The Countries pane, shown in Figure 12-3, contains the list of countries throughout the world. It stores numeric ISO code, as well as the long and short ISO abbreviations. This list is used in two main ways:

To enable or disable a country for customer locations, follow these steps:

The Currencies pane allows you to manage the list of supported currencies. There are no internal limitations in the eCommerce engine restricting the use of currencies. The system comes preloaded with all currencies defined in the ISO 4217 name list. Each currency is stored with a name, the numeric ISO code, the ISO abbreviated name, and the exchange rate.

Currencies are switched on the site by using the Currency Select Server Control, which operates very similarly to the Language Select Server Control, allowing the end users to select the currency for the item being priced. A default currency can be selected for the site by setting the value of the ek_ecom_DefaultCurrencyId tag in the web.config file at the root of your site.

Figure 12.4. FIGURE 12-4

While pricing on a per-currency basis can be performed for each item individually, you also have the option of having the Ektron Framework automatically calculate the appropriate price for each product by using the exchange rate defined for that currency. The exchange rate calculation is performed against the default currency. For example, out-of-the-box, the default currency is U.S. dollars. Each additional enabled currency then can have its own exchange rate that would be calculated against the dollar in this case. So let's say you kept the USD as the default currency, and enabled GBP as an alternate currency with an exchange rate of 1 USD = .65 GBP. If you were to then create a product with a price of 100 USD, site visitors could use the Currency Select Server Control to switch currencies to GBP, in which case they would see the price automatically calculated as 65 GBP. These calculations are performed as needed, so if you were to then modify the exchange rate for GBP, the price would reflect the change on the site immediately.

To manage the currencies for your site, follow these steps:

The currency exchange rates can also be programmatically manipulated through the Ektron.Cms .Commerce.ExchangeRateApi. This API can be used to keep your stored exchange rates up-to-date with market conditions if desired. This operation is more advanced, however, and is beyond the scope of this book.

The Ektron eCommerce feature comes with five predefined credit card types: American Express, Diners Club, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa. These card types are used to populate the credit card type dropdown in the checkout process. Each card specification can be updated with custom naming, icons, and regular expressions for early validation of that card type.

There are two main actions available in this area. New cards can be added, and current cards can be updated. To perform either of these actions, go to Workarea

Figure 12.8. FIGURE 12-8

There are several occasions during the order and fulfillment process when notifications are typically sent to the ordering party. The messages center allows you to define the format used in the e-mails that are sent when these events occur. The events and the associated message type are described in Table 12-1.

Figure 12.9. FIGURE 12-9

The messages used in eCommerce follow the same token string replacement method employed in other messages throughout the system. The acceptable tokens are listed in Table 12-2.

The eCommerce messaging system uses the same underlying technology as the content notification system. This means that for these e-mails to be sent, the CDOSYS SMTP and relay information must be configured properly in the web.config, as well as in IIS.

To create or modify the messages for your eCommerce system, follow these steps:

There are two types of payment options available in the eCommerce subsystem. The first type is PayPal, which is commonly accepted on many sites. The second type is to use a payment gateway, which allows you to hook up a merchant account directly to your website for immediate payment processing.

Setting Up PayPal

Using PayPal is frequently a less complicated way of enabling payment on your site but requires that the user be handed off to the PayPal website to complete the payment process. As this happens via a customized page you can still maintain some level of custom branding on the destination page. This is in contrast to a payment gateway, however, where the users never leave your site to complete their purchases.

Figure 12.11. FIGURE 12-11

There are two ways for the customer to use PayPal during the checkout process.

• If the customer selects PayPal from the Shopping Cart screen, the process proceeds as follows, and is illustrated in Figure 12-12.

  1. The customer starts on the cart screen.

  2. The customer selects PayPal as the payment method.

  3. The PayPal website comes up, requiring the customer to log into their PayPal account.

  4. The customer selects the payment and address information from their PayPal stored data.

  5. The information is passed back to the eCommerce system, pre-populating the addresses for shipment and billing.

  6. Shipping and billing information is presented to the user for modifications.

  7. Additional costs, such as shipping and taxes, are determined based on the addresses.

  8. The customer confirms the order.

  9. The customer returns to PayPal to finish checking out.

• If the customers do not click the PayPal button on the Shopping Cart screen, they follow a slightly different process. They manually enter the addresses rather than having them be pre-populated from the PayPal account. The rest of the process, however, is exactly the same.

  

  Figure 12.12. FIGURE 12-12

To enable PayPal support, follow these steps:

1. Create an account on PayPal as a seller.

2. Update the PayPalUser, PayPalPwd, and PayPalSignature keys in your web.config with the API username, password, and signature exposed by PayPal for that account.

