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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.
Integrating
Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
Integrating with back-end systems and external applications
External systems integration is a key feature of the HCL Commerce solution. In HCL Commerce business logic is enabled for integration and built-in adapters and interfaces are provided for common integration points. Additionally, the HCL Commerce integration solution leverages integration standards by using various IBM connectivity solutions.
Integration XML messages
HCL Commerce offers support for inbound and outbound messages that use the XML format. Each inbound message invokes specific behaviors within the HCL Commerce Server by executing a controller command. Each controller command in turn performs operations on the HCL Commerce database and subsystems. Some controller commands can be executed by more than one XML message. In addition, some messages can invoke different commands, depending on the content of the message.
Back-end integration messages
Order notification
An outbound back-end message is an HCL Commerce-generated request that can be sent to an external system. HCL Commerce can be configured to generate the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder XML outbound message that allows you to communicate to back-end systems that an order has been placed. The XML message is generated and sent out by the outbound messaging system, encoded in Unicode UTF-8 format. You can also use the legacy Order Create message, which performs a similar function.

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.
  - Order management system integration
    Integrate a distributed order management (DOM) system with your store to provide comprehensive coverage of the order lifecycle across channels, from capture to fulfillment.
  - Sterling Order Management integration
    The integration between HCL Commerce and Sterling Order Management combines the industry-leading front-end capabilities of HCL Commerce with the proven, back-end order and inventory management features of Sterling Order Management.
  - Inventory Management system integration
    Integrate an inventory management system with your store to ensure that inventory availability is constantly updated to reflect your store's current inventory levels.
  - Payments system integration
    Integrate a payments system with your store to process shopper payments for your site. You can also integrate with pricing and tax service providers to manage the pricing and tax calculations for your store.
  - Tax system integration
    You can integrate HCL Commerce with a third-party tax calculation system to provide tax calculations for your store. Integrating with a third-party tax service provider can help you to build and maintain a highly secure e-commerce site with a worldwide tax calculation process. Use the available HCL Commerce tax integration extension points to create any extensions that you need for integrating with your third-party tax calculation system. The tax integration xC extensions are a set of task commands that are called by the order component to communicate with the third-party tax calculation system when the tax integration feature is enabled.
  - Integrating with back-end systems and external applications
    External systems integration is a key feature of the HCL Commerce solution. In HCL Commerce business logic is enabled for integration and built-in adapters and interfaces are provided for common integration points. Additionally, the HCL Commerce integration solution leverages integration standards by using various IBM connectivity solutions.
    - SOA Logical Architecture and HCL Commerce back-office integration
      HCL Commerce provides back-office integration to enable your business application services to connect to access services.
    - Outbound services
      HCL Commerce provides the capability for you to enable outbound web services to send information and messages that are generated from HCL Commerce.
    - Inbound services
      HCL Commerce provides inbound web services to retrieve information for HCL Commerce business operations. You can use the code and documentation that is provided with HCL Commerce to enable inbound web services to integrate backend systems and external system with HCL Commerce operations.
    - Integration XML messages
      HCL Commerce offers support for inbound and outbound messages that use the XML format. Each inbound message invokes specific behaviors within the HCL Commerce Server by executing a controller command. Each controller command in turn performs operations on the HCL Commerce database and subsystems. Some controller commands can be executed by more than one XML message. In addition, some messages can invoke different commands, depending on the content of the message.
      - Message classification
        HCL Commerce supports four message interaction types: HCL Commerce outbound notification, Back-end inbound notification, HCL Commerce outbound request or reply.
      - Back-end integration messages
        Order notification
        An outbound back-end message is an HCL Commerce-generated request that can be sent to an external system. HCL Commerce can be configured to generate the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder XML outbound message that allows you to communicate to back-end systems that an order has been placed. The XML message is generated and sent out by the outbound messaging system, encoded in Unicode UTF-8 format. You can also use the legacy Order Create message, which performs a similar function.
        Report_NC_PurchaseOrder message
        The Report_NC_PurchaseOrder message is an outbound message that contains order details for a completed order. The HCL Commerce outbound messaging system generates this message using the OrderCreateXML.jsp composition template and sends its data to an outbound message queue, where a back-end system receives the message. This application takes the message and continues any back-end business processes required to complete the specified task for the order. Use Report_NC_PurchaseOrder to fulfill the order process of orders that begin with the HCL Commerce system, but also require some additional or back-end work by a separate system.
        Create_WCS_Customer message
        The Create_WCS_Customer message is an inbound message that contains customer information for a customer. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce adds information for a new customer by calling the UserRegistrationAdd command.
        Create_NC_Customer message
        The Create_NC_Customer message is an inbound message that contains customer information for a customer. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce updates information for a new customer by calling the UserRegistrationAdd command.
        Update_WCS_Customer message
        The Update_WCS_Customer message is an inbound message that contains customer information for a customer. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce updates information for a customer by calling the UserRegistrationUpdate command.
        Update_NC_Customer message
        The Update_NC_Customer message is an inbound message that contains customer information for a customer. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce updates information for a registered customer by calling the UserRegistrationUpdate command. Since the message invokes the same HCL Commerce controller command, the message is identical to the Create_NC_Customer message.
        Update_WCS_OrderStatus message
        The Update_WCS_OrderStatus message is an inbound message that contains status information for an HCL Commerce order. The message has four possible forms. Although each form of the message has the same XML elements, each one is associated with a different Command. The mapping of message forms to commands is as follows:
        Update_NC_OrderStatus message
