Coshopping - Steps to enable in WCS 7 Developer

Coshopping uses the WebSphere Application Server Communications Enabled Applications (CEA) Feature Pack and CEA peer-to-peer web collaboration widgets to synchronize each browser to the web page of the initializing shopper. 


Step 1 :Installing Feature Pack 2 or later 
Install WebSphere Commerce Version 7 Feature Pack 2 or later, which installs the coshopping feature.

Step 2 : Enable starter store enhancements 
Run the enablement scripts for starter store enhancements.


Step 3 : Download Websphere Application Server Feature Pack for CEA
The Feature Pack can be downloaded from the below link :
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/featurepacks/cea/
You will need Passport Advantage credentials to download the Feature Pack

This feature pack is one of the first WebSphere Application Server products to be installed by Installation Manager rather than by the programs based on InstallShield MultiPlatform (ISMP) that are used to install, update, and uninstall previous versions of WebSphere Application Server.

Once download is complete , extract the zip file and add the repository to the IIM (IBM Installation Manager).
File -> Preferences -> Repositories -> Add Repository..
The path of the repostory will be something similar to below :
<temp_directory>\cea_and_import_repositories\local-repositories\repository.config

Step 4 : Upgrade the WebSphere Application Server to Fix pack 17 and above
Important to note - whenever you apply Fix packs to the Websphere Application Server , be sure to apply the same level of fix pack to the Java SDK as well. If there are any mismatches , we will face issues while importing or synchronizing the Websphere Application installation into the Installation Manager.

You can choose to upgrade the WAS fix pack level using either Installation Manager or using Update Installer.

If using Update installer ,  the installation URL :

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24029634

 
I had already upgraded the Websphere Application Test Server to 7.0.0.19 at the time of WCS 7 installation so I did not need to do this.

Optional: If you ever want to install a seperate instance of WAS

Download URL :

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27012956

PartNumber : C1G0QML​.zip

Step 5 : Import the existing installation of the WebSphere Application Test Server into the IIM

1.                   Open IIM

2.                  Select "Import"

3.                  Enter/Browse the Installation Directory of the Websphere Application Test Server. The path will  be -RAD_installdir\runtimes\base_v7\ and follow the steps and import.

4.                   The Websphere Application Test Server will be imported and now we can apply the Feature Packs to the installation using IIM. It will start appearing in the PackageGroup listings -

Step 6 : Install the CEA Feature Pack for Websphere Application Server 7

1.                   Open IIM

2.                  Select "Install"

3.                  Select the packagename imported in step 5 and follow the GUI steps to install the feature pack 1.0.0.0

Step 7 : Update the CEA Feature Pack installed to version 1.0.0.1 or above

The latest version available is 1.0.0.11 and hence I installed the same.

Use the "Update" menu within the IIM to perform the activity

When you have finished the installation and upgrade, you need to create a WebSphere Application Server runtime environment that includes the feature pack's functions. We will augment the existing WAS profile.

Step 8 : Create a WebSphere Application Server runtime environment that includes the feature pack's functions

Augment the WebSphere Application Server profile.

a.                  Open a command line.

b.                  Go to the RAD_installdir\runtimes\base_v7\bin directory.

c.                   Determine your profileName. To find a list of possible profileName options, manageprofiles.bat -listProfiles

This command returns a list of the profileNameoptions that can be augmented. select the WebSphere Application profile.

d.                  Backup the existing profile before augmenting  

manageprofiles.bat -backupProfile -profileName profileName -backupFile <path of the backup zip>

e.                  Run the manageprofiles command:
manageprofiles.bat -augment -profileName profileName -templatePath ..\profileTemplates\CEA\default.ceafep

f.                    If something goes wrong , either restore the backup profile (the backup taken in Step 8d) or use the "unaugment"  option to undo the augmentation
manageprofiles.bat -unaugment -profileName profileName -ignoreStack -templatePath ..\profileTemplates\CEA\default.ceafep 
OR
manageprofiles -restoreProfile -backupFile <path of the backup zip>

Step 9: Configure the WebSphere Commerce test server: 

a.                  Open the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console.

b.                  Click Servers > Server Type > WebSphere Application Server > server1 > Communications Enabled Applications (CEA)

c.                   Select Enable communications service.

d.                  Change Virtual Host to WC_default_host, Click OK, and save the configuration.

e.                  Click Environment > Virtual hosts > WC_default_host > Host Alias. Add the port for theSIP_DEFAULTHOST to the Virtual host. Ensure that a fully qualified domain name is used. You can check what the ports are for the SIP_DEFAULTHOST by selecting Servers > Server Type > WebSphere Application Server > server_name > Ports.

