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HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
Customizing
The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
Customizing HCL Commerce
You can extend the HCL Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use HCL Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
Business relationship assets
Developing business policies
In HCL Commerce, business policies are enforced with a combination of one or more business policy commands that implement the rules of the business policy. Each business policy command is a Java class. A business policy command can be shared by multiple business policies. The behavior of the business policy command is determined by the parameters passed to the command.
Returns business policies
Returns business policies define how your store will handle returns and refunds. You create and publish returns business policies using the loading utilities.

Documentation
HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
- Getting started
  HCL Commerce has different advantages for business users, administrators and developers. HCL Commerce targets each of these roles with a tailored set of offerings so that each of your users can get maximum benefit.
- Installing and deploying
  Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to HCL Commerce Version 9.1, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Operating
  Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  Topics in the Administering category highlight tasks that are typically performed by the Site Administrator, to support daily operations of the HCL Commerce site.
- Customizing
  The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
  - Customizing Management Center for HCL Commerce
    HCL Commerce allows you to pull the GIT bundle of Management Center source code and start the application locally to customize the Management Center.
  - Managed asset deployment
    Managed assets are files that are uploaded by business users to be used for store marketing, or to supplement products. They are added to HCL Commerce through the Assets tool or the Marketing tool in Management Center. By default, managed assets are extracted and deployed through the HCL Commerce EAR. To maintain performance in a large-scale production environment, site administrators must switch to alternative extraction and deployment methods for managed assets.
  - HCL Commerce development environment
    HCL Commerce Developer is the development toolkit for customizing a HCL Commerce application.
  - Functional architecture
    Functional architecture provides both the set of patterns used to implement the business functionality and the frameworks in which these business functions execute.
  - Persistent object model
    HCL Commerce deals with a large amount of persistent data. There are numerous tables defined in the current database schema. Even with this extensive schema, however, you might need to extend or customize the database schema for your particular business needs.
  - Creating your custom store
    After you install and set up your programming environment, you can create your custom store and customize your storefront. You must ensure that the store server is properly configured, and that your store assets are moved to the Store server.
  - Presentation layer
    HCL Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
  - Controller layer
    The Controller layer is the conductor of operations for a request. It controls the transaction scope and manages the session related information for the request. The controller first dispatches to a command and then calls the appropriate view processing logic to render the response.
  - Business logic layer
    The business logic layer is the business components that provide OAGIS services to return data or start business processes. The presentation layer uses these OAGIS services to display data, or to invoke a business process. The business logic provides data required by the presentation layer. The business logic layer exists because more than just fetching and updating data is required by an application; there is also additional business logic independent of the presentation layer.
  - Persistence layer
    The interaction between the business objects and persistence layer is isolated in an object called the Business Object Mediator. Business object document (BOD) commands interact with the Business Object Mediator to handle the interaction with the logical objects and how they are persisted.
  - Business model information model
    A business model, a representation of the business processes used throughout the site, provides a sample commerce solution which includes an organization structure, default user roles and access control policies, one or more starter stores, administration tools, and business processes that demonstrate best practices. A business model can be customized to support business requirements and scenarios. HCL Commerce provides sample business models that show some common commerce solutions. These business models are created by setting up an organization hierarchy structure, access control policies, stores, and contracts that help satisfy the necessary business requirements.
  - Business models
    Before starting to develop your site with HCL Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by HCL Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with HCL Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.
  - Store data information model
    Store data is the information that is loaded into the Transaction server database, which allows your store to function. The URL Registry Entries and View Registry Entries packages are included in the diagram, but they are not database assets. These entries are presentation configuration (that is, struts actions and forwards) that must be deployed. URL registry entries are shown in the diagram to illustrate the entire store data information model. To operate properly, a store must have the data in place to support all customer activities. For example, in order for a customer to make a purchase, your store must contain a catalog of goods for sale (catalog data), the data associated with processing orders (tax and shipping data), and the inventory to fulfill the request (inventory and fulfillment data).
  - Customizing HCL Commerce
    You can extend the HCL Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use HCL Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
    - Choosing a customization model
      You can customize HCL Commerce using the traditional development model, or the externalized Customizations (xC) framework. Which approach you use depends on how complex your requirements are, and how beneficial it is to you to isolate your customization code.
    - Extending HCL Commerce with xC extension points
      For some parts of HCL Commerce, you can write extension code to extend HCL Commerce controller or task commands. You create extension code in the development environment.
    - Understanding access control
