Enterprise Framework

How To:  NopCommerce Best Practices for GenericAttribute table

NOTE:  DRAFT IN PROGRESS

Description: 

A generic storage table for long term and short term data for any entity in NopCommerce that inherits from BaseEntity.  But be careful how you use this table or what you do with it because it has both long term and short term data and not understanding the of the data that's stored could cause issues.. The GenericAttribute table can persist long term Customer data such as First Name, Last Name and Gender.  You can use the GenericAttribute table to persist the long term order data but the KeyGroup must be Order and the EntityId represents the OrderId

Table:  GenericAttribute

• Id (int, identity, not null, pk)
• EntityId (int, not null)
• KeyGroup (nvarchar(400), not null)
• Key (nvarchar(400), not null)
• Value (nvarchar(max), not null)
• StoreId (int, not null) - Settings Store to 0 means all stores
  

• CustomerType

• Customer Entity : Register : You'll find that it stores long term information like Gender, FirstName, LastName and more on customers who have registered.  Note that StoreId is set 0 which means it applies to all stores.  This is long term storage meaning it won't change unless change are made by the user specifically.
• Long Term Records:
• KeyGroup:  Customer
• Key's are:
• Gender
• FirstName
• LastName
• DateOfBirth
• Customer Entity : Checkout : You'll find that it temporarily stores short term data such as a a user selections as you transitions from one section to the next during the checkout process for that customer.  Any values stored during this will be overwritten by the next order for that customer.
• Temporary Records:
• KeyGroup:  Customer
• Key's are:
• SelectedPickUpInStore
• UseRewardPointsDuringCheckout