commerce Server for a portion of its services. The new Commerce Engine replaces the following Commerce Server subsystems:

• Orders
• Marketing

Release 8.2.1 continues to use the following existing Commerce Server services, which will be replaced in a future release:

• Catalog
• Inventory
• Profile

Connectors

The Connect components serve together as an integration layer between the Commerce Engine and the Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore XP), and between the Commerce Engine and the Reference Storefront. A new Connect component has been introduced as an added thin layer that connects to the Commerce Engine:

• Sitecore Commerce Engine Connect

The following existing components have evolved from the previous release:

• Sitecore Commerce Connect
• Sitecore Commerce Server Connect

Business Tools

Release 8.2.1 introduces a combination of new and evolved business tools used by merchandisers, marketers, procurement, and customer support personnel. These tools are tightly integrated with the new Commerce Engine. Two new business tools are introduced:

• Customer and Order Manager. This replaces the previous Order Manager and Profile Manager.
• Pricing and Promotions Manager. This replaces the previous Marketing Manager, and adds management of pricing.

The following existing tool has been evolved to function with the new Commerce Engine:

• Merchandising Manager

Reference Storefront

Release 8.2.1 deploys with a new Reference Storefront sample site that integrates with the new Commerce Engine. This Storefront includes a new product catalog dataset populated with sample electronics data.

The following diagram shows a simplified logical view of these components, and the Sitecore Experience Platform.

Sitecore Commerce Release Package

Release 8.2.1 introduces a simplified software download from dev.sitecore.net. The required Sitecore Commerce components are included in a single zip file "release package": SitecoreCommerce8.2.1_1.0.xx.zip. When preparing for deployment of Sitecore Commerce, the 'dotnet restore' step will automatically retrieve the required nupkg files from the Sitecore Commerce NuGet repository.

The main components of the release package include:

Accordingly, this product release has three levels of versioning:

• Product market version – Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1, signifying alignment with Sitecore XP 8.2 and not 8.3.
• Release package version – SitecoreCommerce8.2.1_1.0.xx.zip, augmenting with each internal or external release package build, following semantic versioning.
• Components' version – new components introduced in this release have a 1.0.x FileVersion; existing release components updated since release 8.2 have FileVersion equal to 10.0.x.

In addition to the Reference Storefront binaries in the release package, the Reference Storefront source code is available on GitHub.

2. Compatibility

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 represents a new product in the overall Sitecore Commerce product lineup. This release does not include updates to other Commerce products. Refer to dev.sitecore.net for the latest releases of the other Commerce products, The relationship between this release and other Commerce products includes:

• Sitecore Commerce powered by Commerce Server (SCpbCS) – existing SCpbCS customers are entitled to deploy the new Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 release, although there is no direct upgrade path to it.
• Sitecore Commerce powered by Microsoft Dynamics – no upgrade path to Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1.
• Sitecore Commerce Connect – a new version of this software is included as a Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 component, but this new version is not released as a stand-alone module.
• Commerce Server – version 11.4 is included as a Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 component. It is the same version as in the Commerce 8.2 product lineup.

The dependent Sitecore Experience Platform 8.2 Update-1 software is not included in the Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 release package. It can be retrieved from dev.sitecore.net.

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 components, including new and updated packages, will not work with Sitecore Commerce 8.2 products.

3. Resolved Issues

Not applicable for this initial release of the new Sitecore Commerce product.

4. Known Issues

Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 does not yet fully support deployment in a Microsoft Azure Web Application.

5. Breaking Changes

None – not applicable for this initial release of the new Sitecore Commerce product.