Super quick Aspdotnetstorefront site setup

By Beacon News | Published February 13, 2012 | Categories: Ecommerce

There are literally thousands of settings that you can configure for a new AspDotNetStorefront site, but here is a set of instructions that we use to quickly set up a very basic non-eCommerce (catalog only) site in Version 8 of AspDotNetStorefront:

1. Follow manual instructions to do a base install: Installation Guide
2. Skin/Template set-up
   • Review the available default skins or purchase a skin template
   • Navigate to the docs/skins folder of your new AspDotNetStorefront site and rename the  Skin_1 folder to Skin_old
   • Copy the new skin to docs/skins and rename "Skin_1"
   • Resize the company logo to the height of the logo.jpg file included in the skins/skin_1/images/ and save as logo.jpg in this folder (if not a jpg file, see #3 below)
3. Template.ascx Set-up-- Open /docs/skins/skin_1/template.ascx in an HTML editor and make the following updates to the HTML code.
   • If the company logo is not a jpg file (png, for example), change logo.jpg in template file to correct logo name
   • Remove shopping cart and wishlist links from utility nav in template.ascx
   • Remove all links and content from top and bottom nav that do not apply
   • Update copyright line/year in footer
   • Remove departments/sections from left nav (if not in use on site)
4. Style.css Set-up-- Update colors and styles in docs/skins/Skin_1/styles.css as needed to match corporate colors
5. Admin Set-up
   • Log into Admin with default id/password and create super users under Customers/Add New Customer and then Customers/View-Edit Customers/Super User button.  Notify new admins of id/password/Admin URL.  Log in with one of the new super-user accounts and delete default admin user. 
   • Update store details under Configuration/Site Configuration Wizard including Store Name, Store email address, etc.
   • Go to Configuration/Email and set email server information
   • Appconfig updates-- Make the following updates in Configuration/Advanced/Appconfig Parameters
     • Search for "meta" in the Appconfigs section and complete all relevant fields with search engine data/keywords
     • Remove buy and wish list buttons by setting ShowBuyButtons and ShowWishButtons to "false"
     • Remove items from site map that should not be displayed by searching appconfigs for "sitemap." and setting areas that should not be in site map to "false"
   • Hit reset cache to force updates to appear on public site
6. Topics-- Update the following under Content, Manage Topics in the Admin area
   1. Add content to all topic pages that are relevant to this company (about, service, security, hometopintro, etc.)
   2. Hyperlink any new topic pages to Help & Info box so they show in the left navigation
   3. Review each existing topic page and do the following:
      • Remove topics that will definitely not be used using "Delete Topic" button
      • Set topics that should not show in sitemap to "no" with "Publish in Site Map" field
      • Update text on all topics that start with "Empty" and "Productnotfound" topic
      • Update hometopintro with homepage content
      • Update pagenotfound text
7. Products/Categories-- Add Categories and Products using either a product import (our preference) or manually in Admin
8. Complete "Go Live" checklist
9. Carefully review and test the site, make revisions as needed
10. LAUNCH THE SITE!