WebSphere Commerce search
WebSphere Commerce search provides enhanced search functionality in starter stores by enabling enriched search engine capabilities such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction, while influencing store search results by using search term associations, and search-based merchandising rules.
Precision marketing
Marketing Managers can use the extensive precision marketing features in the marketing tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
What's new includes information about new functionality and changes in existing functionality from WebSphere Commerce Version 6.0 to the latest WebSphere Commerce Version 7 feature pack.
Support for JDK 8, WebSphere Application Server V8.5.5.5, and Rational Application Developer V9.5.0.2
WebSphere Application Server announced the end of service for WebSphere Application Server V7 and IBM SDK, Java Technology Edition, Version 6. To reduce the risk of security exposures and to ensure that you can continue to apply future WebSphere Application Server and Java-related fixes, install Version 8.5.5. Version 8.5.5 includes IBM SDK, Java Technology Edition, Version 8.
Highlights of Feature Pack 8
Aurora starter store enhancements for both B2B direct and consumer direct business models, business user enhancements, Data Load utility enhancements, and more.
Highlights of Feature Pack 7
IBM Commerce Composer for WebSphere Commerce, responsive web design for the Aurora starter store, and the availability of integration with IBM Marketing Center.
Highlights of Feature Pack 6
Dynamic merchandising, business user tools improvements, store preview, Data Load utility enhancements, and WebSphere Commerce search enhancements.
Highlights of Feature Pack 5
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.
Highlights of Feature Pack 4
Starter stores that are optimized for mobile devices, Facebook integration, programming model enhancements, and total cost of implementation (TCOI) enhancements.
Highlights of Feature Pack 3
Integration with IBM Sterling Configurator; integration with IBM Sterling Distributed Order Management; and enhanced integration with IBM Digital Analytics, formerly known as Coremetrics Analytics. Additionally; Feature Pack 3 provides enhancements to WebSphere Commerce search; Search engine optimization; Management Center workspace administration; marketing activities, data load, attribute dictionary, site security; total cost of implementation; and programming model enhancements.
Highlights of Feature Pack 2
WebSphere Commerce search, Social bridging, Coshopping, Subscriptions and recurring orders, Catalog Filter and Pricing tool, web feed utility; and support for IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer.
Highlights of Feature Pack 1
Enhancements to reduce the total cost of implementation. Other new features include: remote widgets; globalized starter stores; digital wallets; promotion codes; the ability to automatically generate SKUs; and the ability to update product data from CSV files.
Highlights of WebSphere Commerce Version 7
The latest advances in Web 2.0, mobile commerce, cross-channel precision marketing, and social commerce to deliver new levels of innovation and create a smarter shopping experience for your customers.
Cumulative interim fix summary
IBM periodically releases cumulative interim fix packages to simplify WebSphere Commerce maintenance procedures, fix functional or security issues, and standardize the code level of an environment.
Fix pack summary
WebSphere Commerce Version 7 fix packs contain important changes that might affect how you use your product. The following topics help you understand the technical changes included in fix packs. Fix packs are cumulative, which means that they contain all of the changes that were shipped in previous fix packs.
New features and functionality
This section describes the new features and functionality available with WebSphere Commerce Version 7.
IBM WebSphere Commerce Validated Technology Partner Solutions
IBM WebSphere Commerce Validated Technology Partners bring together innovative and relevant e-commerce services and solutions to help serve the global community of IBM WebSphere Commerce customers across a wide range of industries. By leveraging prebuilt integrations, WebSphere Commerce customers can deliver additional value faster with complimentary capabilities that differentiate the customer experience.
Changed functionality
Changed functionality typically involves changes in default values or an outcome different from what occurred in previous releases. For example, a default parameter might use one value in WebSphere Commerce Version 6 and a different value in WebSphere Commerce Version 7.
Deprecated functionality
If you are migrating from an earlier version of WebSphere Commerce, be aware of the various features that are deprecated or removed from this and earlier releases.
Discontinued functionality
If you are migrating from an earlier version of WebSphere Commerce, you should be aware of the various features that are deprecated or removed from this and earlier releases.
Improving your documentation experience
The WebSphere Commerce documentation has made a number of key improvements to enhance the user experience.
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Planning
Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
Installing
Review this section for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
Migrating
Before you migrate WebSphere Commerce, review this information for an overview of the migration process.
Tutorials
WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Compliance
The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
Securing
These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
Cross-reference of data beans, EJB beans, and tables
Data beans are grouped into several component groups.
Cross-reference of commands, tasks, and tables
URL commands, controller commands, task commands, view commands and tables are related to each other.
Cross reference: Commands to beans to database tables
Use this information when you are customizing a command and you want to know which tables are affected. You should also use this topic if you are modifying a table and want to know which commands and beans are affected.
HCL Commerce API reference
Legacy API classes can be browsed via Javadoc. New API classes are exposed using the REST interface.
Shopping flow URLs
WebSphere Commerce shopping flow URLs are organized by subsystem.
WebSphere Commerce search URLs
The starter stores consist of pages that are associated with URLs that are run by WebSphere Commerce search. You can use the following URLs to invoke various WebSphere Commerce search tasks.
WebSphere Commerce database schema
The WebSphere Commerce database model was designed for data integrity and optimal performance. WebSphere Commerce provides several hundred tables that store WebSphere Commerce instance data. To maintain data integrity, and to ease maintenance referential integrity, constraints are widely used in the database model. Indexes are used carefully on tables to avoid over-indexing and to provide a good balance between data retrieval and data manipulation activities (insert and update). The business rules are implemented at the application level rather than by using database trigger. Triggers, however, are used to facilitate data staging and optimistic locking. A limited number of SQL-based database stored procedures are used for data intensive activities.
Data models
Any given database data model displays the relationship among database tables in the schema.
Caching defaults
During installation, WebSphere Commerce sets up the caching system with the default values.
Cache-entry elements
The root element of the cachespec.xml file, <cache>, contains <cache-entry> elements. The WebSphere dynamic cache service parses the cachespec.xml file during startup, and extracts a set of configuration parameters from each <cache-entry> element.
Ant targets
A WebSphere Commerce instance can be created from the command line. The command-line utility uses Apache Ant to create the objects required. The targets are divided into several high-level groups that correspond to the environment that is to be configured.
IBM Sales Center extension points
The extension points listed on this page are provided by IBM and used in the IBM Sales Center.
WebSphere Commerce REST API
WebSphere Commerce REST services are JAX-RS REST services that are built on top of Apache Wink. The implementation classes contain JAX-RS annotations such as @Path, @Produces, @Consumes, @QueryParam, and @PathParam.
Payments subsystem
In WebSphere Commerce Version 6.x the Payments subsystem was introduced. Payment processing using the WebSphere Commerce Multipayment Framework (used in version 5.x) and payment processing using the Payments subsystem is fundamentally different.
WebSphere Commerce Payments command reference
Parameters for the commands described here apply to the framework only. Note that in most cases, WebSphere Commerce Payments does not check for duplicate parameters. If more than one instance of a parameter is specified, then the last instance will be used.
Data Load utility configuration file schema
The Data Load utility contains several configuration files. You can use the configuration file schema to understand and customize the data load configuration files.