Optional performance tweaks in EPiServer Commerce 8.9

EPiServer Commerce 8.9 contains, among many other features and fixes, several performance improvements with focus on Orders and the Catalog. These performance improvements benefit all implementations automatically. But we have also added a couple of optional tweaks.

Disabling version sync for ICatalogSystem operations

Whenever a catalog entry, node or the catalog itself is updated using ICatalogSystem (CatalogContext.Current) a synchronization mechanism activates to make sure that the content versions used by the Content Repository and the Catalog UI are up to date with the change. This includes updates done through the catalog import, Service API and integrations using any of these.

This version synchronization can now be disabled if you don’t care about the versions, e.g. if the catalog information is maintained using an external system that integrates using ICatalogSystem. Note that “disabled” in this context means that rather than updating or creating versions, any existing versions (including drafts not yet published) will be removed when the corresponding data is updated through ICatalogSystem.

The version synchronization is controlled by the AppSetting “DisableVersionSync”. It defaults to false if not present in the config file, i.e. version synchronization enabled. To disable synchronization, set it to true:

<appSettings>
  <add key="DisableVersionSync" value="true" />
</appSettings>

Clear version history for saved Catalog Content

The DisableVersionSync AppSetting does not affect updates done through the ContentRepository (including the Catalog UI), versions will be created regardless of the setting. But similar mechanism for skipping/clearing versions has been added to the ContentRepository. By extending the used SaveAction with the extra flag ExtendedSaveAction.ClearVersions in the call to Save(), any existing versions of the content will be removed. Note that this applies only to the Catalog Content Provider, other providers are unaware of this flag.

The best way to add the flag is to use the SetExtendedActionFlag extension method (namespace EPiServer.Commerce.Catalog.Provider), example:

// using EPiServer.Commerce.Catalog.Provider;
var contentRepository = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<IContentRepository>();
var myContent = contentRepository.Get<MyProductContentType>(linkToProductContent);
myContent = (MyProductContentType)myContent.CreateWritableClone();
myContent.Name = "New name";
var publishAndClearAction = SaveAction.Publish.SetExtendedActionFlag(ExtendedSaveAction.ClearVersions);
contentRepository.Save(myContent, publishAndClearAction, AccessLevel.NoAccess);

This might be useful for example in cases where the catalog data is maintained in an external system and the integration uses the Content Repository to import the catalog data.