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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.
Operating
IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce
The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, and others).
Marketing tool
Use the Marketing tool in Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
Managing web and dialog activities
Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.
Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions
When you build a marketing activity by using the Activity Builder, your building blocks are triggers, targets, and actions. These building blocks are represented as icons, or elements, in the palette. You select elements from the palette and place them in a precise order along a flow that represents the marketing activity.
Targets in marketing activities
Use a target to personalize a web or dialog activity so that the activity applies only to certain customers. To include a target in an activity, drag the target from the palette into the activity flow in the Activity Builder. Place the target to the left of the action element that you want to target.
Target: Social Commerce Participation
Use this target in Web and Dialog activities and search rules to target customers who participated in social commerce on your site a specified number of times.

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
  - IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce
    The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, and others).
    - Planning to use Management Center
      If you are using WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, consider using Management Center to manage your store.
    - management-center/refs/rtfgetstart.htm
    - Management Center keyboard shortcuts
      Use the Management Center keyboard shortcuts to access user interface functions or complete tasks, using a single key or combination of keys.
    - Working in extended site stores in Management Center
      If your company operates an extended site, you can perform certain tasks directly from your extended site store within Management Center.
    - Manage content externally for use in Management Center
      If content management capabilities other than the functionality that is provided by default with WebSphere Commerce is required, WebSphere Commerce can be integrated with IBM Web Content Manager. If WebSphere Commerce is integrated with IBM Web Content Manager, you can use content from IBM Web Content Manager content libraries with Management Center objects.
    - Manage marketing externally with IBM Marketing Center
      If your site is integrated with IBM Marketing Center, Management Center users can open IBM Marketing Center from Management Center to upload promotion codes and to create and manage marketing campaigns.
    - Management Center user interface
      The Management Center user interface provides a usable, intuitive, and efficient way to complete your business tasks.
    - Using the Management Center
      The starting point for all Management Center tasks is to open the tooling. Afterward, you can use several methods to complete a task: by selecting menu options, by clicking toolbar buttons, by right-clicking and selecting menus, or by keyboard shortcuts.
    - Catalogs tool
      Use the Catalogs tool in Management Center to manage catalogs, categories, catalog entries, merchandising associations, product attributes, and attachments in your store. The Catalogs tool lets business users create, and manage online catalogs. Catalogs provide a way of organizing the products that you want to sell. You define catalog data in groups of categories and products. Catalog data contains descriptions and pricing information for products and services.
    - Marketing tool
      Use the Marketing tool in Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
      - Managing web and dialog activities
        Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.
        Web activities
        Create web activities to schedule and control the information that displays in e-Marketing Spots or Commerce Composer widgets on your store pages. When a customer views a store page, the web activity determines what to show the customer. You can target specific sets of customers with personalized and relevant content.
        Dialog activities
        Create dialog activities when you want to automate marketing actions based on the specific behavior of your customers. Think of a dialog activity as an interactive dialog with a customer: you wait for the customer to do something, and then you respond with an email or a coupon, or some other planned marketing action. This dialog can be ongoing as the customer's behavior on your site changes over time.
        Creating a web activity that displays catalog entries
        You can create a web activity that displays one or more catalog entries (products, SKUs, bundles, or kits) in an e-Marketing Spot on a store page. For example, you can display featured products, cross-sells, up-sells, best-selling or top-browsed products, or a list of a customer's recently viewed products.
        Creating a web activity that displays categories
        You can create a web activity that displays one or more categories in an e-Marketing Spot on a store page. For example, you can display featured categories or a list of a customer's recently viewed categories.
        Creating a web activity that displays content
        You can create a web activity that displays images, text, or static HTML in an e-Marketing Spot on a store page. For example, you can display an ad for a store promotion, or some information about an upcoming store event.
        Creating a web activity that displays IBM Product Recommendations
        If your company subscribes to IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer, you can create a web activity that displays the product recommendations that are generated by IBM Product Recommendations.
        Creating a dialog activity
        Create dialog activities to market to customers when they do something specific or when an event occurs. First, you define a trigger for the dialog activity, for example, when a customer registers or places an order. You then define the action to take, for example, sending an email to the customer or adding the customer to a customer segment. You can also define targets in dialog activities to limit the marketing actions to specific customers.
        Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions
        When you build a marketing activity by using the Activity Builder, your building blocks are triggers, targets, and actions. These building blocks are represented as icons, or elements, in the palette. You select elements from the palette and place them in a precise order along a flow that represents the marketing activity.
        Triggers in dialog activities
        Triggers define the event that causes your dialog activity to start or continue. Use triggers to wait for a customer to do something, for an event to occur, or for time to elapse. To include a trigger in a dialog activity, drag the trigger from the palette into the activity flow in the Activity Builder.