      Access control in an HCL Commerce application is composed of the following elements: users, actions, resources, and relationships.
    - Supporting globalization
      The HCL Commerce architecture is designed to support globalization. Globalization is the proper design and execution of systems, software, services, and procedures so that one instance of software, running on a single server or end-user machine, can process multilingual data and present culturally correct data in a multicultural environment such as the Internet.
    - Adding and modifying price lists and price policies
      You can add additional price lists, if you require multiple price lists to support cost and list prices.
    - Business relationship assets
      - Setting the invoice format
        The format of invoices is defined in an optional business policy called InvoiceFormat, enforced by the Invoice task command. To set the format for generated invoices, you must import the account XML from a file, using the AccountImport command.
      - Creating business policy XML files
        While HCL Commerce provides a number of business policies that the terms and conditions in your store's default contract can reference, some business policies must still be defined by you. You must define any return charge, return approval, and pricing business policies that the store default contract terms reference. Commands for these business policies are provided and can be used without modification.
      - Default contract
        A default contract defines the default customer entitlement for a store or a group of stores. The default contract applies to all customers shopping at a store who do not have any other contract with the store, for example, guest customers. Also, the default contract will apply to customers buying products not covered by other contracts they have with the store if the customer is permitted to purchase products that are not covered by a contract.
      - Changing the default contract
        To modify the default contract without using the user interface, you need to export the default contract and make changes to the contract XML file and then import the modified contract.
      - Creating a default contract file
        In order to create a default contract, you must define the contract, the contract owner, the contract description, the contract participants, and the terms and conditions of the contracts. Contract information is stored in four tables: CONTRACT, PARTICIPNT, TRADING, and TERMCOND.
      - Creating a default contract asset
        The default contract defines the default behavior of a store. As with all contracts, you can set the available products, prices, payment methods, shipping methods, and other store behavior.
      - Enabling the AND operation for multiple contracts
        You can enable the AND operation for multiple contracts so that shoppers must be entitled to products under all contracts before they can purchase them. The default value is OR, where shoppers can purchase products if they are entitled to them under only one contract.
      - Invoice XML data
        Invoice XML data is generated for each order release when a pick batch for the release is generated and the account referenced by the contract for the order items includes the invoice term. This data is stored in the database/database/invoice.html database table.
      - XML, DTD, and XSD files for business and partner relationship management
        The following table outlines the XML, DTD, and XSD files that are important for contracts in a B2B or B2B indirect store. All files are found in the following directories:
      - DTD-based and XSD-based contracts
        HCL Commerce supports contracts based on two models: DTD-based contracts and XSD-based contracts. You can use the HCL Commerce Accelerator to manage both DTD-based contracts and XSD-based contracts. Imported contracts can be either DTD or XSD based, but contracts will be exported in the XSD format.
      - Developing business policies
        In HCL Commerce, business policies are enforced with a combination of one or more business policy commands that implement the rules of the business policy. Each business policy command is a Java class. A business policy command can be shared by multiple business policies. The behavior of the business policy command is determined by the parameters passed to the command.
        Catalog business policies
        Catalog business policies define how you will sell products available in a store. You can create price list and product set catalog business policies.
        Defined catalog business policies
        Catalog policies are defined for the store group or the store. A catalog policy defined for a store group is available to all stores within that store group. HCL Commerce defines the following catalog policies:
        Payment business policies
        Payment business policies define various aspects of receiving payments and paying refunds.
        Referral interface business policies
        Referral interface business policies define the relationship between a proxy store and a remote store. It defines the functions supported by the remote store. It also defines the parameters to be sent in any messages sent to the remote store. You create and publish referral interface business policies by creating and deploying a ReferralContract.
        Returns business policies
        Returns business policies define how your store will handle returns and refunds. You create and publish returns business policies using the loading utilities.
        Defined returns business policies
        Returns business policies are defined for the store group or the store. A returns business policy defined for a store group is available to all stores within that store group. These policies are defined in the language-independent bootstrap file, wcs.bootstrap.xml file.
        Shipping business policies
        Shipping business policies define how your store will ship items and how you will charge for shipping. Shipping business policies are created when you create the shipping database assets in the store archive for a store.
        Defined shipping business policies
        Shipping business policies are defined for the store. These policies are defined in the language-independent bootstrap file.
        Business policy objects and commands
        A business policy object contains policy information.
        Trading agreements and business policies
        One of the key elements of B2B commerce is relationship management. A trading agreement is used to manage a business relationship between a buyer and a seller organization. The trading agreement model that is used by HCL Commerce supports various types of trading agreements, such as business accounts, contracts, and RFQs.
      - Purchase order number validation
        Purchase order numbers are validated during the order processing.
      - Product sets in contracts
        In HCL Commerce there are two different types of product sets: Product set business policies and Customized product sets.