        The Update_NC_OrderStatus message is an inbound message that contains status information for an HCL Commerce order. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce OrderStatus command updates the tables ORDSTAT and ORDISTAT with the new order status information.
        Update_WCS_ProductPrice message
        The Update_WCS_ProductPrice message is an inbound message that contains price information for a product. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue. When the HCL Commerce system receives the message, it runs a controller command. The controller command that is run depends on the type of message. The following table shows the two types of messages that can be sent, along with their associated controller commands.
        Update_NC_ProductPrice message
        The Update_NC_ProductPrice message is an inbound message that contains price information for a product. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. The system then invokes the ProductOfferPriceUpdate command which updates the OFFERPRICE table with the new price information.
        Update_WCS_ProductInventory message
        The Update_WCS_ProductInventory message is an inbound message that contains inventory information for a product. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce updates the INVENTORY table with the new inventory information.
        Update_NC_ProductInventory message
        The Update_NC_ProductInventory message is an inbound message that contains inventory information for a product. A back-end application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. HCL Commerce updates the INVENTORY table with the new inventory information.
        Update_WCS_InventoryReceipt message
        The Update_WCS_InventoryReceipt message is an inbound message that contains information for adjusting the inventory for an item. A fulfillment center application generates this message and sends it to the HCL Commerce inbound message queue, where the HCL Commerce system receives the message. After HCL Commerce receives the message, the InventoryAdjust command is invoked.
      - Distributor integration messages
        HCL Commerce uses XML message interfaces to integrate to external applications. These messages are defined to allow HCL Commerce to integrate with distributors systems.
    - Procurement system integration
      HCL Commerce provides the capability to integrate with procurement systems. This capability enables HCL Commerce customers to participate as suppliers in the procurement system's marketplace, increase sales, and enhance their business-to-business presence on the Web. HCL Commerce provides an extensible and customizable functionality in such a way that one can extend either the messages or the business logic.
    - Controller commands
      Controller commands encapsulate the business logic for a business process. By default, HCL Commerce provides various controller commands to help you integrate HCL Commerce with backend and external systems.
    - Back-end integration legacy messages
      The HCL Commerce offers support for messages which use the legacy message format. Unless you are migrating from a previous version of HCL Commerce Suite, it is recommended that you use the XML messages instead, since they accomplish the same function, and are easier to read and maintain.
  - IBM Watson Campaign Automation integration
    You can integrate IBM Watson Campaign Automation with HCL Commerce so that transactional emails are sent by IBM Watson Campaign Automation.
  - IBM MQ
    HCL Commerce provides a listener for IBM MQ for inbound requests, and an adapter for IBM MQ for outbound requests, to integrate back-end, and external systems with HCL Commerce.
  - Content management integration
    You can integrate HCL Commerce with an external content management system through a punch-out window from Management Center and through the web feed utility. You can integrate HCL Commerce with IBM Web Content Manager to provide Management Center users the ability to associate IBM Web Content Manager content with HCL Commerce objects.
  - Analytics for HCL Commerce
    HCL Commerce provides a framework that you can configure to integrate your store with an external Web analytics solution. This framework includes a tag library that you can use in store page JSP files to provide appropriate analytics information to the external analytics system.
  - IBM Product Recommendations and HCL Commerce
    IBM Product Recommendations is an IBM Digital Analytics solution that you can subscribe to that automatically generates personalized product recommendations on the storefront. The recommendations are based on the browsing, shopping, and purchasing behavior of individual customers. If your site is integrated with IBM Digital Analytics, you can display recommendations from IBM Product Recommendations on your store pages.
  - IBM Enterprise Marketing Management integration
    You can integrate HCL Commerce with IBM Enterprise Marketing Management.
  - IBM Dynamic Pricing
    Dynamic Pricing is a cloud-based pricing system that analyzes real-time market data to provide suggestions on how merchandisers can react to competitor pricing and shifts in market conditions. Data can be fed to Dynamic Pricing from multiple sources, including HCL Commerce. You can configure HCL Commerce to export pricing data to Dynamic Pricing for pricing analysis and adjustment. The adjusted pricing data can then be imported from Dynamic Pricing to HCL Commerce, so the prices can be propagated to your live store front.
  - IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale
    You can integrate HCL Commerce version 9.0.0.7 or later with IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale version 8.6.1.2 or later. The WebSphere eXtreme Scale licensed program is an elastic, scalable, in-memory data grid that you can use as an advanced cache for HCL Commerce. Integrating with WebSphere eXtreme Scale can provide significant performance benefits for high volume HCL Commerce customers.
  - Apple Pay on the Web integration
    Apple Pay on the Web integration with HCL Commerce provides you with an easy and secure way to accept and process payments. Apple Pay on the Web enables customers to purchase products in the Aurora starter store with a single touch in Safari on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
  - Configuring directory services (LDAP) with HCL Commerce
    HCL Commerce can be configured to use one or more LDAP servers as the master user repository instead of the HCL Commerce database. This is typically done when multiple applications need to share a common user repository.
  - Sterling Omni-Configurator integration
    The Sterling Omni-Configurator integration for HCL Commerce enables your storefront to sell complex, configurable products, otherwise know as dynamic kits.
  - OAuth 2.0 framework for social login
    When you integrate with the OAuth 2.0 framework, your shoppers can authenticate to your storefront with their social networking accounts, like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
  - HCL Digital Experience integration
    HCL Digital Experience is a fully-featured, multi-platform enterprise content management solution. Using HCL Digital Experience, you can easily manage your growing volume of digital content that is required to run your business and support critical decisions.
  - HCL Unica Discover integration
    HCL Unica Discover records what your customers are seeing on your store web pages and how they interact with store pages. HCL Unica Discover provides deep behavioural insights into the online journey of users who visit your store. You can use these insights to create positive experiences for the users that make them want to visit your store again.
  - Google Analytics integration
    Google Analytics helps you to understand how your customers are engaging with your store content and how they interact with store pages. Google Analytics helps you to get a deeper understanding of your customers so that you can improve customer experience and get better results.
- 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.
- 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.

