Catalog / product visualization under a future date

[Zaoui Bruno]

Hello,
 
We need to play the following use case with ofbiz :
Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce campaign. Through the
backoffice, merchandiser feed the products, catalog, pricing rules,
promos, and so on.
This will affect the objects that are period dependent (those that have
fromDate and thruDate fields).
Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect of his front office,
but at the date in the future, let's say December the 20th.
Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature or way to satisfy
this need.
We thought about some solutions, like shifting the system date of the
server, but this can cause too many side effects.
Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as soft way as possible the
behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can somebody tell me if
somthing was done around that topic, or if some tips already exist ?
 
Thanks in advance
 
Vladan Tutunovic
Prosodie Product Team
[hidden email]

[Si Chen-2]

Can't you just change your computer's date/time setting?

On Sep 7, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Zaoui Bruno wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We need to play the following use case with ofbiz :
> Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce campaign. Through the
> backoffice, merchandiser feed the products, catalog, pricing rules,
> promos, and so on.
> This will affect the objects that are period dependent (those that  
> have
> fromDate and thruDate fields).
> Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect of his front office,
> but at the date in the future, let's say December the 20th.
> Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature or way to satisfy
> this need.
> We thought about some solutions, like shifting the system date of the
> server, but this can cause too many side effects.
> Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as soft way as possible  
> the
> behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
> Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can somebody tell me if
> somthing was done around that topic, or if some tips already exist ?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Vladan Tutunovic
> Prosodie Product Team
> [hidden email]
>

[Tutunovic Vladan]

Hello Si,

Thanks for your fast answer.

This was one of the first ideas we had, but only one virtual date could be checked at time (test case described below). That implies a technical intervention on the computer. Merchandisers want to be abble to do that without any technical skills, excepting those needed for feeding the catalog and products from the backoffice. Moreover, several managers could work on the same website to simulate different (or same !) promos/campaigns/dates of the coming semester or year. That's why the time shifting have to be done at use-time.
We decided to keep this "virtual" date in the user session, and to find a way to make the entity engine use this one instead of the regular System.currentTimeMillis() provided by the UtilDateTime class.

If you have some suggestions about the classe(s) to operate, they will be welcome !!!

Best regards

Vladan.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Si Chen [mailto:[hidden email]]
Envoyé : jeudi 7 septembre 2006 18:26
À : [hidden email]
Objet : Re: Catalog / product visualization under a future date

Can't you just change your computer's date/time setting?

On Sep 7, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Zaoui Bruno wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We need to play the following use case with ofbiz :
> Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce campaign. Through the
> backoffice, merchandiser feed the products, catalog, pricing rules,
> promos, and so on.
> This will affect the objects that are period dependent (those that
> have fromDate and thruDate fields).
> Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect of his front office,
> but at the date in the future, let's say December the 20th.
> Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature or way to satisfy
> this need.
> We thought about some solutions, like shifting the system date of the
> server, but this can cause too many side effects.
> Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as soft way as possible
> the behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
> Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can somebody tell me if
> somthing was done around that topic, or if some tips already exist ?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Vladan Tutunovic
> Prosodie Product Team
> [hidden email]
>

[cjhowe]

to avoid the side effects, load OFBiz on a desktop and
copy the database then change the computer's
date/time, run your scenario

--- Si Chen <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Can't you just change your computer's date/time
> setting?
>
> On Sep 7, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Zaoui Bruno wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > We need to play the following use case with ofbiz
> :
> > Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce
> campaign. Through the
> > backoffice, merchandiser feed the products,
> catalog, pricing rules,
> > promos, and so on.
> > This will affect the objects that are period
> dependent (those that  
> > have
> > fromDate and thruDate fields).
> > Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect
> of his front office,
> > but at the date in the future, let's say December
> the 20th.
> > Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature
> or way to satisfy
> > this need.
> > We thought about some solutions, like shifting the
> system date of the
> > server, but this can cause too many side effects.
> > Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as
> soft way as possible  
> > the
> > behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
> > Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can
> somebody tell me if
> > somthing was done around that topic, or if some
> tips already exist ?
> >
> > Thanks in advance
> >
> > Vladan Tutunovic
> > Prosodie Product Team
> > [hidden email]
> >
>
>

[David E Jones-2]

You wouldn't necessarily have to copy the database, just point an app  
server box with a different date to the same database.

