Tutorial: Indexing external inventory data in WebSphere Commerce search
In
this tutorial, you add the ability to index inventory data from an
external source in WebSphere Commerce Search. The external source
in this tutorial provides product inventory data.It is possible to index external inventory data directly into search index, without first loading it into the WebSphere Commerce database. Therefore, flattening the data with the search index preprocessor is no longer necessary. The external inventory data is exported into either a CSV or XML file format, and then loaded into the inventory index. Therefore, indexing time is improved with these approaches.
The
Data Load utility is used to update the search index. A simple mapping
of index-ready data from either XML or CSV file formats is loaded
into the search index field. In this tutorial, the index field is
used for inventory. When data is not index-ready, a custom mediator
must be created for every index keyword for new search index cores
to process the data:
Where
the diagram displays the following search inventory indexing flow:
- Deploying the inventory index
- Indexing the external inventory data with the Data Load utility
- Applying search rules that are based on product inventory
Learning objectives
After completing this tutorial, you
should be familiar with the following concepts:
- WebSphere Commerce search indexing
After completing this tutorial,
you should be able to perform the following tasks:
- Understand and customize WebSphere Commerce search
- Understand and customize the Data Load utility framework to load the external data source
Time required
Expect this tutorial to take 1 hour to complete. The tutorial takes longer if you explore concepts that are related to this tutorial.Skill level
This tutorial is intended for advanced WebSphere Commerce developers responsible for customizing WebSphere Commerce search.To complete this tutorial, be familiar
with the following terms and concepts:
- WebSphere Commerce search
- XML
- Data Load utility
- Marketing search rules
- XPath
- Rational Application Developer
System requirements
Before you begin this tutorial, complete the following tasks:- Install WebSphere Commerce Developer Version 7
- Install WebSphere Commerce Developer Feature Pack 6
- Create
a Marketing Manager user in the Organization Administration Console with
the following properties:
Marketing Manager user properties User ID Organization Roles Market Mgr Root Organization Marketing Manager
Tutorial resources
To complete this
tutorial, the following resources are used. Ensure that you download
and extract any compressed files that contain required code samples
to a temporary directory, such as C:\Temp before
you begin this tutorial: