Sitecore Commerce Diary - 3 Setup Sitecore site to work with Commerce Server

This Article is a series that will explore setting up a Sitecore Commerce Site and development environment with some code snippets showcasing what Sitecore Commerce can do and how it can be used effectively with ease.

Prerequisites to setting up Sitecore to work with Commerce server storefront site on your local machine are:

1. You have installed MongoDb 2.6 or higher on your local machine.
2. You gave installed Commerce server on your local machine, if not follow the steps listed under Sitecore Commerce Diary – 1 located at: http://xcentium.com/blog/2016/08/16/sitecore-commerce-diary---1-installing-commerce-server-for-sitecore-commerce.
3. You also need to have setup Commerce server storefront sites webservice as listed under Sitecore Commerce Diary – 2 located at: http://xcentium.com/blog/2016/09/02/sitecore-commerce-diary---2-setting-up-commerce-server-website

Step 1:

1. Download Sitecore Commerce Connect 8.1 rev. 160205 at https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Sitecore_Commerce_Connect/81/Sitecore_Commerce_81_Connect.aspx
2. Download Sitecore Commerce Connect 8.1 rev. 160202
3. Download Sitecore XP 8.1 rev. 151207 (8.1 Update-1) from https://dev.sitecore.net/en/Downloads/Sitecore_Experience_Platform/Sitecore_81/Sitecore_Experience_Platform_81_Update1.aspx
4. Download Sitecore Merchandising Manager 8.1 rev. 8.1.543.0 from Sitecore

Step 2:

Install Sitecore XP 8.1 rev. 151207 and give it a site name say “ScCommServer113” using either the sim installer or manually or using the .exe file.

Step 3:

Go to the App_Pool under IIS for the new Sitecore site and set the identity to custom, then input your windows user name and password.

Step 4:

Copy the downloaded “Sitecore Commerce Connect 8.1 rev. 160202.zip” to your sitecore site's packages folder under the data folder. I copied mine to “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ScCommServer113\Data\packages”

Step 5: 

Login to Sitecore as admin http://sccommserver113/sitecore, navigate to control Panel, Click “Install a package”, click choose a package and select the package you just copied across, then click next and proceed with the installation. 

Step 6:

Navigate to admin http://sccommserver113/sitecore/admin/UpdateInstallationWizard.aspx

First install the downloaded “Sitecore Commerce Connect 8.1 rev. 160202” once the installation is complete click “install another package” and install  the other downloaded package
“Sitecore Merchandising Manager 8.1 rev. 8.1.543.0”

Step 7:

When the second installation is completed, navigate to Sitecore’s Launchpad and you should see the Merchandising Manager and Experience Analytics Placeholders.

Step 8:

Generate Profile Encryption Keys for the site “CommServer113StorefrontSite” by following the steps below or following the steps on this url:

http://commercesdn.sitecore.net/SCpbCS81/SCpbCSRefSfGuide/en-us/GenerateProfileEncryptionKeys.html#concept_ybq_dlc_kt

• Click the Windows Startbutton, search for “tools command prompt”, and then right clickTools command prompt and run as administrator

• A command prompt shell will popup. Run the following commands to create profile encryption keys in registry for the site “CommServer113StorefrontSite”:

• ProfileKeyManager.exe /kn /o "c:\profileEncryptionKeys.xml" /f

• ProfileKeyManager.exe /ke /kf "c:\profileEncryptionKeys.xml" /reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CommerceServer\Encryption\Keys\CommServer113StorefrontSite /f

• ProfileKeyManager.exe /ke /kf "c:\profileEncryptionKeys.xml" /reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\CommerceServer\Encryption\Keys\CommServer113StorefrontSite /f

Step 9:

Linkup the new Sitecore site and the store front web services site “CommServer113StorefrontSite” as follows:

• Use Windows explorer to navigate to “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ScCommServer113\Website\App_Config”
• Rename “CommerceServer.Core.config.example” to “CommerceServer.Core.config”
• Open “CommerceServer.Core.config” in a text editor and make the following changes
• Replace all occurences of “CSSolutionStorefrontSite” with “CommServer113StorefrontSite”
• Replace all occurences of “SolutionStorefrontSite” with “CommServer113StorefrontSite”
• Save the config file

Step 10:

Navigate to Sitecore’s content editor and you will see Commerce Server related items on the content tree as shown below.

We are all set to start developing our E-commerce site using Commerce server and Sitecore.

In Sitecore Commerce Diary: 4, we will create the Visual Studio solution for our new Sitecore site so that we can start developing.