      - Defined referral interface business policies
        HCL Commerce does not define referral interface business policies. For examples on how to create a referral interface business policy, refer to the TemplateReferralContract.xml file, which is located in the WC_eardir /xml/trading/xml directory.
      - Account terms and conditions
        Terms and conditions define how a contract is implemented for a customer organization. When the same terms and conditions are being applied to each contract in an account, it makes more sense to define the terms and conditions at the account level, so they can be inherited by all of the contracts under the account.
      - Contract terms and conditions
        Terms and conditions define how a contract is implemented for a customer organization. They define what is being sold under the contract; the price of the items being sold; how the items are shipped; how orders are paid for; how item returns are handled; how orders are approved; and where orders are shipped from.
      - ContractExport utility XML file encoding
        XML files generated by the ContractExport utility can be encoded in several ways.
      - Contract information according to business models
        When creating contracts for HCL Commerce, it is important to understand the business model in which you store is based, as well as the participants, usages, and XML elements for each business model, as outlined in the following table:
    - Catalog subsystem
      The catalog subsystem is a component of the Transaction server that provides online catalog navigation, partitioning, categorization, and associations. In addition, the catalog subsystem includes support for personalized intrest lists and custom catalog display pages. The catalog subsystem contains all logic and data relevant to an online catalog, including catalog groups (or categories), catalog entries, and any associations or relationships among them.
    - Member subsystem
      The Member subsystem is a component of the Transaction server that includes data for participants of the HCL Commerce system. A member can be a user, a group of users (also known as a member group), or an organizational entity (which can be an organization, such as "IBM" or an organizational unit within an organization, such as "Electronic Commerce Division"). Business logic in the Member subsystem provides member registration and profile management services. Other services which are closely related to the Member subsystem include access control, authentication, and session management.
    - Currency
      You can display prices in your site in one currency, or you can use multiple currencies by following the instructions for the euro. For a site with multiple stores, you can use different currencies for the stores, or you can assign currencies to the store group. Depending on the type of site that you are creating, you can specify what currencies you want to use and how they are displayed. You can also allow customers to select a shopping currency.
    - Returns
    - Tax codes
      A tax calculation code indicates the tax calculation for order items. A store typically collects two type of taxes: sales or use tax, and shipping tax. The tax codes are unique within each tax type for a store. Only one tax calculation code of each tax type is applied to a particular order item.
    - Calculation framework
      Commerce systems need to calculate monetary amounts and apply them to business objects. Business rules and legal requirements specify how and when these monetary amounts should be calculated. When these rules and requirements change, a good commerce system can adapt to the changes with little or no programming changes.
    - Order Management subsystem
      The Order Management subsystem is a component of the Transaction server that provides shopping carts, order capture, order fulfillment, inventory, and payment function support.
    - Stored procedure error codes
      The following table describes the error codes that are returned by specific HCL Commerce stored procedures. You should receive these error messages only when a problem with the data requires further investigation by a technical person. If you receive one of these errors (other than error code 0) and you cannot determine the cause of the error, contact HCL Commerce support for assistance.
    - Trading subsystem
  - Run Engine command framework
    The Run Engine command framework provides predefined commands, that you can use to change environment parameters or container configurations. This framework is built into the HCL provided Docker images.
  - GraphQL for HCL Commerce
    The GraphQL markup language is available for any API. It is a server-side interpreter for processing queries using a data type system you design. With GraphQL, your data and code are independent of any database or storage system.
  - Representational State Transfer (REST) services
    HCL Commerce uses Representational State Transfer (REST) services to provide a framework that can be used to develop RESTful applications on several platforms. These platforms can include web, mobile, kiosks, and social applications.
  - Web services
  - Search
    HCL Commerce comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in HCL Commerce provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on industry standards, HCL Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. Starting with Version 9.1, HCL Commerce Search with Elasticsearch microservices manage indexing and other crucial tasks, with no performance impact on the storefront or transaction server.
- Tutorials
  HCL Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your HCL Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  Topics in the Samples category highlight the various samples that are provided with HCL Commerce.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage HCL Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of HCL Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of HCL Commerce site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with HCL Commerce, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.

Returns business policies

Returns business policies define how your store will handle returns and refunds. You create and publish returns business policies using the loading utilities.

You can set the following returns business policies.

Return charges: Return charges specify any charges the customer must pay to return merchandise. This could include restocking fees and time-related penalties. An example of a time-related penalty is when a customer receives only 60 percent of the original purchase price it the item was returned after 60 days.
Return approvals: A return approvals policy determines when a return will be automatically approved.
Return payment method: The return payment method policy defines how refunds are paid to the buyer for goods returned. For example, a store may have a return payment method business policy that specifies that the buyer is paid using the same payment method that was originally used when ordering.