In the last couple of months I have wondered how I could make installing Plumber easier. I tried using a Chocolatey but thought it was too complicated, I tried Powershell and that worked but installing locally has so many variables that I was afraid it still needed customization. And both options meant there was something else to maintain.

Then I suddenly realized that you don't need to install Plumber locally (duh!): you just need to be able to access Plumber and be able to change the configuration of Plumber. Because Plumber is a single page application that talks directly to your local Sitecore Commerce Engine it completely runs in your browser.

Now, one thing needed to change and that was how you configure Plumber. Up till now you did that in a config.json file you hosted locally, but of course with a hosted version that wouldn't work.

So I added a Settings dialog to Plumber:

Plumber Settings Dialog

There you can set up the url for the Commerce Engine you want to connect to and the url for your Identity Server and change the Identity Server client id. Settings are saved in a cookie.

Now there are still two things you need to do locally:

  • Configure Identity Server to allow Plumber to connect;
  • Configure your Commerce Engine to allow Plumber to connect;

Because hosted Plumber is always coming from the same domain, setting that up is not difficult.

And one other advantage is that you always have the latest version of Plumber.

One disadvantage: it doesn't work with Sitecore Commerce 8.2.1 (but you should be upgrading anyway ;-))

So, now it's even easier to install and use Plumber!

You can access hosted Plumber at https://vwr.plumber-sc.com

Happy plumbing!
mario-small