3. Enable PayPal as a valid option in the Workarea.

4. You can customize the PayPal payment page to match your site more closely. These steps are covered in depth in "Enabling PayPal Support" in Chapter 17 of the CMS400 manual, installed with the Ektron Framework on your machine.

To enable PayPal in the Workarea, follow these steps:

1. Go to Workarea

   

2. From the toolbar, select Action

   

3. Check PayPal, and click Save to enable PayPal as a valid option on your site.

   

   Figure 12.13. FIGURE 12-13

Setting Up a Payment Gateway

The other option for accepting payments on your website is to use a payment gateway. A payment gateway is a service that accepts credit card payments on behalf of your website, through a back channel. From the customer's point of view, the experience appears to take place exclusively on your site.

The Ektron Framework ships with three payment gateway modules, supporting Authorize.Net, PayFlow, as well as a manual gateway that allows you to use an offline payment service. You can use this service, for instance, if you don't have a Web-enabled merchant account, but instead manually run credit cards at a physical location. In addition, the gateway system follows a provider model, allowing you to extend the system by creating custom gateway software to hook into other merchant account companies.

Gateways allow you to process payments other than credit cards as well; for instance, it is possible to accept payment by check through a gateway. Depending on the type of payment, the processing method may vary. The process for credit cards is outlined here:

1. The gateway provider on your site must first send the transaction information, such as the credit card number and amount, to a merchant account processor.

2. The merchant account processing system then passes the information to the Credit Card Interchange, which then passes the information to the credit card issuer.

3. The credit card issuer approves or declines the transaction and passes the appropriate funds back through the Credit Card Interchange.

4. The Credit Card Interchange passes the results back to the merchant account processor, which sends the received funds to your account, and the result of the transaction to the gateway provider on your site.

5. Finally, the gateway provider saves the results of the transaction to the database.

Notice that the gateway provider does not save the credit card information in that process. For security purposes, customer account information is never stored, only transaction results are.

In order to accept gateway transactions, you must first create a relationship with a payment gateway provider. As mentioned earlier, the eCommerce system supports Authorize.Net and PayFlow out-of-the-box, so if you do not yet have a merchant account, it is recommended that you choose one of these providers to minimize implementation time.

The eCommerce system supports entries for multiple gateways, but will only ever use one gateway at a time. In the Workarea, one gateway is marked as the primary gateway, and that gateway is used for all transactions. That gateway cannot be deleted unless another gateway is marked as default.

Managing gateways takes place in the Workarea, at Workarea

Figure 12.14. FIGURE 12-14

To modify an existing gateway definition, click the name in the list of gateways. Click the Edit button to modify the values shown to you. Table 12-3 lists and explains each field.

Table 12.3. Payment Gateway Form Fields

FIELD	DESCRIPTION
Name	The name of the payment gateway provider. This list is generated from the installed provider modules on your site.
Default	This field specifies whether this gateway is the default provider. Only the default provider is used to process payments.
User ID	This is your user ID with the gateway provider. It identifies your account to ensure the payment goes to the correct account.
Password	The password for your gateway provider account.
Custom Values	Some providers require additional details; for instance, PayFlow requires a vendor and partner string to be specified. These additional values are put into the Custom Values fields.
Credit Cards	Specifies whether the gateway supports credit cards.
Checks	Specifies whether the gateway supports checks.

Adding a gateway definition to the system takes place through the same form. From the Payment Options pane, select New

Figure 12.15. FIGURE 12-15

Checks are a special case in the eCommerce system. If supported by your gateway, checks are listed in the Payment Method dropdown on the payment screen during the checkout process. The customer is then asked to specify their bank name, account number, and routing number, as shown in Figure 12-16.

Figure 12.16. FIGURE 12-16

The process by which check payments are processed also differs slightly from the normal process. The process for processing these payments is as follows.

1. The eCommerce CMS user goes to the View Payment screen on the order, and selects Action

   

2. After a few days, the funds are transferred to the merchant account, at which point the eCommerce CMS user updates the order by selecting Action

   

From this point, the order processing continues as normal.

Regions are used in much the same way as countries. They define a list of geographic areas within a country for the purposes of taxes. The list of regions is displayed as part of the checkout process when collecting address information for billing and shipping. These regions' definitions vary from country to country — for instance, in the United States, each region is a state, as that is the variance for tax structures.

