WebSphere Commerce and Sterling Order Management pricing integration
Sterling Order Management uses the WebSphere Commerce pricing engine, which provides item pricing capabilities, including price rules, price lists and price entries. This information is stored in the WebSphere Commerce database and managed by Management Center.
The return prices can be from a WebSphere Commerce product, SKU, static kits, or bundles.
The GetEntitledPrice service is used to retrieve the best offer prices for one or more catalog entries from either the local cache or an external system.
Mapping of bundle and kit concepts between WebSphere Commerce and Sterling Configurator:
| WebSphere Commerce name | Sterling Configurator name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Static Kit | Bundle | A Static Kit group of items is priced and tracked
in the inventory at the parent item level. The WebSphere Commerce catalog does not
differentiate between the prebuilt item and the static kit. However, WebSphere Commerce differentiates the
items in the Sterling Order Management database. If there is an inventory cache on the WebSphere Commerce, either for the prebuilt items or for the static kits, a check is completed against the parent component. That is, Sterling Order Management calculates the parent inventory for the static kit that is based on the minimum quantity that is available. |
| Prebuilt Kit | Physical Kit | A Physical Kit group of items is priced and tracked in inventory at the parent item level. For example, for a bouquet of flowers that has ten roses and eight lilies, the roses and lilies are defined as the child items, and the bouquet that is sold to the customer is the parent item. The bouquet information is tracked, not the components. |
| Dynamic Kit | Pre-Configured Bundle | A Bundle (a group of items) is defined using the product configurator, and is associated to a model. A pre-configuration (a base bundle), is defined up front by the catalog administrator. The definition can be modified using the product configurator. |
| Dynamic Kit | Configurable Bundle | Similar to the Pre-Configured Bundle, with the
exception that the base bundleis not defined up front by the catalog administrator. |
| Product | Item with variation | Product is used to define items that are the same with a different attribute value. For example, the item may be a particular SKU of shoes. The variations are size and color. |
| Bundle | N/A | A WebSphere Commerce Bundle is a bundle item that is not “sellable”. It has no price and inventory at the bundle level. When the bundle is added to the cart, the individual items are added to the cart, however they cannot be removed individually. |
| N/A | Container | Container is an item that represents a container only. It would not actually be purchased. Used in warehouse systems. |
Contract ID
Contract ID is a mandatory parameter in the GetEntitledPrice service. However, in the integration scenario, the WebSphere Commerce contract information is not exposed to the Sterling Order Management applications. A contract ID is not specified when Sterling Order Management calls the getItemPrice service. Contract ID is optional in this case, so the best price returns for the customer. The price returned is the best price from all eligible contracts. For B2C stores, the default contract is used. For B2B stores, the best price from all eligible contracts is returned.
Price date and time
Pricing is based on the order creation time, instead of the order modification time. The GetEntitledPrice service accepts data time as an optional parameter.
User information
User information between WebSphere Commerce and Sterling Order Management is not synchronized. With the information not synchronized, a logon ID is passed from Sterling Order Management to WebSphere Commerce in the request for pricing information. WebSphere Commerce checks the logon ID. If it is an existing user, the information is used. If it currently does not exist, it is treated as a guest user.