HCL Commerce Version 9.1.6.0 or later

Workspaces with HCL Commerce Search based on Elasticsearch

Using workspaces in an authoring environment, business users can work on catalog-related changes in an isolated environment. They can then preview their changes in the storefront before submitting them for approval. Content approvers or workspace managers then use the Workspace Management tool in the Management Center to preview a workspace, undo submitted tasks, reject, cancel, or approve task groups.

All workspaces use the Elasticsearch search index which gets created while building the Elasticsearch index after deploying Elasticsearch docker containers. Unlike Solr search, there is no separate search index created for each allocated workspace to preview non-approved changes in a search-based navigation storefront in an authoring environment. Each of the workspace related change is stored as a document in the Elasticsearch search index. In addition to this, there is another index, workspace index, to store workspace change history details for all the workspaces created in an authoring environment.

The overall flow of the workspaces

The following list describes the overall flow of the workspaces:
  • IT administrators enable workspaces.
  • Workspace manager creates workspaces in the Workspace Management tool in Management Center.
  • Content contributors create, update, or delete objects within a workspace.
  • The data gets indexed for use in Store Preview:
    • The existing NiFi data flow pipelines (NRT, Dataload, full re-indexing) stream and process the data.
    • The Elasticsearch search index gets updated either by updating the existing base document or by creating a new document for the workspace. For existing documents, the base document gets updated with the workspace reference. If there is no existing document, then a new document for the workspace gets created.
    • Workspace change history gets stored in the workspace index to track workspace related changes.
  • Content contributors view the updates (unapproved content) in Store Preview. The Query service retrieves the data from the Elasticsearch index and returns it at the Store Preview based on the search criteria provided by the business users to preview unapproved content.
  • Content approvers or workspace managers approve a task/task group.
  • All the changes that are associated with a task/task group are committed to the production-ready data on the authoring environment.
  • The contents are then published to the Live environment.

Limitations

  • STA is not supported within a workspace. If the business user adds or deletes any synonym, then it cannot be tested in Store Preview while working in a workspace. A task/task group should be approved and committed to production-ready data to test the synonym. If any issue is found while testing the synonym in the production-ready data, then the synonym should be removed from the production-ready data.
  • HCL Commerce Version 9.1.12.0 or laterDataload is now supported within a workspace. In previous versions of HCL Commerce Search, when business users loaded data from an external source into a workspace, it could not be tested in Store Preview while working in a workspace.
  • Rule-based sales categories are not supported within a workspace. If the business users enable rule-based sales categories within a workspace, then it cannot be tested in Store Preview while working in a workspace. .