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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.
Administering
Overview of administering a WebSphere Commerce site
In WebSphere Commerce the person who performs administrative tasks is called a Site Administrator. The Site Administrator installs, configures, and maintains WebSphere Commerce and the associated software and hardware. The administrator responds to system warnings, alerts, and errors, and diagnoses and resolves system problems. Typically, this person controls access and authorization (creating and assigning members to the appropriate role), manages the Web site, monitors performance, and manages load balancing tasks. The Site Administrator might be responsible for establishing and maintaining several server configurations for different stages of development such as testing, staging, and production. The Site Administrator also handles critical system backups and resolves performance problems.
Administration Console
Site Administrators use the Administration Console to control a site or store by completing administrative operations and configuration tasks such as publishing stores, refreshing the registry, and scheduling jobs. You can access the Administration Console at a site-level, or for a particular store.
Message types
WebSphere Commerce predefines several message types and sets them as active. You can change the parameters for message types.
Configuring validation for No Operation (NOOP) messages
WebSphere Commerce uses SMTP connection pooling by default. SMTPTransport.isConnected() is used for validation before getting a connection from the pool, and sends a No Operation (NOOP) message. Some firewalls might be configured to introduce a delay after receiving several NOOP messages to protect against Denial of Service attacks. You must either validate the firewall and SMTP configurations for NOOP messages, or set mail.smtp.userset to true.