 Step 10: Integrate the CEA dojo library with the WebSphere Commerce EAR file.

a.                  Stop the WebSphere Application test server.

b.                  Close the WebSphere Commerce development environment.

c.                   Go to WCDE_installdir\bin directory.

d.                  Run the setupCoshopping.bat command.

Step 11: Publish the Madisons starter store 

Publish the Madisons.sar store archive. 

Step 12: Select the coshopping store function 

In Management Center, select the coshopping store function to add coshopping to the Madisons starter store storefront. 

Step 13: Start a coshopping session in the Madisons starter store 

In the Madisons starter store, use two different browsers to simulate a coshopping session.

Enjoy this amazing feature! 

Please feel free to drop comments incase you need any help with the steps.

Enabling SOLR search engine for Madisons Store

Enabling SOLR search engine for Madisons Store

I have been working on this article for some time and had to face multiple issues, here are some steps if you want to get going and explore WCS Search (Apache SOLR) which was introduced in FEP1, I have tested this with Feature Pack 4 installation.

You may follow these steps to enable SOLR for Madisons sample store which has been published as a standalone B2C store, you can do the same with Madisons extended sites store as well.

Step 1

Enable Search feature by following instruction from this link

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wchelp/v7r0m0/topic/com.ibm.commerce.developer.doc/tasks/tsdsearchbuilddeployfirst.htm

I happened to enable features while upgrading my toolkit to Feature pack 3 and hence did not follow these steps.

You can Enable Store enhacements by using following command

c:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\bin>enableFeature.bat -DfeatureName=store-enhancements

Ensure you are able to view following output from the URL, this is an indication of successful enablement of SOLR search engine, SOLR engine will initialize the very first time you hit this url, this can be noticed in application server log.

http://localhost/solr/Default/select?q=*%3A*

Step 2

Publish the started store included in feature pack to test advanced functionality, for instance Madisons ConsumerDirect Store can be used for testing new features.

2. 1 Publish Madisons Store Archive

Depending on your feature pack version you need to publish the Madisons store in following sequence


For Feature Pack 1 name for the store is Madisons.sar
For Feature Pack 2 and above the store is Madisons-FEP.sar

Publish as shows in the screenshot below

2. 2 Publish MadisonsEnhancements Store Archive

In this sample I have published Madisons-FEP.sar as a normal store (not an extended sites store), hence while publishing MadisonsEnhancements SAR file I have selected 

Marketing Store Identifier, catalog and customer facing store identifier as "Madisons-FEP" as shown in the screen shot below.

Login to CMC to validate search functionality is visible for the new Store.

Now validate search functionality for the new store.

Optional Steps

I have noticed that the store publish process in previous step will accomplish Step 3, 4 and 5, hence skip these steps is SOLR index was setup in previous step. 

You should notice something similar in store publish logs in Step 2

[5/13/12 20:13:21:447 CDT] 000001dd task          I com.ibm.commerce.search.indexsetup.execution.task.ConfigWCforSolrCatalogEntrySayHelloTask performExecute

**************************************************************

Started configuring WebSphere Commerce for Solr cores

**************************************************************

Master Catalog Id: 10351

Index Type: CatalogEntry

Languages: [en_US]

Step 3

3. 1 Retrieve Master catalog ID

-- For normal store (not an extended sites store)

select * from catalog where IDENTIFIER='MadisonsFEP';

-- For extended sites store

select * from storeent where IDENTIFIER='MadisonsFEP';

--Use the storeent_id as the store_id in the following SQL to find the Catalog Asset store ID of this Extended Site store

select * from storerel where store_id=11001 and streltyp_id=-4 and relatedstore_id not in (11001);

-Get the master catalog ID

select * from storecat where storeent_id=YYYYYY and mastercatalog='1'

3. 2 Stop the test server if it is running

Step 4

Setting up the WebSphere Commerce search index structure for a specific master catalog locally

C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\components\foundation\subcomponents\search\bin\setupSearchIndex.bat -masterCatalogId 10001

C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\components\foundation\subcomponents\search\log\wc-search-index-setup.log

Should create pre-process XML in C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\search\pre-processConfig\MC_10001\Cloudscape

Step 5

Preprocessing the WebSphere Commerce search index data

c:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\bin>di-preprocess.bat C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\search\pre-processConfig\MC_10001\Cloudscape

review C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\logs\wc-dataimport-preprocess.log

you should see following message towards the end of log file


Program exiting with exit code: 0.
Data import pre-processing completed successfully with no errors.

