Contents
Overview 1
Mechanics of Web-Based Purchasing 2
Using COM+ in E-Commerce 11
Using Commerce Server 2000 17
Lab 6: Creating Pipeline Objects for
the OPP 30
Review 37

Module 6: Transaction
Processing on the
Business Logic Layer

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Explain the features of COM+.

Describe how asynchronous processing can benefit B2C e-commerce.

Describe the solutions available from Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 that
address the security and transactional issues on the business logic layer.

Materials and Preparation
This section provides the materials and preparation tasks that you need to teach
this module.
Required Materials
To teach this module, you need the following materials:

Microsoft PowerPoint
®
file 2260A_6.ppt

Module 6, “Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer”

Lab 6, “Creating Pipeline Objects for the OPP”

Preparation Tasks
To prepare for this module, you should:

Read all of the materials for this module.

Complete the lab.

Practice adding and removing objects from the plan pipeline for the
demonstration.

Using Commerce Server 2000
Commerce Server 2000 includes many features that enable it to implement
business logic in an e-commerce Web site. In this section, examine those
features, such as the Order Processing Pipeline (OPP). Be aware that the
B2B element that was found in Microsoft Commerce Server 3.0 is now part
of Microsoft BizTalk Server
™
2000 and is discussed in Module 8,
“Exchanging Business Data,” in Course 2260A, Designing E-Business
Applications with Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers. This section includes
a demonstration of modifying an OPP by using the Pipeline Editor.

Lab 6: Creating Pipeline Objects for the OPP
In this lab, students will create a pipeline object to insert into the OPP. The
pipeline object will determine the handling cost associated with a
transaction at the Commerce Server 2000 Retail Solution Site.

Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer 1

Overview

Mechanics of Web-Based Purchasing

Using COM+ in E-Commerce

Using Commerce Server 2000

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the module topics and
objectives.
Lead-in
In this module, you will learn
how to plan an e-commerce
transaction processing
architecture that will
overcome some problems of
Web-based purchasing at
the business logic layer.
2 Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer



 Mechanics of Web-Based Purchasing

Gathering User and Order Information

Handling Legal and Tax Issues

Selecting Payment Options

Securing the Payment for Orders

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
Store information about the current purchase in a
session-based location

Store customer information, such as billing address, on a
long-term basis

Before calculating the total price, take into
consideration product- and customer-specific
discounts, promotions, and shipping and tax charges

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The purchasing process on an e-commerce site has several stages. For example,
the site needs to track the products that shoppers have put into their carts before
they proceed to the checkout routine.
It is critical that you make the checkout process as clear and intuitive as
possible. If the checkout process is not user-friendly, the business can lose
many customers.
Gathering Information
Before the customer can make a purchase, the e-commerce application must
gather certain information, including:


collect it.
4 Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer


Store information about the current purchase in a session-based location.
This session-based location would typically be an ASP.NET Session object;
however, when using Commerce Server 2000, the session-based location is
the OrderForm object. The OrderForm object is discussed later in this
module.

Store customer information, such as billing address, on a long-term basis.
Although this is not strictly necessary, it will improve the perceived ease of
use of your e-commerce site. You might typically store this information in a
back-end database or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
directory.

Preparing for the Purchase
Before the application can calculate the total price for the selected goods,
certain factors must be considered, such as:

Discounts or promotions on individual products.

Customer-specific discounts.

Total number of items of each product purchased.

Discounts based on multiple products purchased together.

Shipping costs.


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Generally, the same rules that apply to any other form of commerce also govern
e-commerce; however, you must give particular consideration to international
or cross-state trade.
Legal Issues
Before an e-commerce site begins trading, various legal issues must be
considered, including:

What are the terms and conditions of sale? Will they be valid in all of the
locations to which you plan to export? How does a customer return a
product?

Is there any liability involved with the sale? If so, what sort of disclaimers
do you need to display?

Can you export the product to the user's location? For example, you must be
aware of export restrictions on encryption products outside the United States
of America if you create an application for a vendor of such products.