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
  - Overview of administering a WebSphere Commerce site
    In WebSphere Commerce the person who performs administrative tasks is called a Site Administrator. The Site Administrator installs, configures, and maintains WebSphere Commerce and the associated software and hardware. The administrator responds to system warnings, alerts, and errors, and diagnoses and resolves system problems. Typically, this person controls access and authorization (creating and assigning members to the appropriate role), manages the Web site, monitors performance, and manages load balancing tasks. The Site Administrator might be responsible for establishing and maintaining several server configurations for different stages of development such as testing, staging, and production. The Site Administrator also handles critical system backups and resolves performance problems.
    - Stores in WebSphere Commerce
      WebSphere Commerce supports several different types of entities that are defined as stores. The assets of these store entities may be edited using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.
    - 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.
    - Configuration Manager
      To configure a WebSphere Commerce instance, use the Configuration Manager. The Configuration Manager interface shows mandatory fields and provides help.
    - Administration Console
      Site Administrators use the Administration Console to control a site or store by completing administrative operations and configuration tasks such as publishing stores, refreshing the registry, and scheduling jobs. You can access the Administration Console at a site-level, or for a particular store.
      - Business auditing
        Business auditing is the capturing of the business logic and objects during a WebSphere Commerce operation. You may want to audit your business for various reasons: generic, such as to review various tasks performed weekly; or specific, such as to track the steps involved in a particular Customer Service Representative's order. A report on business auditing is available in the Administration Console.
      - Opening the Administration Console
        Users with Site Administrator access can open the Administration Console.
      - Enabling WebSphere Commerce components
        Enabling a component with the Administration Console enables the component until the WebSphere Commerce Server is restarted. To permanently enable a component use Configuration Manager.
      - Disabling WebSphere Commerce components
        Disabling a component using the Administration Console disables the component until the WebSphere Commerce Server is restarted. To permanently disable a component use Configuration Manager.
      - Registry Manager
        The Registry Manager maintains a set of registries for caching WebSphere Commerce runtime data. Each registry provides methods to enable adding, deleting, and refreshing of the registry content. These methods are available to the URL interface by using the ListRegistry and the RefreshRegistry commands.
      - Jobs
        A job is a WebSphere Commerce command that is scheduled to run on behalf of a site or store at a specified time or interval. The three types of jobs are: regular jobs, store level jobs, and broadcast jobs.
      - Message resend
        Site Administrators can use the resend function in WebSphere Commerce to resend messages that are stored in the WebSphere Commerce system.
      - Transport methods
        WebSphere Commerce provides several transport methods. By default, the e-mail transport method is configured and active. You can also use these transport methods: File, IBM MQ, or a sample adapter. You can configure transport methods for the site, or for particular stores.
      - Message types
        WebSphere Commerce predefines several message types and sets them as active. You can change the parameters for message types.
        Configuring outbound email notification messages
        Use the Administration Console to configure outbound email notification messages.
        Configuring email activity accounts
        To support sending marketing emails for your store, you must use the Administration Console to configure outbound and inbound email activity accounts.
        Configuring timeouts for SMTP connections
        Configure timeouts for SMTP connections by indicating specific parameters. By not configuring timeouts, the thread can wait indefinitely for an SMTP server to respond, leading to a hang in the WebSphere Commerce JVM.
        Configuring a different mail Socket Factory
        If you use a third-party mail service like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Office 365, you might need to change the Socket Factory to javax.net.SocketFactory.
        Configuring validation for No Operation (NOOP) messages
        WebSphere Commerce uses SMTP connection pooling by default. SMTPTransport.isConnected() is used for validation before getting a connection from the pool, and sends a No Operation (NOOP) message. Some firewalls might be configured to introduce a delay after receiving several NOOP messages to protect against Denial of Service attacks. You must either validate the firewall and SMTP configurations for NOOP messages, or set mail.smtp.userset to true.
        Configuring the SMTP connection pool properties
        Ensure that the WebSphere Commerce Server SMTP connection pool properties match the SMTP server timeout to avoid periodic mail failure. These failures can occur due to mail being sent with a connection that is expired on the SMTP server.
        Assigning a message type to a transport method for a site or store
        If you assign a message type to a particular transport, the transport must first be set active. By default, only the e-mail transport is active at the site-level. If the store does not have a message transport assignment, then the site assignment is used.
        Enabling order status notification
        This message is sent to the administrator with "Recipient" listed under this Administration Console configuration. It will not send to the customer of the order. This message assumes that only the Site Administrator is interested in the order status update. WebSphere Commerce site or store developers can customize the OrderStatusNotifySendCmd command by providing another implementation to send e-mails to either the administrator, or the customer, or both.
        Enabling transports
        Not all transports are enabled by default. If you need a transport that is not enabled by default, you can enable the transport by updating the WebSphere Commerce configuration file or by using the Configuration Manager.
        Enabling the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder message
        The Order Create outbound message can be enabled in either XML format, or the legacy format.
        Enabling the shipment notification e-mail
        You can configure WebSphere Commerce so that a shipment notification e-mail is sent to customers when their order is shipped:
