Data action cache settings

This article covers cache settings for data actions in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce.

The software development kit (SDK) \src\settings\cache.settings.json file holds cache settings for entities that are returned from data actions calls. After these entities are cached, they are returned from the cache for all data action requests that have the same cache key, provided that their time to refresh (TTR) and time to live (TTL) values are valid.

For core data actions that are provided in the SDK, the cache key is implicitly set within the data action itself. (For information about how to determine the cache key from the SDK, see the Determine cache keys for data actions section later in this article.) For custom data actions, the cache key can be defined in the action input by overriding the getCacheKey() method.

For all entities, the default TTR is 60 seconds, and the default TTL is 600 seconds.

The following example shows a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file that includes a section for TTR and TTL settings. Each section contains name of the entity for the data action's cache key followed by the time in seconds. This example might differ from the file that is included in the SDK, because the SDK is regularly updated.

{
    "checkPeriodInSeconds": 1800,
    "ttlInSeconds": {
        "AttributeValue": 43200,
        "Category": 43200,
        "CategoryHierarchy": 43200,
        "CategoryPath": 43200,
        "ChannelConfiguration": 43200,
        "ChannelDeliveryConfiguration": 43200,
        "FeatureState": 43200,
        "FullProduct": 43200,
        "FullProductSearchResult": 43200,
        "MappedSearchInput": 43200,
        "OrgUnit": 43200,
        "OrgUnitLocation": 43200,
        "Product": 43200,
        "ProductCatalog": 43200,
        "ProductDimensionValue": 43200,
        "PRODUCTLIST-RECOMMENDATION":43200,
        "PRODUCTLIST-RELATEDPRODUCTS":43200,
        "ProductRating": 43200,
        "ProductRefiner": 43200,
        "SimpleProduct": 43200
    },
    "ttrInSeconds": {
        "AttributeValue": 900,
        "Category": 900,
        "CategoryHierarchy": 1800,
        "CategoryPath": 900,
        "ChannelConfiguration": 1800,
        "ChannelDeliveryConfiguration": 1800,
        "FeatureState": 900,
        "FullProduct": 900,
        "FullProductSearchResult": 900,
        "MappedSearchInput": 900,
        "OrgUnit": 1800,
        "OrgUnitLocation": 900,
        "Product": 900,
        "ProductCatalog": 900,
        "ProductDimensionValue": 1800,
        "PRODUCTLIST-RECOMMENDATION":900,
        "PRODUCTLIST-RELATEDPRODUCTS":900,
        "ProductRating": 900,
        "ProductRefiner": 900,
        "SimpleProduct": 900
    }
}

Determine cache keys for data actions

You can find the data cache key for a specific core data action by looking at the source code under the SDK \node_modules\@msdyn365-commerce-modules\retail-actions\dist\lib directory.

For example, to find the code for the "get-simple-products" data action, look in the get-simple-products.js file. By examining the source code of this file in the following example, you can find the entity name SimpleProduct. You can then add this entity to the JSON file for cache settings in the previous example.

...
export class ProductInput {
    constructor(productId, apiSettings, channelId) {
        this.getCacheKey = () => buildCacheKey(`RecordId-${this.productId.toString()}`, this.apiSettings);
        this.getCacheObjectType = () => 'SimpleProduct';
        this.dataCacheType = () => 'application';
        this.apiSettings = apiSettings;
        this.productId = +productId;
        this.channelId = channelId || apiSettings.channelId;
    }
}
...

Cache settings for specific entities

The following table provides cache setting descriptions for specific data action cache key entities.

Inline cache options

The Dynamics 365 Commerce online SDK's data action layer provides flexibility for controlling how a data action response should be cached and what its scope should be (application or request). For all custom data actions, the cache type can be defined as part of the action input. A common scenario is for data actions to invoke a Retail Server proxy data action, or module business logic that will invoke a Retail Server proxy data action. An example of such a scenario would be when a user selects a "find store" button. For these scenarios, a module can set the "bypassCache" option on the action context when invoking the Retail Server proxy data action. This setting tells the SDK to honor the module's given cache preferences. For more information about Retail Server proxy data actions, see Call Retail Server APIs.

Supported values for bypassCache are:

• get - Ignores cache while performing read and fetches the latest information from Retail Server.
• none - Action response is cached per request. If byPassCache is not specified runtime defaults to this value.

In general, for custom data actions and Retail Server proxy actions that read data from Retail Server (calling APIs with names that start with "get," "search," or "read"), the value of "bypassCache" is set to "none" by default. For all other Retail Server proxy actions configured to fetch the latest data from Retail Server, the value of "bypassCache" is set to "get" by default. These values can be overridden if needed.

The following is an example of usage.

if (checkoutCartId) {
    try {
        checkoutCart = await readAsync({ callerContext: ctx, bypassCache: 'get' }, checkoutCartId);
    } catch {
        ctx.telemetry.error('Error getting checkout cart based on saved checkout cart ID');
        ctx.telemetry.exception(error);
    }
}

Additional resources

Data actions overview

Core data actions

Data action overrides

Commerce Scale Unit customer and consumer APIs

Call Retail Server APIs