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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
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.
Data Extract utility
The Data Extract utility is a command-line utility that you can use to extract data from the WebSphere Commerce database into an output file.
Configuring and running the Data Extract utility
You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command-line utility to extract data for a store from the WebSphere Commerce database. You can extract data into an CSV or XML output file. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the ouput file into stores in other environments, such as for copying data into multiple stores or setting up multiple test environments.

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.
  - 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.
    - Data Load utility
      The Data Load utility is an enhanced business object based loading utility. This utility provides an efficient solution for loading information into your WebSphere Commerce database. You can also customize the Data Load utility to load other types of data. The Data Load utility is the recommended loading utility.
    - Data Extract utility
      The Data Extract utility is a command-line utility that you can use to extract data from the WebSphere Commerce database into an output file.
      - Best practices for using the Data Extract utility
        Review the following best practices for configuring and running the Data Extract utility to help you extract data from your WebSphere Commerce database more effectively.
      - Configuring and running the Data Extract utility
        You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command-line utility to extract data for a store from the WebSphere Commerce database. You can extract data into an CSV or XML output file. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the ouput file into stores in other environments, such as for copying data into multiple stores or setting up multiple test environments.
        Configuring the environment configuration file
        You must create an environment configuration file that specifies your environment settings so that the Data Extract utility can extract data objects from your WebSphere Commerce database.
        Configuring the business object configuration file
        Create a business object configuration file for the Data Extract utility to use to identify business object data to extract. In this file, you must specify the implementation classes for your data reader, business object builder, and business object mediator components.
        Configuring the Data Extract utilityorder configuration file
        Create a data extract order configuration file for the Data Extract utility to use to identify the business objects to extract and the sequence to extract the data. This file must also identify the other configuration files for configuring the utility and identify the CSV or XML output files that the utility is to generate.
        dataextract
        The Data Extract utility, which uses the Data Load utility framework, extracts data from the WebSphere Commerce database into an output file.
      - Extracting promotion data with the Data Extract utility
        You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command line utility to extract the promotion data for a store into an XML file. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the promotion XML file into stores in other environments, such as for testing the promotion in multiple test environments.
      - Extracting Commerce Composer data
        You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command-line utility to extract Commerce Composer data for a store into CSV output files. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the extracted data into stores in other environments, such as for testing purposes. By using these utilities to copy data between instances, business users do not need to manually create the same assets across multiple instances.
      - Extracting marketing data with the Data Extract utility
        You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command-line utility to extract marketing data for a store into CSV output files. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the extracted data into other WebSphere Commerce stores or instances.
      - Samples: Data Extract utility
        The samples that are provided for use with the Data Extract utility demonstrate the best practice methods for extracting data from the WebSphere Commerce database. Use these samples and the related sample configuration files as templates for configuring and running the utility when you need to extract your own data.
    - Catalog Upload feature
      You can configure the Catalog Upload feature in Management Center to change the behavior for how the Catalog Upload feature loads data. You can configure properties for the utility to change validation behavior, invalidate the cache, load SEO information, and more.
    - Mass load utilities
      The mass load utilities provide an efficient way to load large amount of data. The Data Load utility, which is an enhanced business object based loading utility, is the recommended loading utility.
  - 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 and running the Data Extract utility

You can configure and run the Data Extract utility from a command-line utility to extract data for a store from the WebSphere Commerce database. You can extract data into an CSV or XML output file. You can then use the Data Load utility to load the ouput file into stores in other environments, such as for copying data into multiple stores or setting up multiple test environments.

Before you begin

Ensure that you review and follow the Data Extract utility best practices.

About this task

To run the Data Extract utility, you need to configure the utility to identify your environment settings and identify the data to extract. Sample configuration files are provided for you to edit and use to quickly configure the utility to extract the following types of objects:

Promotions
Commerce Composer objects, such as widgets, layouts, layout templates, and pages
Marketing objects, such as activities. e-Marketing Spots, content, campaigns, attachments, and customer segments

These files are in the following directory and subdirectories:

WC_installdir/samples/DataExtract
WC_installdir\samples\DataExtract
WCDE_installdir\samples\DataExtract

Notes:

The sample files for extracting marketing, promotions, and Commerce Composer objects configure the utility to use an SQL-based extraction process.
The DataExtract directory also includes sample files for extracting catalog and configuration data for use with IBM Product Recommendations. These files cannot be used when you configure the utility to use an SQL-based extraction process. If you want to extract data for use with IBM Product Recommendations, you must use a business logic-based extraction process. For more information, see Data extraction utility for dynamic recommendations in IBM Product Recommendations.
The Data Extract utility extracts data for only a single store during an extract operation. You can specify the identifier for the store to extract data from when you configure the environment configuration file.

Procedure