Pricing for an order created by a CSR

If a CSR in the Sterling Call Center or Sterling Store is asked by a customer to order items, the following pricing and promotion activities take place:

  1. The CSR asks the customer for his or her registered Login ID, the same ID used to log in to the store website. If the customer is a registered user:
    1. The CSR enters this ID in the user ID field of the Create Order screen in the Customer Bill To Address panel and then enters the remaining information, such as name, address, and contact information.
    2. This user ID is propagated into the Sterling Order Management BuyerUserId field.
    If the customer is not a registered user:
    1. The customer does not have a Login ID and the CSR leaves the user ID field blank. After entering the customer’s name, address, and contact information, the blank user ID propagates to Sterling Order Management as a guest user.
  2. As each item is added to the order, an implicit pricing request occurs. Several kinds of requests can take place with regard to the order pricing, coupon validation, and promotion details. For example, CSRs are able to offer coupons to customers and tell customers about existing promotions and discounts. They are not able to change the terms of these promotions or discounts, as these are managed in WebSphere Commerce. However, a CSR who has privileges can make a manual adjustment to an order for reasons such as customer appeasement.

    Sterling Order Management sends these requests to WebSphere Commerce as follows:

    Requests Sterling Order Management User Exits WebSphere Commerce BODs
    Item pricing SCWC_getItemPriceUE GetEntitledPriceBOD
    Order pricing SCWC_getOrderPriceUE ProcessOrderBOD
    Coupon validation SCWC_validateCouponUE ValidatePromoCodeBOD
    Pricing Rule Details SCWC_getPricingRuleDetailsUE GetPromotionDetailsBOD
  3. The Sterling Order Management user exits drop these requests into a JMS queue, where they are retrieved by WebSphere Commerce and sent on to the WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, where they are mapped to the appropriate BOD.
  4. At this point, WebSphere Commerce looks at the BuyerUserId field in the request and identifies the customer before applying pricing and promotion rules. For example, customers who are registered "gold" members of the store might be eligible for more discounts or lower prices. If the BuyerUserId field is blank, guest pricing rules are applied.
  5. The requests from these BODs are handled by the WebSphere Commerce pricing and promotion engines as follows:
    Request WebSphere Commerce Engine
    Item pricing Pricing engine calculates charges for an item.
    Order pricing Pricing and promotion engines calculate total charges for an order, based online charges for each item, surcharges, shipping and handling charges, personalizing charges, and so forth.
    Coupon validation Promotion engine checks whether a coupon is valid.
    Pricing rule details Promotion engine returns information about discounts and promotions.
  6. When starting item price calculations, price is based on a pricing rule and the resulting unit price is returned by the CSR. When performing order calculations, all lines, manual coupons, and existing adjustments are sent to WebSphere Commerce for pricing. The applicable promotions and prices are returned fromWebSphere Commerce. For each applicable promotion returned, WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus mappings indicate what charge category to use for each promotion type.
  7. When WebSphere Commerce has used the OrderCalculate service to start the requested charge calculations, it sends output back to Sterling Order Management.
  8. Before the CSR submits the order, Sterling Order Management must inform WebSphere Commerce if the customer changes any items on the order, so that WebSphere Commerce can update its promotion information. Also, if a free gift is involved, such as "Buy 2 notebooks and get a free notebook case," canceling one of those notebooks would revoke the free gift, too. The following table shows how Sterling Order Management and WebSphere Commerce would communicate these promotion changes.
    CSR/Customer Action Sterling Order Management Service WebSphere Commerce Service
    Create draft order CREATE_ORDER.ON_SUCCESS FinalizePromotionCalUsage
    Submit order CONFIRM_DRAFT_ORDER.ON_SUCCESS FinalizePromotionCalUsage
    Change items on the order CHANGE_ORDER.ON_SUCCESS UpdatePromotionCalUsage
    Cancel entire order CHANGE_ORDER.ON_CANCEL CancelPromotionCalUsage
  9. When the CSR submits the finished order, all pricing and promotion calculations have been started by WebSphere Commerce, which also tracks any relevant promotion statistics.
  10. If the order was created by the Sterling Call Center CSR using the login ID that corresponds to the WebSphere Commerce storefront shopper, the customer is able to view the order in the storefront once it is submitted.