        Configuring the Request_WCS_BE_ProductInventory message
        To enable WebSphere Commerce to use the send-receive message service, configure the CheckInventoryAvailabilityBE message.
        Activating error notification
        Once you have set the system default settings for the e-mail transport method you can activate error notification.
        XML configuration directory
        WebSphere Commerce uses an XML directory to configure many different aspects of its behavior. Many different customization tasks will require you to modify the XML, template definition, template definition DTD, and DTD files in these directories.
        Outbound messages
        The WebSphere Commerce outbound messaging system can process different message types. Each message type is sent to the messaging system in response to a specific type of event that occurs within the WebSphere Commerce system. You specify the message type and settings in the Administration Console. The messaging system processes the message according to the type and settings that you specified, such as mail server, server port, sender, and subject. You change the content of the mail by modifying the JSP file that corresponds to the message type.
    - Organization Administration Console
      The Organization Administration Console enables administrators to manage organizations, business users and member groups. Access Control policies can also be managed and approval requests can be processed.
    - Common installation and administration tasks
      The following tasks are common tasks that you need to perform, often repeatedly, as part of WebSphere Commerce installation and administration duties.
  - WebSphere Commerce instance
    Every WebSphere Commerce installation requires at least one instance to function, and each WebSphere Commerce instance can contain one or more stores.
  - Managing features
    You can administer the features for your store and site, such as attribute, catalog, promotion, marketing, order management features, and more. The administration tasks that you can complete differ depending on the type of feature and the tool that you use to administer your store and site.
  - Logging services
    WebSphere Commerce provides facilities for logging. For existing customers, ECTrace and ECMessage are still supported. For new implementations, use the WebSphere Application Server recommendation for logging and tracing.
  - Business auditing
    Business auditing is the capturing of the business logic and objects during a WebSphere Commerce operation. You may want to audit your business for various reasons: generic, such as to review various tasks performed weekly; or specific, such as to track the steps involved in a particular Customer Service Representative's order. A report on business auditing is available in the Administration Console.
  - Business events
    Each time that a command triggers a business event, a record is added to the BUSEVENT database table to persist data from the event. Event listeners and external systems (such as the Marketing component, a back end order management system, or an external analytics system) can use this data to perform further processing.
  - Staging server
    The WebSphere Commerce staging server is a part of the production environment where business and technical users can update and manage store data and preview changes. The changes can then be propagated to the production server.
  - WebSphere Commerce database
    As a site administrator, maintain the WebSphere Commerce database and ensure that any WebSphere Commerce utilities and processes that load and retrieve data from the database is configured to connect to the database properly.
  - Dynamic caching
    In general, caching improves response time and reduces system load. Caching techniques are used to improve the performance of World Wide Web Internet applications. Most techniques cache static content (content that rarely changes) such as graphic and text files. However, many websites serve dynamic content, containing personalized information or data that changes more frequently. Caching dynamic content requires more sophisticated caching techniques, such as those provided by the WebSphere Application Server dynamic cache, a built-in service for caching and serving dynamic content.
  - Extracting, transforming, and loading data
    WebSphere Commerce provides multiple utilities for preparing and loading data into a WebSphere Commerce database. The loading utilities are flexible and you can continue to use these utilities when you customize the WebSphere Commerce schema.
  - Payment plug-ins
    To configure a payment plug-in define payment and refund methods; payment and refund rules; and the payment protocols that you intend to use.
  - WebSphere Commerce Search
    For a fully functioning WebSphere Commerce Search implementation, you must understand and complete the search administration tasks, which include search index management and ongoing maintenance.
  - Deploying a WebSphere Commerce dual cell environment
    Consider deploying a dual cell environment to achieve continuous availability and ensure that shoppers are minimally affected by planned or unplanned outages.
  - IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce
    IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce is a separately purchased product that provides a light-weight customer service solution that is embedded in the Aurora B2C and Aurora B2B storefronts. Even though this solution is a separately purchased product, it is not a separate application. Stores that are enabled with IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce allow a customer service representative (CSR) to act on behalf of guest customers and registered customers. A CSR can manage customer accounts, cancel and reorder orders, and shop as customer. A CSR can also act on behalf of Buyer Administrators to help complete Aurora B2B tasks from the storefront, without having to access the Organization Administration Console.
- 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.
- 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

Configuring validation for No Operation (NOOP) messages

WebSphere Commerce uses SMTP connection pooling by default. SMTPTransport.isConnected() is used for validation before getting a connection from the pool, and sends a No Operation (NOOP) message. Some firewalls might be configured to introduce a delay after receiving several NOOP messages to protect against Denial of Service attacks. You must either validate the firewall and SMTP configurations for NOOP messages, or set mail.smtp.userset to true.

Perform the following steps to set mail.smtp.userset to true:

Procedure

Create a file named JCAEmailConnectionRequestInfo.properties in the WAS_installdir/lib directory.
Include the following parameter in the file:
```
mail.smtp.userset=true
```
For a list of possible JavaMail configuration parameters, see the package description of Package com.sun.mail.smtp.
Restart the WebSphere Commerce JVM for the changes to take effect.