Controlling How Profiles Are Displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager

For the latest version of Commerce Server 2007 Help, see the Microsoft Web site.

The <language>_PresentationInfo.xml files define how profiles and profile properties are displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager. These files are located in the <siteName>_ProfilesWebService folder of the Web site. You can find the schema that defines the structure of the <language>_PresentationInfo.xml files at %COMMERCE_SERVER_ROOT%\Sdk\Samples\Profiles\PresentationInfoSchema.xsd.

The Customer and Orders Manager can now display the values of one profile property as options for the value of another profile property. To display the name of each credit card as an option for the preferred credit card property, add:

memberOfList="credit_card_list"

to the preferred_credit_card property in the <language>_PresentationInfo.xml file:

<property name=”preferred_credit_card” displayName=”Preferred Credit Card”

description=”Name of preferred credit card from this user’s credit card list”

memberOfList=”credit_card_list” />

The name of each address is displayed as an option for the preferred address property by default. To inhibit this functionality, add the following lines to the CustomerAndOrdersManager.exe.config file:

<configuration>

<applicationSettings>

<Microsoft.CommerceServer.UI.CustomerAndOrdersManager.Properties.Settings>

<setting name=”TreatPreferredAddressAsMemberOfAddressList” serializeAs=”String”>

<value>

False

</value>

</setting>

</Microsoft.CommerceServer.UI.CustomerAndOrdersManager.Properties.Settings>

</applicationSettings>

</configuration>

The rest of this topic describes elements in the <language>_PresentationInfo.xml files.

presentationConfiguration Element

The presentationConfiguration element specifies the language of the localized content in the file. This element must be the root of the <language>_PresentationInfo.xml file.

The presentationConfiguration element contains one or more profile elements.

The following table describes the attributes of the presentationConfiguration element.

Attribute	Data Type	Description
cultureCode	String	The language of the localized content. This attribute is required.
xmlns	String	Specifies the namespace. The value must be "https://schemas.microsoft.com/CommerceServer/2006/03/PresentationInfo". This attribute is required.

profile element

The profile element describes how a profile is displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager.

The profile element contains one or more displayArea elements.

The following table describes the attributes of the profile element.

Attribute	Data Type	Description
name	String	The name of the profile. This attribute is required.
displayName	String	The localized name that is displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager as the label of the profile. This attribute is required.
description	String	A description of the profile. This attribute is required.

displayArea element

The displayArea element identifies the area of the Customer and Orders Manager user interface in which to display properties of the profile.

The displayArea element contains one or more property elements.

The following table describes the attributes of the displayArea element.

Attribute	Data Type	Description
name	String	The name of the display area. The only valid display area is named "main". This attribute is required.
displayName	String	The localized name that is displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager as the label of the display area. This attribute is required. Note: This attribute is currently not used.

property Element

The property element describes how a property of a profile is displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager.

The following table describes the attributes of the property element.

Attribute	Data Type	Description
name	String	The name of the property. This attribute is required.
displayName	String	The localized name that is displayed in the Customer and Orders Manager as the label of the property. This attribute is required.
description	String	A description of the property.
displayByDefault	Integer	Controls the order (from left to right) in which the property is displayed in relation to other properties in the Customer and Orders Manager search results column list. You can override this value by using the column chooser in the Customer and Orders Manager.
autoGeneratedId	Boolean	Indicates that, when a new profile is created, the Customer and Orders Manager should set the value of the property to a new GUID. Only set the value of the autoGeneratedId attribute to true if the property is the primary key. The default value is false.
linkedDisplayProperty	String	If this property represents an instance of a profile, the value of the linkedDisplayProperty is the name of the property of the profile to be displayed as the value of this property. For example, the value of the user_id_admin_contact property of the organization profile represents the profile of the administrative contact at the organization. To display the e-mail address of the administrative contact instead of an internal value that represents the administrative contact's profile, set the value of the linkedDisplayProperty attribute to "email_address".
readOnly	Boolean	If true, the Customer and Orders Manager will display the property, but a user cannot modify the property. The default value is false.
hidden	Boolean	If true, the Customer and Orders Manager will not display the property. The default value is false.
isPaymentMethod	Boolean	Indicates that the value of the property is the identifier of a payment method. The Customer and Orders Manager user interface will display a drop-down list that contains the available payment methods.
memberOfList	String	Specifies that the possible values for the property are defined by another property. For example, if the value of the memberOfList attribute for the property preferred_address were "address_list", the Customer and Orders Manager would display the addresses that comprised the address_list property as the possible values of the preferred_address property. Only single-valued properties may have a memberOfList attribute. The value of the memberOfList attribute must represent a multivalued property.

If no property element occurs in the XML file, the property will be displayed in the Advanced tab in the details section.

Important Note:
Do not remove the date_last_changed property from the <language>_PresentationInfo.xml files. If you remove the date_last_changed property, the Concurrent Editing Error dialog box will display incorrectly in Customer and Orders Manager.

See Also

Other Resources

Understanding Commerce Server Configuration