By default, the regions defined in the eCommerce system are the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and 9 Canadian Provinces. To add further regions for other countries, follow these steps:

Much like the payment model, the shipping system follows a provider model, so that you can create plug-ins that allow for shipping through methods not supported out-of-the-box. The eCommerce system ships with providers for FedEx and UPS out-of-the-box, along with a Flat rate provider that charges a fixed cost.

The providers available for the system are defined in the shipment.config file at the root of your site. This file contains the type data needed to instantiate your provider. You'll notice that it has an entry for each of the three shipment providers the system ships with. The FedEx and UPS entries are incomplete in a new installation. In order to use these in a production environment, you need to contact the appropriate company to obtain the following information:

This information must then be entered into the shipment.config file.

While any number of shipping providers can be defined in the shipment.config file, only one provider can be active in the system at a time. The default shipment provider is selected through the attribute defaultProvider on the shipmentProvider tag in the shipment.config file. If the new shipping method does not match the desired provider's offerings, you should ensure that the default is set correctly.

Your inventory can also be managed through the eCommerce Framework, relying on the concept of warehouses. The system supports multiple warehouses, but only calculates cost for shipping from the default warehouse.

The final piece of the shipment puzzle is to define packages. Packages allow you to specify standard box sizes along with weight restrictions. The shipping calculator built into the eCommerce Framework uses the box definitions along with the list of products to be shipped to the destination to approximate the best fit into the smallest-sized and fewest number of packages. This minimized number of boxes is then passed into the shipment provider for cost estimation. If the ordered item exceeds the size of the largest defined package, the dimensions of that item are passed directly to the shipment provider instead.

To add a shipping method, managing your warehouse and defining packages, follow these steps:

The Ektron eCommerce package supports a fairly complex tax structure, allowing you to create classes of goods that are taxed at different rates, as well as variances of those rates based on destination locations. Management of these rates takes place through the Workarea in the Workarea

The eCommerce feature comes preloaded with four tax classes: alcohol, goods, services, and tobacco. You can add, update, or delete these classes at any time. This list populates the Tax Class field when editing catalog entries, so that each product is categorized correctly. To manage these tax classes, follow these steps:

Taxes are applied to the order through a waterfall method. For each item in the order, the tax class of that item is found, and then the eCommerce engine tries to find a matching tuple that defines the tax code for the shipping destinations postal code and tax class. If it finds a match, it applies that rate and stops. If there is no matching tuple, the engine then looks at the regional tax rate for the destination and tax class. Again, if it finds a match, it applies the match and quits; otherwise the engine then checks the country rate.

If for a given destination you must apply multiple levels of taxes, you should build the combined rates into the smallest applicable geographic area. For instance, if in your postal code you must pay a 5 percent sales tax, and in your state you must pay a 4 percent sales tax, you should enter a 9 percent sales tax for your postal code, and 4 percent at the state level.

The three remaining screens in the Tax section on the Settings tree are for managing the rates at each geographic level. The Postal tax table allows you to enter rates for the postal code level, Regional at the regional level, among other levels.

As an example of managing the rates, this section explores how to set up the rates for a given state. Assume you have a company based out of Massachusetts. The state sales tax in Massachusetts is 6.25 percent. This means that for orders going to Massachusetts, you need to charge the appropriate tax. For orders going outside the state, there is no tax. To set up the rates for a given state, follow these steps:

To view the SmartForm content tabs, select New

Now that you know what all the tabs are all about, follow these steps to create a new product in the Videos catalog:

In addition to the familiar interface of editing items through the Workarea, you can also manage most of the properties on catalog items through the front end of your site, through the editor's menu. You can look at the options that are new when viewing an existing product in the Workarea. Browse to Workarea

You'll notice, as shown in Figure 12-39, that the toolbar has some additional items on it that are not on regular content. Specifically, the View menu has two new items, Cross Sell and Up Sell. You can use these items to drive additional sales by presenting customers with additional options as they shop on your site.

Figure 12.39. FIGURE 12-39

The interfaces for adding cross sell and up sell items are the same, simply displaying a list of items, and allowing you to add more by browsing the catalog in a modal window to find the target product.

There are five reports the eCommerce system provides.

In addition to these high-level reports, you can run reports against fulfillment criteria, which is useful in pushing orders through the order workflow. Before you look at those reports, take a moment and look at how orders move through the eCommerce system.

The built-in order processing workflow is as follows:

The process is simplified for intangible goods, and is almost completely automated in that scenario. The workflow map is shown in Figure 12-43.

Figure 12.43. FIGURE 12-43

The manual state transitions in that workflow take place through the View Order screen, which you can open by accessing individual orders through the Orders report: