Advisory Services for Commerce Server

Advisory Services is a remotely delivered, hourly fee based, consultative support option that provides a more comprehensive result beyond your break-fix product maintenance needs. This support option includes working with the same technician for assistance with issues like product migration, reviewing code, or developing a new program. This service is usually used for shorter engagements, designed for developers and IT professionals who do not require the traditional on-site consulting or sustained account management services that are available from other Microsoft support options.

Service Description:

• Microsoft Advisory Services provides short-term advice and guidance for problems not covered with Problem Resolution Service and requests for consultative assistance for design, development and deployment issues.

Billing for Advisory Services engagements will be based on an hourly fee of $210 U.S. The scope of the engagement is estimated prior to the delivery of the service, and a contract will be executed between Microsoft and the customer before initiating work.

Microsoft Advisory Services can be accessed by dialing (800) 936-5200 in the United States and Canada only.

Solution Areas

Setup and Deployment

• General installation and guidance through rollout of Commerce Server.

Migration

• Migrating Catalogs: Advisory Services can provide assistance migrating existing product catalogs to Commerce Server 2000. This can include migration of product data to commerce catalog xml format using BizTalk server. In general this involves the following tasks:
• Transforming the data into a valid flat file.
• Creation of a schema for the flatfile data.
• Determination of desired output, (e.g., category structure, product definitions, property definitions).
• Creation of Map using BizTalk Server Mapper.
• Migrating Profiles: Advisory Services can provide assistance migrating existing user profiles into Commerce Server 2000. In general this involves the following tasks:
• Planning for migration. Includes issues with groups, and considerations for using Sequel Server or Active Directory.
• Mapping attributes from membership directory to profiles data store using the migration profile builder tool.
• Migrating profiles from the membership directory using the Directory Migration tool.


• Moving Sites: Advisory Services can assist customers in moving their Commerce 3.0 sites to Commerce Server 2000. An example: a site that is fully functional under SSCE 3.0, needs to be running under 2000 without migrating the data, but retains the same functionality as in 3.0. Uses editdictionary.asp for management.

Business Internet Analytics

• Custom Report: Advisory Services can assist customers in developing custom reports based on data that is already in their Data Warehouse. This can include creation of static or dynamic SQL or OLAP reports.
• Note: The extension of the Data Warehouse would generally be beyond the scope of Advisory Services.

Custom Coding

• Custom Scriptors/Pipeline Components: Advisory Services can assist with simple Custom Pipeline component/scriptor development to address scenarios for which 3rd party needs do not fulfill the requirements.



• BizDesk: Advisory Services can extend the BizDesk by the creation of new custom BizDesk modules. In general, this can include the creation of a custom BizDesk module that uses simple ADO to display and page through records from a table, open individual records and save changes to the record. This service may be packaged with the Creating custom site resources offering.
• Note: Using other objects may be beyond the scope of Advisory Services.


• Creating Custom Site Resources: Includes using the rescfg resource kit utility to create a custom resource with numerous properties including connection strings.



• 3rd Party Component Integration: Advisory services can assist customers in integration of 3rd party components into their environment. Though it is the responsibility of the 3rd party to provide instructions for their component as to how it integrates with the Commerce Server platform, Microsoft recognizes that there are instances (when a new sample site is released, for example) that no such instructions exist. Advisory Services can work together with the customer and the 3rd party to assist in integrating the 3rd party component.
• BizTalk-Commerce Server Integration: Integrating Commerce Server and BizTalk Server to exchange catalog and order data.