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).

Other business user roles, such as Customer Service Representatives, use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to perform business operations, such as managing stores, inventory, fulfillment, orders, returns, and payments.

Management Center tools

The following table summarizes the tools that Management Center provides.
If you are ... You can use the Management Center ...
Managing catalogs and merchandise Catalogs tool
  • Create and manage master and sales catalogs, including:
    • defining categories
    • creating products and SKUs
    • categorizing SKUs
    • bundling SKUs
    • managing dynamic kits
  • Enrich and manage product content, and create merchandising associations.
  • Create, restore, view, and delete versions of catalog objects (sales catalog, category, and catalog entries).
  • Create and manage search term associations, and associate search terms with landing pages.
  • Manage product attributes with the Management Center attribute dictionary.
  • Manage search engine optimization (SEO) properties for categories and catalog entries.
  • View site search statistics for the keywords customers are using to search your site.
  • Assign one or more attribute dictionary descriptive attributes to multiple catalog entries at a time.
  • Add multiple catalog entries to multiple sales categories at a time in a single task.
  • Create rule-based sales categories that use a WebSphere Commerce search based rule to find and automatically assign catalog entries to the categories.
  • Use WebSphere Commerce search to quickly find catalog entries to assign to a sales category.
  • View the catalog entries that are assigned a specific attribute dictionary attribute.
Managing promotions Promotions tool
  • Create and manage promotions for your merchandise.
  • Review and manage promotions.
  • Import promotion codes for use with your promotions.
  • Export promotion codes for a promotion.
  • If Management Center is integrated with IBM Marketing Center, you can open IBM Marketing Center from Management Center to upload exported promotion codes. IBM Marketing Center campaigns can include the promotion codes.
  • Find promotions by using the Advanced Search feature in the Promotions tool.
  • Archive inactive promotions to remove the promotions from displaying in the main promotions list and promotion folders.
  • Prevent promotions from displaying in the main promotions list by moving the promotions into promotion folders.
Managing marketing campaigns Marketing tool
  • Design creative marketing campaigns that can contain web and email activities.
  • Create experiments to test your campaign activities' effectiveness.
  • Create and manage marketing content.
  • Define the flow of marketing activities.
  • Review and manage marketing activities.
  • Create and manage search rules.
  • Create and manage search rule experiments.
  • If Management Center is integrated with IBM Marketing Center, you can open IBM Marketing Center from Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns. These campaigns can include promotion codes that are exported from Management Center.
  • Export customer segment information, such as email addresses, into a downloadable CSV file.
  • Override the maximum file size limit for assets that are associated with marketing content.
  • Configure marketing activities to target customers who are viewing catalog entries that have specific attributes.
Managing assets Assets tool
  • Browse attachments, managed files, and managed directories.
  • Create, change, and delete attachments.
  • Create, change, and delete managed files.
  • Create and delete managed directories.
  • Upload files, such as product images and marketing content.
Managing installment rules Installments tool
  • Create installment rules to offer customers different installment payment options when they purchase items from your store catalog.
  • Review how installment rules are scheduled in relation to one another in a calendar tool.
  • Review the list of active and inactive installment rules.
  • Activate and deactivate installment rules.
  • Update installment rules.
  • Delete installment rules.
Managing stores Store Management tool
  • Update store profile information such as the name or description of a store, contact information, store location, and supported languages and currencies.
  • Change the style of a store, including the store layout and color.
  • Specify the functions that are available in your store, such as which optional fields to display on store pages.
  • View your changes in the store.
  • Open or close a store.
  • Update the URL keyword of a static store page for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly URLs.
Managing catalog filters, price lists, and price rules Catalog Filter and Pricing tool
  • Create, and manage catalog filters.
  • Create and manage price lists and price rules.
  • Upload catalog filters.
  • Upload price lists.
Managing tasks that you perform in Management Center
Workspace Management tool
  • Manage content within a workspace by selecting tasks, managing content within tasks, adding comments, and approving or rejecting tasks.
  • Work on assigned tasks, complete tasks, and submit tasks for approval.
  • View, open, and compare business object change history records to quickly see what modifications were made.
  • Undo change history records to correct mistakes or to approve a task without needing to reject it.
  • View the change history for a task group after the task group is approved or canceled.
Creating pages and layouts, and managing layouts for store pages Commerce Composer tool
  • Create pages for your store.
  • Create layouts for pages by using predefined widgets and templates.
  • Assign layouts to store pages.
  • View layouts.

Management Center menu

You can access the tools from the Management Center menu.


Management Center tools menu with workspaces enabled

Each tool displays in its own tab within the Management Center:

Management Center tool tabs
To switch between each tool, click the appropriate tab.

Management Center roles and access

A Site Administrator can assign one or more Management Center roles to you. Your roles determine which tools you can access.
Role Management Center tool access
Account Representative

Catalogs (read-only)
Promotions
Marketing
Assets (read-only)
Catalog Filter and Pricing
Installments

Sales Manager

Catalogs (read-only)
Promotions
Marketing
Assets (read-only)
Catalog Filter and Pricing
Installments
Page Layout (read-only)
Commerce Composer (read-only)

Channel Manager Store Management
Marketing Director
Note: In addition to all the access privileges of the Marketing Manager role, users with the Marketing Director role can also download exported customer segment information, such as email addresses, to a local file system.

Catalogs (read-only)
Promotions
Marketing
Assets
Installments
Page Layout
Commerce Composer

Marketing Manager

Catalogs (read-only)
Promotions
Marketing
Assets
Installments
Page Layout
Commerce Composer

Seller

Catalogs
Promotions
Marketing
Assets (read-only)
Catalog Filter and Pricing
Installments
Page Layout (read-only)  
Commerce Composer
Store Management

Site Administrator

Catalogs
Promotions
Marketing
Assets
Catalog Filter and Pricing
Installments
Page Layout
Commerce Composer
Store Management
Workspace Management

Product Manager

Catalogs
Promotions
Marketing
Assets
Installments
Page Layout (read-only)

Category Manager

Catalogs
Promotions
Assets
Page Layout (read-only)

Buyer (seller side)

Catalogs
Promotions
Assets (read-only)

If you need to change your access, contact your Site Administrator.

Developers familiar with the Management Center framework can also customize it further to suit their business needs.