        Targets in marketing activities
        Use a target to personalize a web or dialog activity so that the activity applies only to certain customers. To include a target in an activity, drag the target from the palette into the activity flow in the Activity Builder. Place the target to the left of the action element that you want to target.
        Target: Customer Segment
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to target customers who belong to specific customer segments. By using the Customer Segment target, you can personalize marketing activities and search rules so that they are more relevant to the target audience.
        Target: Shopping Cart
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to target customers whose current shopping cart contents meets certain criteria. You can specify more criteria that are related to the quantity and value of the catalog entries, and the time frame during which they were placed in the cart.
        Target: Purchase History
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to target customers whose purchase history with your site meets certain criteria. You can build purchase history scenarios around the orders a customer placed or the items a customer purchased. You can specify more criteria related to quantities purchased, money spent, and the time frame for the purchases.
        Target: Current Page
        Use this target in web activities to target customers who are currently viewing a specific page of your store. For example, the page can be a display page for a specific part of your catalog or a search results page for a specific keyword search. You can then use the e-Marketing Spots on that page to display something relevant to the customer. In this way, you can personalize the marketing content that customers see according to their specific interests.
        Target: Catalog Browsing Behavior
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to target customers who browsed specific parts of your store catalog while shopping on your site over time. For example, if a customer repeatedly browsed certain categories, that customer is a prime target for advertisements or promotions for those categories.
        Target: Online Behavior
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to target customers whose recorded behavior while shopping on your site over time meets certain criteria. The recorded behavior of your customers can provide you with important clues about their interests. You can use these clues to personalize marketing messages.
        Target: External Site Referral
        Use this target in web activities and search rules to target customers who entered your site from a link on a specific external site.
        Target: Cookie Contents
        Use this target in web activities to target customers whose current session has a cookie from your site that contains certain values. You can personalize content in an e-Marketing Spot according to the customer's cookie values.
        Target: Social Commerce Participation
        Use this target in Web and Dialog activities and search rules to target customers who participated in social commerce on your site a specified number of times.
        Target: Social Commerce Participation
        Use this target in web and dialog activities to target customers who have participated in social commerce on your site a specified number of times. You can target specific types of social commerce activity, such as creating a product review or uploading a photo. You can also apply activity filters to further define the social commerce activity, for example, by the star rating or category.
        Target: Day and Time
        Use this target in web and dialog activities, and in search rules, to specify the days of the week and times of day that an activity is active. For example, if you want to display an ad only on Fridays between 9 and 11 a.m., you can add this target to the Web activity and set the schedule accordingly.
        Target: Promotion Checker
        Use this target in web activities to check whether a catalog entry that a customer is currently viewing qualifies for a promotion you specify. If the catalog entry does qualify, you can display an ad for the promotion in an e-Marketing Spot associated with the catalog entry. This is a great way to visually connect a promotion to a specific catalog entry on your storefront.
        Target: Search Criteria and Result
        Use this target in web activities and search rules to target customers whose search results include specific catalog entries, or who have searched using specific search filters on their search results.
        Actions in marketing activities
        Actions define what to do, based on the previous sequence of triggers and, optionally, targets in the activity flow. To include an action in a marketing activity, drag the action from the palette into the work area of the Activity Builder.
        Using the branch element in web and dialog activities
        Add the branch element to a web or dialog activity if you want to split a single path in the activity into multiple paths. Each path can then contain different triggers, targets, and actions within the same activity. You can also add more paths, delete branch elements, and nest branch elements within existing branch elements.
        Activating or deactivating an activity
        Activities can exist in the store in two states; active or inactive. You must activate an activity to make it perform its function for your store. For example, you must activate a web activity to make it display content in e-Marketing Spots on your store pages. You can edit inactive activities only.
        Testing web and dialog activities
        Test web and dialog activities on a testing server to ensure they produce the right result before moving the activities to the production server.
        Browsing for activities using lists and calendars
        You can browse for activities in the Management Center using several methods.
        Changing a web activity
        You can update your Web activities to correct errors, raise or lower the priority relative to other activities, or to realign dates.
        Changing the priority of a Web activity
        You can change the priority of a Web activity relative to other Web activities. When multiple activities are scheduled for the same e-Marketing Spot, the Web activity with the higher priority is displayed first.
        Viewing the web activities scheduled for an e-Marketing Spot
        You can view all of the web activities currently scheduled to display in a selected e-Marketing Spot in a list or calendar view. Use these views to resolve conflicts when multiple activities are scheduled to an e-Marketing Spot concurrently.
        Changing a dialog activity
        Change your dialog activities to correct errors, change the priority relative to other activities, or to realign dates.
        Deleting activities
        Deleting your activities removes completed or inactive activities from the Management Center.
