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Documentation
This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
Operating
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.
Business Tools
Commerce+ allows you to manage various business tools such as Promotions, Catalog, Promotions, Inventory, and so on. Users accessing at least one business tool can see the Business Tools menu. The user can see tools that are accessible to the current user.
Marketing Tool
Use the Marketing tool in the Commerce Lab to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
Managing web and dialog activities
Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.

Documentation
This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
- Overview
  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.
- Deploying
  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.
- Migrating
  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.
- Operating
  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.
  - Commerce Lab
    Accessible through a web-based interface, Commerce Lab enables users to manage all key aspects of their commerce operations, including catalogs, marketing, pricing, users, stores, customers, workspaces, sellers, and administrative functions—empowering teams with greater flexibility and control.
  - Business Tools
    Commerce+ allows you to manage various business tools such as Promotions, Catalog, Promotions, Inventory, and so on. Users accessing at least one business tool can see the Business Tools menu. The user can see tools that are accessible to the current user.
    - Search Tool
      The Search tool is accessible from the Commerce Lab. It enables several functionalities related to search, such as Search Term Associations, Search Analytics, Search Templates, and so on. It allows the admin to preview the search terms displayed on the storefront and delivers customized search results when customers search the storefront. Search analytics helps customers to understand the patterns and items users are searching.
    - Catalog Filter and Pricing tool
      Use the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool in Commerce Lab to create and manage catalog filters, price lists, and price rules. Sellers, Sales Managers, and Account Representatives can use the tool's flexible features to implement catalog filtering and pricing strategies that meet the site's business needs over time.
    - Catalogs tool overview
      Use the Catalogs tool in the Commerce Lab to manage catalogs, categories, catalog entries, merchandising associations, product attributes, and attachments in your store. The Catalogs tool lets business users create, and manage online catalogs. Catalogs provide a way of organizing the products that you want to sell. You define catalog data in groups of categories and products. Catalog data contains descriptions and pricing information for products and services.
    - Marketing Tool
      Use the Marketing tool in the Commerce Lab to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
      - Managing web and dialog activities
        Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.
        Web activities
        Create web activities to schedule and control the information that displays in e-Marketing Spots widgets on your store pages. When a customer views a store page, the web activity determines what to show the customer. You can target specific sets of customers with personalized and relevant content.
        Dialog activities
        Create dialog activities when you want to automate marketing actions based on the specific behavior of your customers. Think of a dialog activity as an interactive dialog with a customer: you wait for the customer to do something, and then you respond with an email or a coupon, or some other planned marketing action. This dialog can be ongoing as the customer's behavior on your site changes over time.
        Creating a web activity that displays catalog entries
        You can create a web activity that displays one or more catalog entries (products, SKUs, bundles, or kits) in an e-Marketing Spot on a store page. For example, you can display featured products, cross-sells, up-sells, best-selling or top-browsed products, or a list of a customer's recently viewed products.
        Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions
        When you build a marketing activity by using the Activity Builder, your building blocks are triggers, targets, and actions. These building blocks are represented as icons, or elements, in the palette. You select elements from the palette and place them in a precise order along a flow that represents the marketing activity.
        Using the branch element in web and dialog activities
        Add the branch element to a web or dialog activity if you want to split a single path in the activity into multiple paths. Each path can then contain different triggers, targets, and actions within the same activity. You can also add more paths, delete branch elements, and nest branch elements within existing branch elements.
        Activating or deactivating an activity
        Activities can exist in the store in two states; active or inactive. You must activate an activity to make it perform its function for your store. For example, you must activate a web activity to make it display content in e-Marketing Spots on your store pages. You can edit inactive activities only.
        Testing web and dialog activities
        Test web and dialog activities on a testing server to ensure they produce the right result before moving the activities to the production environment.
        Browsing for activities using lists and calendars
        You can browse for activities in the Commerce Lab using several methods.
        Changing a web activity
        You can update your Web activities to correct errors, raise or lower the priority relative to other activities, or to realign dates.
        Changing the priority of a Web activity
        You can change the priority of a Web activity relative to other Web activities. When multiple activities are scheduled for the same e-Marketing Spot, the Web activity with the higher priority is displayed first.
