Highlights of Version 7 Feature Pack 5
New features available with WebSphere Commerce
Version 7 Feature Pack 5 include: Aurora starter store,
Aurora starter store companion assets, integrated search, Page Layout
tool, Sterling Order Management integration, search engine optimization
(SEO), Bazaarvoice integration, support for complex configurations;
staging environment enhancements; and IBM i support.
Aurora starter store
The Aurora starter store delivers feature-rich and interactive web applications that are compatible across platforms and browsers by taking advantage of Ajax and Dojo widget technologies. Aurora uses HTML and CSS code that updates layout and design patterns to current trends. With a retail focus, Aurora showcases a wide scope of available scenarios and storefront features. All elements on the pages are component-based, consisting of self-contained widgets to build the layout of the page. The component-based approach enables easier styling and customization of the site, permitting fine grained control over the style and content of the pages. Dynamic content for each component is driven by real-time data from the WebSphere Commerce database. The Aurora starter store supports evolving online business models.
Learn more...Aurora starter store companion assets
The
Aurora starter store companion assets are a customizable set of resources
that are designed to reduce the overall cost of implementation. You
can use the assets to understand, customize, test, and develop your
customized store that is based on the starter store. The Aurora starter
store companion assets consist of the following assets: use cases,
wireframes, a CSS Style Guide, a Static HTML starter store, and test
assets. Learn more...
Refer to the Planning
section to see you can leverage the starter store companion assets
to plan your starter store implementation. Learn more...
WebSphere Commerce search
Business users can improve customer search results by selecting the product attributes for facet display in the storefront for different categories. Feature Pack 5 improves the following WebSphere Commerce search functions:- Attributes for facet display. Product Managers can specify that shoppers can find a facet by using search-based navigation.
- The need for full reindexing is reduced. That is, almost all common business update operations through Management Center can now be converted into a delta update on the search index. This can reduce the availability delay of pending changes due to index updates.
- Software stack. Updated to Apache Solr 3.5.0.
- Updates to Managing WebSphere Commerce search documentation include lifecycle management. For example, including workspaces and best practices when you are building search indexes in a staging environment.
- Store preview. By default, the workspace schema is indexed when a user previews store changes made in a workspace.
- Greater control over site operations. The UpdateSearchIndex command has two new parameters: mode, and masterCatalogId.
Learn more...Page Layout tool
The Page Layout tool allows business users to view page layouts and assign layouts to several pages within the store. Business users can also schedule page layouts to correspond to store marketing activities. You can select layout templates for pages, such as the home page, category page, and product page.Learn more... Sterling Order Management integration
Feature Pack 5 offers further integration of IBM WebSphere Commerce and IBM Sterling Order Management Release 9.2. This order management-enabled commerce integration strengthens both products into one offering. By providing a complete end-to-end solution, customers are able to have the whole cycle, from shopping to order fulfillment in one product. While both systems have inventory, order, pricing and promotion components, this integration uses an optimal combination of each, managing the order lifecycle across the different channels.This integration
employs the WebSphere Commerce pricing and promotion components combined
with the Sterling Order Management’s inventory and order management
components. Benefits in the integration include: Learn more...
- WebSphere Commerce Pricing and promotion modules:
- Flexible UI, shopping cart management, and checkout through web channel online store
- Extensive pricing and promotions calculations
- Broad set of common pricing and promotion rules
- Support for dynamic kit pricing at both the component and kit levels
- Promotion and usage statistics reports
- For Sterling Order Management inventory and order modules:
- Flexible, intelligent UI for Sterling Call Center and Sterling Store customer service representatives
- Highly configurable order management capabilities in a single, central order repository
- Global inventory coordination across sites and enterprises
- Configurable inventory thresholds and alert management
- Rule-based, dynamic allocation across internal and external fulfillment locations
Learn more...Search engine optimization (SEO)
Enhancements in this release include:- Starter store pages include rich snippet mark up so that search engines can highlight your important data in the search results. Learn more...
- Business users can load search engine optimization (SEO) data
for catalog entries and categories by using the Data Load utility
or the Management Center Catalog Upload function. Two sample CSV files
are provided for loading the following types of data to optimize search:
- The URL keyword
- The page title
- Alt text for images
- Metadata for the page
Learn more...
Bazaarvoice integration
Bazaarvoice is a software-as-a-service provider that offers ratings and reviews functionality to their clients. Support for the Bazaarvoice Ratings and Reviews product is included in Feature Pack 5 for Bazaarvoice clients.Bazaarvoice integration
is an optional feature that adds support for displaying and creating
product ratings and reviews in the Aurora store. The integration provides
the following features:
- Ratings summaries at the top of product pages and item pages.
- Listings of ratings and reviews in a "Customer Reviews" tab at the bottom of product pages and item pages.
- Review and comment creation through the Bazaarvoice review submission container with support for multiple authentication methods.
- Data feed upload to Bazaarvoice.
- Basic SEO support for ratings and reviews.
Learn more...Configure complex products with IBM Sterling Configurator
You and your customers can configure complex products and service offerings. Use Sterling Configurator to create special offers, with personalized pricing for configured products and services. Integration supports the following benefits:- Support for Dynamic kit pricing and customizable options in the storefront through the IBM Sterling Configurator.
- Prices can be set and price that is locked on Dynamic kits through the IBM Sterling Visual Modeler. The price lock property is respected and the locked price cannot be overridden.
Learn more....Restriction: If you use IBM Sterling
Configurator with WebSphere Commerce Feature Pack 5 stores, these orders cannot be sent as is to
Sterling Order Management. Orders require an additional implementation and change to the mapping.
Please contact your implementation team, or support for instructions about implementing such a
change for your project.
Business user tools enhancements
Approvers have greater authority to control workflow and task groups within a workspace:- Manage changes that are activated to the production store at a more finite level.
- Remove or approve part or all of the workflow content.
- Open the business object directly from the history record.
- Compare the modified business object to the approved content to see changes that were made.
- Undo changes to business objects within a task group history record.
Learn more...Marketing managers...- Create promotions by using new promotion types. Learn more...
- Organize and improve browsing for promotions by using folders
to group promotions. Learn more...
- Export promotion codes into a downloadable comma-separated values
(CSV) file. Learn more...
- Business users can set a default catalog to control which catalog
a shopper views when the shopper visits a store without specifying
a catalog in the URL. Learn more...
- In the Attribute Dictionary, business users can assign multiple
values to the descriptive attribute of a catalog entry. Shoppers can
view these multiple values on the storefront. Learn more...
- In an extended sites store, business users can set store-specific
catalog entry descriptions for shared catalog entries. Setting store-specific
descriptions override the inherited asset store descriptions. Shoppers
can view the store-specific descriptions on the storefront for the
extended site store. Learn more...
Performance enhancements
Feature Pack 5 offers the following performance enhancements:- e-Marketing Spot storefront presentation performance
Feature Pack 5 offers an e-Marketing Spot JSP caching technique that is based on activity behavior. This technique provides optimal caching of e-Marketing Spots without manual involvement. The marketing engine automatically detects if the e-Marketing Spot is static or dynamic. If the e-Marketing Spot is static, then JSP caching is used for the e-Marketing Spot results. If the e-Marketing Spot is dynamic, then the marketing engine evaluates, and uses DynaCache command cache and distributed map cache entries to show the results.
Learn
more...IBM i support
WebSphere Commerce Feature Pack 5 supports the following versions of IBM i.
- IBM i Version 6.1:Learn more...
- IBM i Version 7.1Learn more...