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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.
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.
Name-value pair command framework
The name-value pair command framework uses name-value pairs as input to the business logic layer, and returns the responses as name-value pairs.
HCL Commerce data beans
HCL Commerce and the HCL Commerce development environment include a set of Java beans, called HCL Commerce data beans, that access information from the tables in the database. Creating store pages using these beans allows you to display information that may change often, such as catalog groups and product lists, or product prices.

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.
    - Business context service
      The business context service manages contextual information used by business components. The information is encapsulated within different types of business contexts. This process formalizes the context infrastructure and fosters reuse between different business models.
    - Name-value pair command framework
      The name-value pair command framework uses name-value pairs as input to the business logic layer, and returns the responses as name-value pairs.
      - Command types
        HCL Commerce commands are Java beans that contain the programming logic associated with handling a particular request. Commands perform a specific business process, such as adding a product to the shopping cart, processing an order, updating a customer's address book, or displaying a specific product page.
      - HCL Commerce data beans
        HCL Commerce and the HCL Commerce development environment include a set of Java beans, called HCL Commerce data beans, that access information from the tables in the database. Creating store pages using these beans allows you to display information that may change often, such as catalog groups and product lists, or product prices.
      - Command context
        Commands can obtain information using the command context. Examples of information available include the user's ID, the user object, the language identifier, and the store identifier.
      - Customizing existing controller commands
        A controller command encapsulates the business logic for a business process. Individual units of work within the business process may be performed by task commands. As such, there are several ways in which a controller command can be customized, some of which involve customizing task commands.
      - Customizing existing task commands
        There are two standard ways to modify existing WebSphere Commerce task commands. You can add new business logic to a task command, or replace the business logic of an existing task command.
      - Command error handling
        HCL Commerce uses a well-defined command error handling framework that is simple to use in customized code. By design, the framework handles errors in a manner that supports multicultural stores. The following sections describe the types of exceptions that a command can throw, how the exceptions are handled, how message text is stored and used, how the exceptions are logged, and how to use the provided framework in your own commands.
      - Logging and tracing
        All HCL Commerce assets can use the LoggingHelper utility class provided in the com.ibm.commerce.foundation.common.util.logging package for tracing and logging. This utility helps to resolve the Java Logger ( java.util.logging.Logger) associated with the package of the calling class. Once the Logger is resolved, the library used to log messages is java.util.logging.Logger.
    - HCL Commerce use of Open Applications Group (OAGIS) messaging
      HCL Commerce service interfaces are defined using the OAGIS message structure, from The Open Applications Group.
  - 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.
  - 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.

HCL Commerce data beans

HCL Commerce and the HCL Commerce development environment include a set of Java beans, called HCL Commerce data beans, that access information from the tables in the database. Creating store pages using these beans allows you to display information that may change often, such as catalog groups and product lists, or product prices.

The HCL Commerce data beans are grouped into the following areas:

Access control
Approval
Catalog
Common
Contract
Coupon promotion, coupon redemption, coupon wallet
Fulfillment
Inventory
Message extension
Order
Order management
Order status
Payment
PvC
Taxation
User
User traffic
Unified Trading Framework

Each HCL Commerce data bean accesses information from a particular table. For example, the CatalogGroupDataBean, a catalog bean, accesses information from the CATGROUP table. In that table, the bean accesses information from a particular column through properties. That is, the categoryId property accesses the information in the CATGROUP_ID (catalog group reference number) column in the CATGROUP table.

Some HCL Commerce data beans work in conjunction with others. For example, the CategoryDataBean will return a list of the applicable Product or ItemDataBeans within a particular catalog. The ProductDataBean includes the PriceDataBean that allows you to display the price for that product.

Using a JSP editor of your choice, you can choose any HCL Commerce data bean to add to your store page and select which properties you want to display from the Bean Property Selection window.