If the site is collecting personal details, does it comply with relevant data
protection acts? Does it ensure that the privacy of children under 13 is
preserved in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)?


for U.S. states is maintained by Vertex Inc. at http://www.vertexinc.com.
The part of the ordering process that calculates taxes must be able to handle
these variations. The use of substitutable Component Object Model (COM)
components can help to adapt the sales process appropriately.
Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer 7

Selecting Payment Options

Payment Options

Credit card

Electronic cash

Micro-payments

Purchase order

Check or money order

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There are many ways to transfer money between customer and vendor. When

shoppers.
Lead-in
Most people think of credit
cards when they consider
how payments might be
made over the Web.
However, there are other
options.
8 Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer


Purchase order
By setting up an account facility between a customer and a vendor, a
purchase-order number can be used instead of direct payment. Usually, this
is practical only in business-to-business (B2B) scenarios, in which there is
an ongoing relationship between trading partners. B2C e-commerce tends to
be more sporadic in nature and deals with lower volume, so the use of
purchase orders is not usually appropriate for B2C e-commerce.

Check or money order
Although personal checks and money orders are valid payment methods at
many shops, they have their drawbacks in e-commerce transactions. Among
the problems are the time lag between order and payment and the fact that
checks and money orders are difficult to use in an international context.

Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer 9

Securing the Payment for Orders

Payment over a secure channel must be secure,

or more Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) forms. The submission of
payment information must be:

Secure
The pages containing the forms must be accessed through only a secure
channel, usually Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Complete
All personal information requested from a user must be obtained in a
consistent way. This applies as much to the billing address as to the credit
card number and expiration date.

Efficient
If a user has registered as a member of an e-commerce site or has purchased
products at the site before, it may be possible to offer default values for
billing information, shipping address, and so on.

The simplicity of the secure channel method has made it widespread across the
Web.
Topic Objective
To describe how to secure
the payment processing on
your e-commerce site.
Lead-in
When payment information
passes between customer
and vendor, it must be
protected from unauthorized
access.
Delivery Tip

You can configure the Web server on the Internet Server Manager
Directory Security tab.

Ensure that all the links to the payment pages require the use of a secure
channel by using the prefix https://.
You can do this by updating all the current links with the prefix http:// to
https://.

Add processing on the server side to take the credit card information and use
it to perform the fund transfer.

The last step, processing the credit card, is the most complex one. The process
required to validate a card, including checking for stolen cards, is beyond the
standard programming skills of most developers. Therefore, there are several
options for processing the credit card:

Store the credit card information and obtain authorization later by telephone.
The customer will be informed of the success or failure of the transaction
through e-mail. This is very labor intensive and slow.

Use a batch system to submit a set of credit card details to a payment
processor.
Although this requires less effort than using the telephone, it is still not a
real-time process.

Submit the card information in real time.
The customer will receive immediate feedback on the success or failure of
the financial transaction.

The type of processing you choose will depend on the performance

After you have determined which information to gather and the rules by which
it will be manipulated, you will then decide how to implement business logic. It
is recommended that developers implement business logic in COM+
components to develop applications that are easily scalable and manageable as
part of the .NET strategy.
Topic Objective
To introduce the concepts of
COM+.
Lead-in
It is recommended that
developers implement
businesses logic in COM+
components.
12 Module 6: Transaction Processing on the Business Logic Layer

Encapsulating Business Logic in Components

Advantages of encapsulating business logic in COM+
components

Atomicity

Flexibility

Substitutability

Integration with Commerce Server 2000

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the system as application requirements change.

Substitutability
If the business rules for any part of an e-commerce application change, it is
simple to create a new COM+ component that can retain the COM+
interfaces of the original component while implementing the new business
rules.

Integration with Commerce Server
By implementing the appropriate COM interface, the developer can easily
incorporate the component as part of a Commerce Server pipeline. The
interface that needs to be implemented to use components in the Commerce
Server pipeline is called IpipelineComponent.

Topic Objective
To introduce the advantages
of COM+.
Lead-in
COM+ components can be
written in languages such as
Visual Basic, Visual C++,
and C#.
Delivery Tip
While explaining the
advantages of COM+
components, tell the
students that they can write
business logic in COM+
components and include
them in a Commerce Server