        Viewing the web activities scheduled for an e-Marketing Spot
        You can view all of the web activities currently scheduled to display in a selected e-Marketing Spot in a list or calendar view. Use these views to resolve conflicts when multiple activities are scheduled to an e-Marketing Spot concurrently.
        Changing a dialog activity
        Change your dialog activities to correct errors, change the priority relative to other activities, or to realign dates.
        Deleting activities
        Deleting your activities removes completed or inactive activities from the Commerce Lab.
        Comparison of web activities and dialog activities
        You can use the Activity Builder in the Marketing tool to build both web activities and dialog activities. To decide which type of activity you need, consider the purpose of your activity.
        Activity Builder
        The Activity Builder presents a graphical interface where you can create web and dialog activities.
        Branches in marketing activities
        A branch element is an element you can add to a web or dialog activity to split a single path into two or more paths. When a customer experiencing the activity reaches the branch element, the customer proceeds down one or more of those paths based on criteria that you define. As a result, a single activity can have multiple outcomes, and you can target each outcome to a different set of customers.
        Differences between the branch element and the experiment element
        The palette in the Activity Builder contains two elements in the Branching section: the branch element and the experiment element. These two elements are similar in that you can add them to marketing activities to split a single path into multiple paths; however, these two elements have different uses and they offer different features.
        Best practices for web and dialog activities
        Review these best practices for creating web and dialog activities so that you can learn ways to manage activities more easily and reduce storefront performance impacts.
      - Managing email activities
        Email activities are managed by Marketing Managers to keep a site's targeted marketing efforts organized.
      - Managing marketing experiments
        Marketing experiments are managed by Marketing Managers. They are used to test the effectiveness of brand or promotional messages on the web.
      - Managing custom activity templates
        To save time, create custom activity templates to use as a starting point for creating web and dialog activities.
      - Managing activity statistics
        The Marketing tool gathers and displays various types of statistical data about your web, dialog, and email activities.
      - Managing marketing content
        Marketing content is managed by marketing managers. It is used to deliver marketing messages to customers, as part of campaign activities.
      - Managing customer segments
        Marketing Managers create customer segments to use as targets for marketing campaigns and promotions.
      - Managing e-Marketing Spots
        Marketing Managers create and manage e-Marketing Spots to ensure store pages are filled with relevant, compelling images, and information.
      - Managing feeds for e-Marketing Spots
        For e-Marketing Spots, feeds provide a means to syndicate marketing information for display in feed readers.
      - Managing email templates
        Email templates, managed by Marketing Managers, are the basis of email activities delivered to customers.
      - Managing campaigns
        Campaigns are managed by Marketing Managers, in order to keep a store's marketing activities organized.
      - Organizing marketing objects with folders
        You can use the Commerce Lab Marketing tool to create and manage folders for organizing your marketing content, customer segments, activities, and e-Marketing Spots. By using marketing folders to group and organize your marketing objects you can simplify browsing for and managing your marketing objects.
      - Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
        Find answers to some frequently asked questions about using key features of the Marketing tool and completing tasks.
      - Troubleshooting
        If you encounter issues while you are using the Marketing tool, review troubleshooting information to solve common problems.
    - Inventory tool
      Commerce+ offers various Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs). This section explains the Commerce Lab tooling support for the Inventory.
    - Promotions Tool
      Use the Promotions tool in Commerce Lab to create and manage promotions that support the marketing campaigns for your site.
    - Customer Management
      Customer Management tools are used to manage business accounts and catalogs for Commerce Lab.
    - Store Management
      Store management tool allows you to manage stores, taxes, shipping, and installments through the Commerce Lab.
    - Workspace Management tool
      The Workspace Management tool is a graphical user interface tool that is used to manage workspaces and workspace-related activities. It provides a single view across all workspaces and all tasks in the workspaces where managers can see how work is progressing.
  - Analytics Tool
    Commerce Lab has the Analytics tool listed in the hamburger menu.
- Administering
  The site administrator performs the tasks needed to support day to day operations of the Commerce+ site.
- Extending
  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.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of 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 Commerce+ site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with Commerce+, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the Commerce+ reference documentation.

Managing web and dialog activities

Web and dialog activities are used to deliver brand or promotional messages to customers through a variety of methods.