A critical vulnerability was discovered in React Server Components (Next.js). Our systems remain protected but we advise to update packages to newest version. Learn More

Son Do
Dec 31, 2016
  1250
(0 votes)

EPiServer Commerce: updating currency exchange rates automatically

Simple exchange rates updater automatically.


Why we need update exchange rates automatically

Currency exchange rates are changed everyday or hourly. This is quite important, our commerce site also need to update them to correct product price, shipping cost, ... more often.

How can we do

- Currency exchange rates source: in this sample, I used source from http://fixer.io/ - it's free and simple. You can chose whatever source if you feel trust.

- We have EPiServer schedule job - this is called and run in the background at preset time intervals (for more information, you can go here). So we could write a schedule job to update our task.

Step by step

Step 1: In your project site, create a class, name it as ExchangeRatesUpdateJob.cs.

This class will inherit from ScheduleJobBase.


[ScheduledPlugIn(
    DisplayName = "Exchange Rates update job",
    Description = "This job update exchange rates.")]
public class ExchangeRatesUpdateJob : ScheduledJobBase
{
    public override string Execute()
    {
        return "Exchange Rate update Job was finished.";
    }
}

This class is same as document I mentioned above.

Step 2: using CurrencyManager to update Exchange rates.


[ScheduledPlugIn(
    DisplayName = "Exchange Rates update job",
    Description = "This job update exchange rates.")]
public class ExchangeRatesUpdateJob : ScheduledJobBase
{
    [NonSerialized]
    private static readonly ILogger _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(ExchangeRatesUpdateJob));
        
    public override string Execute()
    {
        string message = string.Empty;
        int records = UpdateExchangeRate(out message);
        return $"{records.ToString()} currencies were updated. {message}. Exchange Rate update Job was finished.";
    }
        
    private static int UpdateExchangeRate(out string message)
    {
        message = string.Empty;
        _log.Information("Starting to update exchange rate job.");
        var processedCurrency = 0;
        var dto = CurrencyManager.GetCurrencyDto();
            
        var currencyCodeIdMapping = dto.Currency.ToDictionary(c => c.CurrencyCode, c => c.CurrencyId);

        try
        {
            foreach (var code in currencyCodeIdMapping.Keys)
            {
                int fromCurrencyId;
                currencyCodeIdMapping.TryGetValue(code, out fromCurrencyId);

                try
                {
                    var uri = $"http://api.fixer.io/latest?base={code}";
                    using (var client = new WebClient())
                    {
                        var json = client.DownloadString(uri);
                        dynamic d = JObject.Parse(json);

                        DateTime exchangeDate = d.date; 

                        foreach (var rate in d.rates)
                        {
                            string toCurrencyCode = rate.Name;
                            int toCurrencyId;
                            if (currencyCodeIdMapping.TryGetValue(toCurrencyCode, out toCurrencyId))
                            {

                                var currencyRate = dto.CurrencyRate.NewCurrencyRateRow();
                                currencyRate.FromCurrencyId = fromCurrencyId;
                                currencyRate.ToCurrencyId = toCurrencyId;

                                currencyRate.EndOfDayRate = currencyRate.AverageRate = rate.Value;
                                currencyRate.CurrencyRateDate = exchangeDate;
                                currencyRate.ModifiedDate = DateTime.Now;
                                dto.CurrencyRate.AddCurrencyRateRow(currencyRate);
                                currencyRate.AcceptChanges();
                            }
                        }

                        dto.CurrencyRate.AcceptChanges();
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    message += "Cannot update currency {code}. ";
                    _log.Error("Cannot update currency {code}.", ex);
                    continue;
                }

                dto.AcceptChanges();
                processedCurrency++;
                _log.Information($"{code} rates were updated");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            _log.Error("The job could not be completed. ", ex);
        }
        return processedCurrency;
    }
}

Step 3: rebuild solution, reset your site to add our new Schedule job to system.

Navigate to CMS/Admin menu, we will see our schedule job in left panel.

Exchange rates schedule job

Click on Start Manually to get first exchange rates.

Step 4: Set Active = true, in this sample, we will set schedule run everyday in 12.00 am.

Setting Exchange rates schedule job

So our job was FINISHED and this job will update exchange rates everyday to our site :)

You could download this file from my github.

Hope this post help your works.

/Son Do

Dec 31, 2016

Comments

Please login to comment.
Latest blogs
A day in the life of an Optimizely OMVP: Learning Optimizely Just Got Easier: Introducing the Optimizely Learning Centre

On the back of my last post about the Opti Graph Learning Centre, I am now happy to announce a revamped interactive learning platform that makes...

Graham Carr | Jan 31, 2026

Scheduled job for deleting content types and all related content

In my previous blog post which was about getting an overview of your sites content https://world.optimizely.com/blogs/Per-Nergard/Dates/2026/1/sche...

Per Nergård (MVP) | Jan 30, 2026

Working With Applications in Optimizely CMS 13

💡 Note:  The following content has been written based on Optimizely CMS 13 Preview 2 and may not accurately reflect the final release version. As...

Mark Stott | Jan 30, 2026

Experimentation at Speed Using Optimizely Opal and Web Experimentation

If you are working in experimentation, you will know that speed matters. The quicker you can go from idea to implementation, the faster you can...

Minesh Shah (Netcel) | Jan 30, 2026