        Comparison of web activities and dialog activities
        You can use the Activity Builder in the Marketing tool to build both web activities and dialog activities. To decide which type of activity you need, consider the purpose of your activity.
        Activity Builder
        The Activity Builder presents a graphical interface where you can create web and dialog activities.
        Branches in marketing activities
        A branch element is an element you can add to a web or dialog activity to split a single path into two or more paths. When a customer experiencing the activity reaches the branch element, the customer proceeds down one or more of those paths based on criteria that you define. As a result, a single activity can have multiple outcomes, and you can target each outcome to a different set of customers.
        Differences between the branch element and the experiment element
        The palette in the Activity Builder contains two elements in the Branching section: the branch element and the experiment element. These two elements are similar in that you can add them to marketing activities to split a single path into multiple paths; however, these two elements have different uses and they offer different features.
        Best practices for web and dialog activities
        Review these best practices for creating web and dialog activities so that you can learn ways to manage activities more easily and reduce storefront performance impacts.
      - Managing email activities
        Email activities are managed by Marketing Managers to keep a site's targeted marketing efforts organized.
      - Managing marketing experiments
        Marketing experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of brand or promotional messages on the web.
      - Managing custom activity templates
        To save time, create custom activity templates to use as a starting point for creating web and dialog activities.
      - Managing activity statistics
        The Marketing tool gathers and displays various types of statistical data about your web, dialog, and email activities.
      - Managing marketing content
        Marketing content is managed by marketing managers. It is used to deliver marketing messages to customers, as part of campaign activities.
      - Managing customer segments
        Marketing Managers create customer segments to use as targets for marketing campaigns and promotions.
      - Managing e-Marketing Spots
        Marketing Managers create and manage e-Marketing Spots, to ensure that store pages are filled with relevant and compelling images and information.
      - Managing feeds for e-Marketing Spots
        For e-Marketing Spots, feeds provide a means to syndicate marketing information for display in feed readers.
      - Managing email templates
        Email templates, managed by Marketing Managers, are the basis of email activities delivered to customers.
      - Working with campaigns
        Campaigns are managed by Marketing Managers, in order to keep a store's marketing activities organized.
      - Managing search rules
        Search rules provide a means to deliver customized search results and ordering when customers search the storefront.
      - Managing search rule experiments
        Search rule experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of search rules.
      - Organizing marketing objects with folders
        You can use the Management Center Marketing tool to create and manage folders for organizing your marketing content, customer segments, activities, and e-Marketing Spots. By using marketing folders to group and organize your marketing objects you can simplify browsing for and managing your marketing objects.
      - Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
        Find answers to some frequently asked questions about using key features of the Marketing tool and completing tasks.
      - Troubleshooting
        If you encounter issues while you are using the Marketing tool, review troubleshooting information to solve common problems.
      - Task flow: Merchandising and marketing with search in the Aurora starter store
        In this task flow, you learn how to use WebSphere Commerce Search to effectively market and merchandise through your storefront catalog and other site content.
    - Promotions tool
      Use the Promotions tool in Management Center to create and manage promotions that support the marketing campaigns for your site.
    - Assets tool
      As a Product Manager, Marketing Manager, or Category Manager, you can use the Assets tool to upload and manage your store assets. The term assets refers to web content that you use on your storefront and in marketing campaigns, such as marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files.
    - Catalog Filter and Pricing tool
      Use the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool in Management Center to create and manage catalog filters, price lists, and price rules. Sellers, Sales Managers, and Account Representatives can use the tool's flexible features to implement catalog filtering and pricing strategies that meet the site's business needs over time.
    - Installments tool
      Use the Installments tool in Management Center to create and manage installment rules that support the payment methods for your site.
    - Commerce Composer tool
      Create pages and build layouts for your store directly in Management Center without involving IT by using the Commerce Composer tool. Take advantage of the tool's page design and management functions to improve your productivity and give you more control over the customer experience.
    - Store Management tool
      As a Seller, Site Administrator, or Channel Manager, you can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage your stores. The Store Management tool in Management Center replaces all of the store management features in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. Continue to use the Store Creation wizard in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to create new stores; continue to use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to suspend and resume stores.
    - Workspace Management tool
      You can use the Workspace Management tool in Management Center to manage and edit workspaces and its tasks and task groups that you are authorized to work with.
    - Previewing a store
      Preview your store to ensure that changes made in Management Center show up in your store as expected. You can use store preview in production, authoring, and staging environments.
    - Management Center frequently asked questions (FAQ)
      Find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Management Center.
    - Management Center Troubleshooting
      If you encounter issues with the Management Center that are not related to any specific tool, review this troubleshooting topic to solve common problems.
  - WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
    Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
- 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.
- 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

