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Four easy steps to get started with the Commerce Server Feature Pack

1. Install and read the feature pack documentation: The Feature Pack is available as a free download from here and can be installed on a Commerce Server Service Pack 2 or higher installation. Go through the Readme to learn about the known issues, limitations and requirements. The Install Guide talks about the hardware and software requirements, the install and unistall process, troubleshooting points and how to add the new web services to existing sites(see the Unpack the FP1 Pup Package section) . Once you have installed the feature pack read the Main Chm file for detailed information about the various features in the feature pack. This chm file also contains screenshots for the new Winforms Applications for Catalog System and Marketing system, migrating your catalog and marketing systems and adding users to the new security model. If you are a developer interested in the new programming model see this post for information on the new web services model and how to program them.

2. Migrate your existing sites.The Feature Pack provides two migration tools to migrate your product catalog system and marketing systems. The product catalog system can be migrated using the CatalogMigrationTool.exe and the Marketing system can be migrated using the DiscountMigrationTool.Exe. Both these tools (installed in the <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2002\FP1 directory) are command line tools and the options have been well documented in the Main Chm file. Now follow the instructions in the “Unpack the Fp1 Pup package” section in the Install Guide  to install the catalog and marketing web services.

3.  Secure your Product Catalog and Marketing systems: As I had mentioned in earlier posts, the new security model is based on the Windows Authorization Manager which provides Role based access model. The next step you need to do is to add your catalog and marketing system users to the the appropriate roles using the Windows Authorization Manager MMC. The catalog system provides a finely grained security model which ranges from roles which allows users to control the catalog system, to controlling editing of categories/products in individual catalogs. It is also possible to control view/edit permissions on individual catalogs, as well as control price and custom property editing on products and categories. Both these systems have appropriate built in roles respected by the Winforms applications. Based on the rights the current user has in the catalog and marketing systems the Winforms application will enable/disable the appropriate options. While this covers the logical security model based on rights and roles in your organization you should also ensure that your Commerce Server installation and the appropriate databases are secured by following the instructions in the Secure Deployment Guide.

4. Install the client applications: The Feature Pack provides two separate MSI packages to install the CatalogManager (CatalogManager.msi) and the Marketing (DiscountManager.msi) applications on individual client machines. Once you install these applications you are good to go.