Order notification

An outbound back-end message is an HCL Commerce-generated request that can be sent to an external system. HCL Commerce can be configured to generate the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder XML outbound message that allows you to communicate to back-end systems that an order has been placed. The XML message is generated and sent out by the outbound messaging system, encoded in Unicode UTF-8 format. You can also use the legacy Order Create message, which performs a similar function.

The outbound messages contain order information sent from the HCL Commerce Server to external systems, where further order fulfillment processes take place. To enable the outbound message, first you need to choose which one you want to use, either the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder XML message or the legacy Order Create message. The two cannot be enabled at the same time.

If you choose to use the Report_NC_PurchaseOrder XML message, update your CMDREG database table using the following SQL statement:


update cmdreg set 
classname='com.ibm.commerce.messaging.commands.SendXMLOrderCmdImpl' where 
interfacename='com.ibm.commerce.order.commands.OrderMessagingCmd'

This assigns the SendXMLOrderCmdImpl task command which generates and sends the message to the OrderMessagingCmd interface of the OrderProcess command.

If you choose to use the legacy Order Create message, update your database CMDREG table using the following SQL statement:


update cmdreg set 
classname='com.ibm.commerce.messaging.commands.SendWCSOrderCmdImpl' where 
interfacename='com.ibm.commerce.order.commands.OrderMessagingCmd'

This assigns the SendWCSOrderCmdImpl task command which generates and sends the message to the OrderMessagingCmd interface of the Order Process command. You need to restart your HCL Commerce instance in order for the change to take effect.

You can also create new outbound back-end integration messages.