Step 6

Build Search Index

Restart the WebSphere Commerce search server after preprocessing is complete
and hit following URL from browser


Ensure you can visit SOLR over http by checking following URL in your browser

http://localhost/solr/Default/select?q=*%3A*

Start the test server, this time around you would notice lot of logging related to SOLR search engine in your start up log

[12/16/11 11:41:27:935 CST] 00000011 SolrResourceL I org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader locateSolrHome No /solr/home in JNDI

[12/16/11 11:41:27:937 CST] 00000011 SolrResourceL I org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader locateSolrHome using system property solr.solr.home: C:/IBM/WCDE_E~1/search/solr/home

[12/16/11 11:41:27:938 CST] 00000011 SolrResourceL I org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader <init> Solr home set to 'C:\IBM\WCDE_E~1/search/solr/home\'

[12/16/11 11:41:28:045 CST] 00000011 CoreContainer I org.apache.solr.core.CoreContainer load loading shared library: C:\IBM\WCDE_E~1\search\solr\home\lib

[12/16/11 11:41:28:078 CST] 00000011 SolrResourceL I org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader <init> Solr home set to 'C:\IBM\WCDE_E~1\search\solr\home\default\'

[12/16/11 11:41:28:119 CST] 00000011 SolrConfig    I org.apache.solr.core.SolrConfig initLibs Adding specified lib dirs to ClassLoader

[12/16/11 11:41:28:622 CST] 00000011 Config        I org.apache.solr.core.SolrConfig <init> Loaded SolrConfig: solrconfig.xml

[12/16/11 11:41:28:631 CST] 00000011 IndexSchema   I org.apache.solr.schema.IndexSchema readSchema Reading Solr Schema

[12/16/11 11:41:28:651 CST] 00000011 IndexSchema   I org.apache.solr.schema.IndexSchema readSchema Schema name=example

[12/16/11 11:41:32:055 CST] 00000011 SolrResourceL I org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader <init> Solr home set to 'C:\IBM\WCDE_E~1\search\solr\home\MC_10051\en_US\CatalogEntry\'

[12/16/11 11:41:32:199 CST] 00000011 SolrConfig    I org.apache.solr.core.SolrConfig initLibs Adding specified lib dirs to ClassLoader

di-buildindex.bat -masterCatalogId masterCatalogId

c:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\bin>di-buildindex.bat -masterCatalogId 10001

You should notice something similar at the end of this command execution..

May 11, 2012 8:33:43 PM com.ibm.commerce.foundation.dataimport.process.DataImpor
tProcessorMain logExitCode
INFO:

-----------------------------------------------

May 11, 2012 8:33:43 PM com.ibm.commerce.foundation.dataimport.process.DataImpor
tProcessorMain logExitCode(int)
INFO:
Program exiting with exit code: 0.
Data import process completed successfully with no errors.

May 11, 2012 8:33:43 PM com.ibm.commerce.foundation.dataimport.process.DataImpor
tProcessorMain logExitCode
INFO:
-----------------------------------------------


May 11, 2012 8:33:43 PM com.ibm.commerce.foundation.dataimport.process.DataImpor
tProcessorMain logEndDateAndTime
INFO: Data import process ended:Fri May 11 20:33:43 CDT 2012
May 11, 2012 8:33:43 PM com.ibm.commerce.foundation.dataimport.process.DataImpor
tProcessorMain logEndDateAndTime
INFO: Data import process completed in 81.565 seconds.

Reference Links

Setting up WebSphere Commerce search on a starter store
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wchelp/v7r0m0/topic/com.ibm.commerce.starterstores.doc/refs/rsdfepfeatroadmap.htm

Setting up WebSphere Commerce search

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wchelp/v7r0m0/topic/com.ibm.commerce.developer.doc/concepts/csddeploysearchtop.htm

WebSphere commerce search in starter stores

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wchelp/v7r0m0/topic/com.ibm.commerce.starterstores.doc/concepts/csmsearch.htm