-David


On Sep 7, 2006, at 11:01 AM, Chris Howe wrote:

> to avoid the side effects, load OFBiz on a desktop and
> copy the database then change the computer's
> date/time, run your scenario
>
> --- Si Chen <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Can't you just change your computer's date/time
>> setting?
>>
>> On Sep 7, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Zaoui Bruno wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> We need to play the following use case with ofbiz
>> :
>>> Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce
>> campaign. Through the
>>> backoffice, merchandiser feed the products,
>> catalog, pricing rules,
>>> promos, and so on.
>>> This will affect the objects that are period
>> dependent (those that
>>> have
>>> fromDate and thruDate fields).
>>> Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect
>> of his front office,
>>> but at the date in the future, let's say December
>> the 20th.
>>> Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature
>> or way to satisfy
>>> this need.
>>> We thought about some solutions, like shifting the
>> system date of the
>>> server, but this can cause too many side effects.
>>> Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as
>> soft way as possible
>>> the
>>> behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
>>> Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can
>> somebody tell me if
>>> somthing was done around that topic, or if some
>> tips already exist ?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance
>>>
>>> Vladan Tutunovic
>>> Prosodie Product Team
>>> [hidden email]
>>>
>>
>>
>

[David E Jones-2]

Vladan,

What you're describing certainly could be implemented, but has not  
yet been.

The session is certainly the logical place to keep the user's date  
selection. Lower down, the Entity Engine is not the only place that  
will need to know about this current date/time override. In fact for  
the ecommerce data querying much of the date filtering is done in  
memory so that over time the cached lists do not have to be refreshed.

So, yes, this will take some work but if done properly there are some  
things like thread local variables that could make it a lot more  
efficient requiring maybe only a half dozen places that need to be  
changed.

-David


On Sep 7, 2006, at 10:59 AM, Tutunovic Vladan wrote:

> Hello Si,
>
> Thanks for your fast answer.
>
> This was one of the first ideas we had, but only one virtual date  
> could be checked at time (test case described below). That implies  
> a technical intervention on the computer. Merchandisers want to be  
> abble to do that without any technical skills, excepting those  
> needed for feeding the catalog and products from the backoffice.  
> Moreover, several managers could work on the same website to  
> simulate different (or same !) promos/campaigns/dates of the coming  
> semester or year. That's why the time shifting have to be done at  
> use-time.
> We decided to keep this "virtual" date in the user session, and to  
> find a way to make the entity engine use this one instead of the  
> regular System.currentTimeMillis() provided by the UtilDateTime class.
>
> If you have some suggestions about the classe(s) to operate, they  
> will be welcome !!!
>
> Best regards
>
> Vladan.
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Si Chen [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Envoyé : jeudi 7 septembre 2006 18:26
> À : [hidden email]
> Objet : Re: Catalog / product visualization under a future date
>
> Can't you just change your computer's date/time setting?
>
> On Sep 7, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Zaoui Bruno wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> We need to play the following use case with ofbiz :
>> Some company prepares its Christams eCommerce campaign. Through the
>> backoffice, merchandiser feed the products, catalog, pricing rules,
>> promos, and so on.
>> This will affect the objects that are period dependent (those that
>> have fromDate and thruDate fields).
>> Once this job done, he'd like to check the aspect of his front  
>> office,
>> but at the date in the future, let's say December the 20th.
>> Till now, we aren't aware of some existing feature or way to satisfy
>> this need.
>> We thought about some solutions, like shifting the system date of the
>> server, but this can cause too many side effects.
>> Our conclusion is to study and modify in an as soft way as possible
>> the behaviour of the Delegator (and ) object.
>> Before we dive in the entity engine layer, can somebody tell me if
>> somthing was done around that topic, or if some tips already exist ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>>
>> Vladan Tutunovic
>> Prosodie Product Team
>> [hidden email]
>>
>