Using the eCommerce Server Controls

Ektron provides a complete set of eCommerce server controls that let you set up an online marketplace where customers (site visitors) can purchase merchandise, services or content. Customers interact with these server controls on your site to:

select a currency
search for products or view a list of products
view a product's details and add it to their shopping cart
get recommendations on other products
view products in a shopping cart, create new carts, and apply discounts
check out
view a list of processed orders
view and change their account information

Overview

Most eCommerce server controls let customers move from one control to another via template properties that let you define the location of another server control. For example, if you define the path to the Cart server control in the Product server control’s TemplateCart property, customers are directed to the Cart control when they click the Product control's Add to Cart button.

Ektron’s server controls let you insert standard methods and properties within the Visual Studio 2005 environment. This means that you can see the effect of your changes in real time; you don’t have to modify a page and then compile to see results.

You can insert server controls using drag and drop or programmatically. You can also use databinding to retrieve and display data from Ektron.

Ektron provides a complete set of eCommerce server controls that let you set up an online marketplace where customers can purchase merchandise, services or content. Customers interact with these server controls on your site to perform the the following tasks:

Select the type of currency—CurrencySelect Server Control
Search for products or view a list of products— and ProductList Server Control
View the details of a product and add it to their shopping cart—Product Server Control
Get recommendations on other products—Recommendation Server Control
View products in a shopping cart, create new carts, and apply discounts—Cart Server Control
Go through the checkout process—Checkout Server Control
View a list of processed orders—OrderList Server Control
View and change account information—MyAccount Server Control

The following table shows typical actions a customer might perform when visiting your eCommerce site and how you can facilitate these actions.

Customer Action	How you accomplish this	When to Use
View account information	Create a link in the master page that leads to the template containing the `MyAccount` server control.	This link should be available from any page.
View previous and current orders	Create a link in the master page that leads to the template containing the `OrderList` server control.	This link should be available from any page.
Change the currency type	Add the `CurrencySelect` server control to a master page.	This server control should be available from any page.
Search for products	Either create a link to the template containing the `ProductSearch` server control. - Or - On the master page, add a textbox that passes the text to a hidden `ProductSearch` server control and post the results to a separate template.	This link or textbox should be available from any page.
View a list of products	Create a template that contains the `ProductList` server control. This template might be the first page customers see when they view the eCommerce portion of your site.	Whenever you want to display a list of products based on a catalog, taxonomy or a list content IDs. For example, you could create a list of products in a panel on the right side of your Web site.
View a product’s details	Create a template that contains the `Product` server control. Set any of the following server control’s `TemplateProduct` property to the path of this control. This makes a product’s title being displayed by one of these controls a clickable link that takes the customer to this control. ProductSearch ProductList OrderList Cart Recommendation	When ever a customer needs to view details of a product.
View additional products associated with another product	Add the `Recommendation` server control to a template that contains a `Product` server control and set the Recommendation control’s `DynamicProductParameter` property to the QueryString parameter that’s used to pass a products ID.	When ever you want to present a customer with cross-sell and upsell opportunities associated with a given product.
Add a product to their shopping cart	Set the `TemplateCart` property in the following server controls to the path of the `Cart` server control. Setting this property is one of the requirements for the Add to Cart button or link to appear in these controls. ProductSearch ProductList Product Recommendation NOTE: In addition to setting the above property, a product must be in-stock, not archived and buyable. Otherwise, the Add to Cart button or link does not show for a product.	When you want to allow customers to add products to their shopping cart.
View products in their shopping cart	When a customer adds a product to their cart, they are sent to the `Cart` server control. You should also create a link in the master page that leads to a template containing this control.	The link should be available from any page.
Checking out and paying for their selected product.	Add the `Checkout` server control to a template and add that template’s path to the `Cart` server control’s `TemplateCheckout` property. When you do, the Checkout button in the Cart server control becomes active.	You must set this up for customers to checkout.

Using eCommerce server control events

Using eCommerce Server Control Events

The eCommerce server controls contain event hooks that let you customize or manipulate them.

To use these event hooks, create a handler for each needed event in the code-behind of the ASPX page that contains an eCommerce server control. Then, in that page’s OnInit method, hook each event.

Event	This Hook is Called...	Description
PhaseChange (Used only in the Checkout server control)	when the current phase is about to change.	Supervise phase changes and allow or prevent changing as needed. It also lets you jump to a specified phase. For example, you could jump to a passed phase, prevent the phase from changing from the current one under certain conditions, or jump to a phase that is not necessarily the next one in line.
PreProcessXml	immediately before the control’s XML is transformed.	Inspect or manipulate the server control’s XML before being processed. This is the only time the XmlDoc property should be used to access the controls XML.
PostProcessXml	immediately after the control’s XML is transformed.	Work with processed transformed XML output inside the Text property before sending it to the browser. This allows simple string manipulation of the server control’s markup.
FilterAjaxCallback	when an Ajax-Callback event occurs.	Inspect or modify callback parameters. For example, you could use this event to receive custom values entered in a page.
PostLogin (Used only in the Checkout server control)	immediately after a (possibly new) user logs in with this control	Calls custom code immediately after a returning user logs in with his email and password. Or, immediately after a new customer fills out the billing info screen. For example, you could add code that allows new customers to sign up for Web Alerts after they add their information to the billing screen.

Using the EkItems Property with eCommerce server controls

You can use the EkItems property only with the Product and ProductList eCommerce server controls. This property gets EntryData for a product and can only be called during the PreProcessXml or PostProcessXml event. If used outside of these events, it returns empty values for the entry data.