Target: Social Commerce Participation

Use this target in Web and Dialog activities and search rules to target customers who participated in social commerce on your site a specified number of times.

Customers participate in social commerce when they do any of the following things on your site:

Post a product review or comment, or rate a product
Post a blog entry or comment, or rate a blog entry
Upload a photo

If your site supports any of these social commerce features, then this target provides a means to reach out to customers, which are based on how many times they participated in their recorded history with the site. For example, you can reward customers who participated many times, or encourage customers who participated only a few times to participate more. For those customers who never participated, you can advertise the benefits of participation.

Example

Here is an example of a Web activity that uses this target effectively:

When a customer views the e-Marketing Spot on the store home page: If the customer participated in social commerce at least once but fewer than four times within the last month, then display this ad: "Keep posting to our product reviews, blogs, and photo galleries. Receive a coupon for free shipping with your 10th post."

Example of Target: Social Commerce Participation

Prerequisite for using this target

Make sure that your site is configured to support the Management Center marketing features.

Guidelines for using this target

When you set up this target, you must specify the number of times a customer must participate in social commerce to qualify for the Web or Dialog activity, for example, three times. You can also specify a time frame during which the participation must occur, for example, within the last 30 days.

Alternatively, you can use this target to target customers whose history of social commerce participation does not include the criteria that you specify.