Forums (Obsolete)

Member

Brandon - 8/21/2012 7:27:00 AM

Custom Product Integration

Hello again Kentico Community,

I've been developing a custom product(s) section for my company and I have a few question about how to integrate it fully with the CMS.

Right now I have a single ASPX page that is provided / reads from the query string in the code behind to populate the page with all of the specific product details. As an example, it would be www.mywebsite.com/Product?ID=1234.

The only downside to this is that it doesn't seem to be fully integrating with the CMS. Under the E-Commerce section of the website each product has no associated product. Another short coming of this approach is that the links created in the shopping-cart don't link to my product page (for the same reason I'm sure). Oh, and the cms:CMSListMenu doesn't populate each product. I realize the reason for this is because there is only the one single ASPX page within my Content Tree.

Is there a way to integrate this method with the CMS so that I can associate each product as having it's own page? If not, how can I set each product to use this template so I can add each product to my content tree?

Thanks in advance!

Certified Developer 8

Jiveabillion - 8/21/2012 3:24:32 PM

RE:Custom Product Integration

You can set the default page template for your product document type so that newly created documents will automatically use that template. Instead of using a querystring parameter to access the product, you should just use the product's NodeAliasPath or DocumentUrlPath.

Can you clarify what you mean by "custom product(s) section" Is it a section that doesn't use products added in the content tree?

Are you storing your products in your database some other way?

Member

Brandon - 8/21/2012 3:39:57 PM

RE:Custom Product Integration

Thanks for the reply @Jiveabillion,

I'm not sure why I didn't consider changing the template on the document type. Seems straight forward. Then I would just add whichever products I want to show as 'Product' document types in the content tree. The only downside to this is just that, I would have to add each product manually rather than generate them automatically from E-Commerce module. I can see pros and cons to each method.

By "custom product(s) section" I just meant that it is a personalized view of the e-commerce products. Not based off of the e-commerce website template included with Kentico.

I'm storing the products in the database through the E-Commerce module (CMSDesk > Tools > E-Commerce > Products.).

I would be interested to know if there was a way to associate the e-commerce module products with my single page template (with a query string specific to that product's ID). This would at least fix the shopping cart links and the CMSDesk would show there were documents associated. Doubtful.

THANKS again!

Kentico Developer

kentico_helenag - 8/22/2012 3:21:01 AM

RE:Custom Product Integration

Hello,

the products in the e-commerce section need the associated document in the content tree. Please read this article to understand the system: How do document types differ from e-commerce products?

Without the associated documents, the system cannot work correctly on the live site. You can create them by API if you need. A sample code is in Site manager -> Support -> API examples.

Best regards,
Helena Grulichova