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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Business models
Before starting to develop your site with WebSphere Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by WebSphere Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with WebSphere Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- 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 the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
  - Functional architecture
    Functional architecture provides both the set of patterns used to implement the business functionality and the frameworks in which these business functions execute.
  - Persistent object model
    WebSphere Commerce deals with a large amount of persistent data. There are numerous tables defined in the current database schema. Even with this extensive schema, however, you might need to extend or customize the database schema for your particular business needs.
  - Presentation layer
    WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
  - Controller layer
    The Controller layer is the conductor of operations for a request. It controls the transaction scope and manages the session related information for the request. The controller first dispatches to a command and then calls the appropriate view processing logic to render the response.
  - Business logic layer
    The business logic layer is the business components that provide OAGIS services to return data or start business processes. The presentation layer uses these OAGIS services to display data, or to invoke a business process. The business logic provides data required by the presentation layer. The business logic layer exists because more than just fetching and updating data is required by an application; there is also additional business logic independent of the presentation layer.
  - Persistence layer
    The interaction between the business objects and persistence layer is isolated in an object called the Business Object Mediator. Business object document (BOD) commands interact with the Business Object Mediator to handle the interaction with the logical objects and how they are persisted.
  - Business model information model
    A business model, a representation of the business processes used throughout the site, provides a sample commerce solution which includes an organization structure, default user roles and access control policies, one or more starter stores, administration tools, and business processes that demonstrate best practices. A business model can be customized to support business requirements and scenarios. WebSphere Commerce provides sample business models that show some common commerce solutions. These business models are created by setting up an organization hierarchy structure, access control policies, stores, and contracts that help satisfy the necessary business requirements.
  - Business models
    Before starting to develop your site with WebSphere Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by WebSphere Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with WebSphere Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.
    - Customer-facing stores
      Customer-facing stores are stores that provide a Web storefront that customers can access directly. These stores are the main components of your site.
    - Organization structure
      Assign all actors in your business scenario a position in your WebSphere Commerce organization structure. You must assign these positions so that all actors can access and perform actions on your site or store.
    - B2C business model
      WebSphere Commerce supports commerce transactions involving products, services, or information between businesses and consumers. Consumers typically purchase goods or services directly from a business in this B2C scenario.
    - B2B direct business model
      B2B direct supports commerce transactions that involve products, services, or information between two businesses or parties. Typical B2B direct transactions occur between buyers, suppliers, manufacturers, resellers, distributors, and trading partners.
    - Examples of multiple stores in a single instance
      WebSphere Commerce allows you to support multiple online stores within your WebSphere Commerce Server instance.
    - Extended sites
      WebSphere Commerce supports the Extended Sites business model, where a seller can have many sites that are aimed at different audiences. For example, a seller might create sites based on geographical regions, while some customized sites might be created for individual large customers. All of these different sites can share assets such as the catalog, whereby each site selects the subset of the catalog that is presented, and adjusts the prices as necessary. A customer cannot share a shopping cart across multiple sites; a customer has a shopping cart at each location.
    - Extended sites organization structure
      The extended sites organization structure consists of the root organization, default organization, extended sites organization, and extended sites seller organization.
    - Extended sites hub
      To manage relationships with the stores, the extended sites store includes a hub. This hub is accessed through the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and allows the site administrator to create and manage the extended sites.
    - Enabling registered users to access all stores in the Extended Sites business model
      WebSphere Commerce users can access storefronts by virtue of having the role of Registered Customer in the organization that owns the store, or in any organization above it. The roles a user has access to during registration are defined within the MemberRegistrationAttributes.xml file.
    - Extended Sites - extended sites hub organization structure
      The Extended Sites - extended sites hub organization structure consists of the Extended sites hub, asset store, and Extended sites seller organization.
    - Asset stores
      To facilitate the creation and management of multiple stores such as customer-facing stores and proxy stores, WebSphere Commerce implements asset stores. Asset stores are collections of sharable resources (business artifacts, business processes and storefront assets) that can be leveraged in other stores. An asset store is typically composed of the assets that can be used by multiple stores, but is in itself not a fully functional store and does not conduct business transactions.
  - Store data information model
    Store data is the information that is loaded into the WebSphere Commerce Server database, which allows your store to function. The URL Registry Entries and View Registry Entries packages are included in the diagram, but they are not database assets. These entries are presentation configuration (that is, struts actions and forwards) that must be deployed. URL registry entries are shown in the diagram to illustrate the entire store data information model. To operate properly, a store must have the data in place to support all customer activities. For example, in order for a customer to make a purchase, your store must contain a catalog of goods for sale (catalog data), the data associated with processing orders (tax and shipping data), and the inventory to fulfill the request (inventory and fulfillment data).
  - Customizing WebSphere Commerce
    You can extend the WebSphere Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use WebSphere Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
  - WebSphere Commerce development environment
    WebSphere Commerce Developer is the development toolkit for customizing a WebSphere Commerce application.
  - Web services and WebSphere Commerce
    A web service is an interface that describes a collection of operations that are accessible through the network by using standardized XML messaging.
  - WebSphere Commerce Search
    WebSphere Commerce comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in WebSphere Commerce provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on open standards, WebSphere Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. A key feature of Search is that sales personnel can create and manage search term associations, and search-based merchandising rules, from within the Management Center and Store view.
- 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.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

Business models

Before starting to develop your site with WebSphere Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by WebSphere Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with WebSphere Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.

A business model provides a sample commerce solution which includes an organization structure, default user roles and access control policies, one or more starter stores, administration tools, and business processes that demonstrate best practices. A business model can be customized to support business requirements and scenarios. Direct sales supports commerce transactions involving products, services, or information directly between businesses and consumers or between two businesses or parties.

WebSphere Commerce supports the following types of direct sales business models:

B2C
B2B direct

B2C: A store that supports commerce transactions involving products, services, or information directly between businesses and consumers.
B2B direct: A store that supports commerce transactions involving products, services, between two businesses or parties.
Hub: A site that enables its customers or partners to access products or services available from one or more partners or clients of the hub owner, through the use of other stores on the site.
Extended Site: A site that allow your selling organization to provide unique storefronts for different enterprise customers or showcase a number of branded storefronts. Creation and management of the extended sites is through the hub in Commerce Accelerator. These extended sites may share much of the data, such as master catalog and list prices, and presentation information. An extended site store can be a B2B direct or B2C store.

WebSphere Commerce provides the architectural infrastructure to put online businesses that fit into one of the following business models:

Consumer direct
- Extended Sites
B2B direct
- Extended Sites
- B2B direct view of the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator

These particular stores are recommended for implementing the business models supported by WebSphere Commerce. You can also create your own types of stores using the store architecture.