This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
Topics in the Reference section contain all of the Commerce+ reference documentation.
The Commerce+ database model was designed for data integrity and optimal performance. Commerce+ provides several hundred tables that store Commerce+ instance data. To maintain data integrity, and to ease maintenance referential integrity, constraints are widely used in the database model. Indexes are used carefully on tables to avoid over-indexing and to provide a good balance between data retrieval and data manipulation activities (insert and update). The business rules are implemented at the application level rather than by using database trigger. Triggers, however, are used to facilitate data staging and optimistic locking. A limited number of SQL-based database stored procedures are used for data intensive activities.
Welcome to the HCL Commerce+ overview. Explore these feature overviews to learn how Commerce+ operates. Refer to the related links listed at the end of each topic to access expanded product documentation.
This section provides details on deploying HCL Commerce+. It explains how to download the Docker images and Git bundles that comprise the product, how to create a minimal environment, and how to plan for a full deployment. It details supported software versions, patches, and configurations to ensure the platform performs well.
The following topics show how to migrate an existing HCL Commerce Version 9.1 environment to Commerce+. The process consists of an initial migration of your database contents. This is followed by a code migration. Both are fully described.
The topics in this section focus on tasks that are performed by business users, marketers, and customer support representatives to connect with partners and attract and satisfy customers.
The site administrator performs the tasks needed to support day to day operations of the Commerce+ site.
Using Commerce+'s xC programming model, you can use HCL-provided extension points to extend existing Commerce logic. You can implement these extensions with the xC Customization toolkit provided by HCL. Commerce+ also provides Packaged Business Capability integrations that extend the product's reach and functionality.
These topics describe the security features of Commerce+ and how to configure these features.
Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of Commerce+ site performance.
Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with Commerce+, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
The REST API reference describes the available endpoints for customizing the system. Essential information such as the resource path, descriptions of each operation, and samples of the request and response payloads is provided.
The following Run Engine commands are available by default for you to configure the applications that are running inside the containers.
Several column data types are available for you to use when you are creating new database table or columns.
If a database table or column is marked as deprecated, then the table or column is outdated by newer constructs. Deprecated sections are supported for reasons of compatibility with an earlier version only. These tables or columns are obsolete or can become obsolete in future versions of HCL Commerce.
Any given database data model displays the relationship among database tables in the schema.
This table is deprecated and is provided for backward compatibility only
This table is deprecated and is provided for backward compatibility only.
This table is for defining all the device format types.
This table holds the page names used to display CatalogGroups. The selection is based on Store, MemberGroup, DeviceType, CatalogGroup, Language, or any combination of the above. If many pages satisfy the criteria, the page that best fits will be chosen.
This table holds the page names used to display CatalogEntries. The selection is based on Store, MemberGroup, DeviceType, CatalogEntryType, CatalogEntry, AuctionState, Language, or any combination of the above.
Each row of this table represents a DistributionArrangement, enabling a Store to sell its own inventory.
Stores adjustments to components within a specific dynamic kit. This table is not used with the Sterling Configurator dynamic kit integration provided with Commerce+ Feature Pack 3.
Stores prices of components within a dynamic kit. This table is not used with the Sterling Configurator dynamic kit integration provided with Commerce+ Feature Pack 3.
Stores offer adjustments to components within a specific dynamic kit.
Contains relationships between predefined configurations and the dynamic kit catalog entries for which they are built.
Contains the components within a predefined configuration.
Contains the descriptions of predefined configurations.
Contains relationships between predefined configurations and the offers that price them.
Reserved for HCL internal use. Stores the complete structure of a pre-defined Nested Dynamic Kit. (No longer supported)
Contains predefined configurations of dynamic kit catalog entries.
Attributes of a marketing activity.
A definition of the interaction with a customer to market content.
Types of marketing activities. These include web, e-mail, dialog, search, and pageLayout.
A group of activities to meet specific marketing objectives.
Campaign elements associated with a marketing activity.
Name value pairs associated with a campaign element.
Types of trigger, target and action campaign elements for an activity.
Statistics of trigger, target and action campaign elements within an activity.
Template definitions of trigger, target, and action campaign elements. A trigger is used to wait for a customer to do something, or to wait for a certain period of time to elapse. When a trigger occurs, the activity flow can continue from where the trigger was defined in the flow. A target is used to qualify customers for subsequent actions or continue execution of the activity flow. Targets are usually based on a customer's behavior and segmentation. An action is a step to perform as part of the activity flow. Actions are the "to do" based on the previous sequence of triggers and targets. Most actions are for marketing purposes, such as display content in an e-marketing spot, or send the customer an e-mail.
The ordering scheme set up for stores and individual e-MarketingSpots.
This is a relationship table between an e-Marketing Spot and a Collateral, which stores the e-Marketing Spot label.
The default content to display in an e-Marketing Spot.
A list of ordering schemes in which to order marketing content displayed in an e-MarketingSpot.
This table is currently not used. Can be used to relate e-Marketing Spots to store pages.
Statistics for an e-MarketingSpot within a marketing activity.
The set of related marketing activities.
This table contains the details of what was displayed to a customer on a store page in an e-Marketing Spot as a result of an experiment.
This table stores the statistics related to marketing experiments.
The types of experiments associated with a marketing activity
This table contains customers that are explicitly included in a member group by the customer's personalization ID. This works in conjunction with the explicit inclusion and exclusion rules that are specified in the MBRGRPMBR table and the implicit inclusion rules that are specified in the MBRGRPCOND table. If both multiple criteria are specified, the following algorithm is used to evaluate if a member belongs to a member group: Explicit exclusion by member ID takes first precedence, then explicit inclusion by member ID, then inclusion by personalization ID, and then finally implicit inclusion.
A list of store pages with EMarketingSpots to display marketing content.
This table stores calculated ranking information. For example, the top 10 products purchased in a category, or the top 5 browsed products in a category. Each ranking item under a ranking group has a sequence.
This table stores collected information used to generate a ranking list. For example, when a relevant product is purchased or browsed, the data will be recorded in this table.
Types of marketing activity templates.
List of triggers that are being listened for in marketing activities.
Time based triggers to send when the specified time has elapsed.
A customer's behavior within a site, and within a marketing activity.
In Commerce+, payment processing uses the Payments subsystem.
In general, caching improves response time and reduces system load. Caching techniques are used to improve the performance of World Wide Web Internet applications. Most techniques cache static content (content that rarely changes) such as graphic and text files. However, many websites serve dynamic content, containing personalized information or data that changes more frequently. Caching dynamic content requires more sophisticated caching techniques, such as those provided by the Open Liberty Server dynamic cache, a built-in service for caching and serving dynamic content.
The root element of the cachespec.xml file, <cache>, contains <cache-entry> elements. The WebSphere dynamic cache service parses the cachespec.xml file during start-up, and extracts a set of configuration parameters from each <cache-entry> element.
<cache>
<cache-entry>
Commerce+ provides many web services.
In Commerce+ utilities are scripts that perform operations such as loading access control policies, loading store data, and cleaning the database of obsolete objects. In runtime environments, run utilities from the Utility server Docker container. In the development environment, run utilities from the bin directory.
The following URLs relate to the Messaging system.
The server subsystem consists of functions that are associated with URLs that are run by the scheduler.