Home
Documentation
This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
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.
Customizing
The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize Commerce+.
Search
Commerce+ comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in Commerce+ provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on industry standards, Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. The Commerce Search Elasticsearch microservices manage indexing and other crucial tasks, with no performance impact on the storefront or transaction server.
Elasticsearch-based solution
The topics in this section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize the Elasticsearch-based search solution. You can extend the search-migration/tutorials/concepts/csdelasticsearch.html and Query Service to meet your business requirements.
Extending the Ingest service
The Commerce Search service includes Ingest and Elasticsearch, which together form a distributed, scalable search and analytics engine. You can chain together the Ingest service's rule-based aggregations to boost relevancy for hero SKUs or certain facets, and use sophisticated metrics to analyze your search performance.
Creating a NiFi connector
Connectors are sets of data pipes with built-in processing, which together form a pipeline. To create a new connector, define a descriptor to describe the schema, the pipeline the connector will use, and the schedule (interval, recurrence) that it follows.
Ingest Inventory index schema
The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Inventory category.

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.
- 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.
  - Customizing
    The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize Commerce+.
    - Search
      Commerce+ comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in Commerce+ provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on industry standards, Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. The Commerce Search Elasticsearch microservices manage indexing and other crucial tasks, with no performance impact on the storefront or transaction server.
      - Search terminology
        Commerce+ Search uses a number of specialized terms. A concise list of the most commonly used terms is provided to get you started.
      - Elasticsearch-based solution
        The topics in this section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize the Elasticsearch-based search solution. You can extend the search-migration/tutorials/concepts/csdelasticsearch.html and Query Service to meet your business requirements.
        Indexing choices
        You have two options for indexing Extended Site (eSite) stores, the legacy eSite Store indexing model, or the Catalog Asset Store (CAS) model. The CAS model is recommended because of its speed and scalability.
        Extending the Ingest service
        The Commerce Search service includes Ingest and Elasticsearch, which together form a distributed, scalable search and analytics engine. You can chain together the Ingest service's rule-based aggregations to boost relevancy for hero SKUs or certain facets, and use sophisticated metrics to analyze your search performance.
        Managing connectors in the Ingest service
        How to manage your descriptors and connectors, so as to optimize your search indexing for Elasticsearch.
        Verifying index integrity
        You can use a specialized Ingest check pipeline to verify that the Elasticsearch index contains all the required data. This pipeline verifies that all incoming data is correctly inserted in the index. The pipeline compares the results of the Ingest process with the original input to ensure reliable data intake.
        Upgrading batch version for pipes
        To use the latest version of your Ingest components, the preferred approach is to upgrade your pipelines using the Version context menu in the NiFi editor.
        Creating a custom index
        You may want to incorporate searches for data that is specific to your business and is not related to the commerce catalog. Aternatively, you may want to extend the existing product index in some way. In such cases, you can create a custom index for Elasticsearch or for the Query service to use. You can use this custom index when appropriate to include extra data in your product or category search result.
        Customizing Ingest ETL SQL
        You can use the Java ETL when integrating and extending NiFi and Elasticsearch. ETL processes take place in the side flow of data input. In the side flow, extraction is managed by SQL queries, which you can customize.
        Ingest profiles
        You can use Ingest profiles to define Java extensions for SQL database data extraction and to define data transformation logic. Ingest profiles are bound to connector pipes and executes as part of the pipe process.
        Ingest configuration via REST
        You can configure all your Ingest connectors via a single REST endpoint. All connectors inherit a set of configurations such as global attributes and make them available as NiFi flowfile attributes inside NiFi. Having access to this endpoint, you can add or remove NiFi capabilities from outside the main NiFi process flow.
        Creating a NiFi connector
        Connectors are sets of data pipes with built-in processing, which together form a pipeline. To create a new connector, define a descriptor to describe the schema, the pipeline the connector will use, and the schedule (interval, recurrence) that it follows.
        Common components of NiFi process groups
        A common set of NiFi processors is used to perform various processing tasks within Commerce+ NiFi process groups.
        Specialized pipes and Process Groups in NiFi
        This topic provides description and purpose of the Specialized pipes and Process Groups in NiFi.
        Full reindexing connector
        This topic describes the dataflow of the default NiFi connector used for full-reindexing of the Elasticsearch search index.
        Ingest Store index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Store category.
        Ingest Catalog index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Catalog category.
        Ingest Product index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the product category.
        Ingest Category index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the category index.
        Ingest Attribute index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Attribute category.
        Ingest Inventory index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Inventory category.
        Ingest Price index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Price category.
        Ingest URL index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the URL category.
        Ingest Description index schema
        The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the description.
        Index schema and field types
        When customizing Elasticsearch you may need to create explicit field mappings rather than relying on the dynamic mappings provided by the system. Use the following topics as a guide to the default Elasticsearch fields used by Commerce Search, and their meanings.
        Elasticsearch index schema changes
        The following Elasticsearch index schema changes are performance and customization-related enhancements that were introduced with the Commerce+ release.
        Creating a custom NiFi process group
        NiFi process groups and their connections are the building blocks of dataflow pipeline that perform data ingestion and transformation tasks to ready the data for the search index. Creating your own custom process group provides a way to perform data ingestion and transformation tasks according to specific business requirements. Here are the four default templates to help you to get started with the creation of a specific process group according to your business logic.
        Commerce+ Developer Elasticsearch-based Search NiFi environment
        NiFi Processors are the basic building blocks of dataflow pipelines. Processors perform specific tasks within the pipeline, such as listening for incoming data, pulling data from external sources, publishing data to external sources, and routing, transforming, or extracting information from flow files. Creating your own custom processor provides a way to perform different operations or to transform flow file content according to specific business requirements.
        Using the NiFi status API
        Use the NiFi status API to obtain information regarding NiFi. You can specifically obtain information about NiFi threads, queues, components, or versions.
        Extending Ingest connectors
        Commerce+ provides default Ingest connectors that perform data ingestion and transformation tasks to ready the data for the search index. You can use them as is or can customize these default Ingest connectors as per your business requirements using the Search Ingest Service API. This topic describes what customizations you can make and how you can manage these customizations and move them across different versions.
        Updating NiFi process group, processor, controller service using Ingest connector descriptor
        Making base catalog fields unsearchable
        You can make CATENTDESC.SHORTDESCRIPTION non-searchable by Elasticsearch by modifying the NiFi pipeline.
        Custom database tables for Ingest
        You can ingest catalog data from your database by adding a custom database table for CATENTRY and CATGROUP. You can also control how database data is serialized into Elasticsearch to bring in large datasets.
        Extending Elasticsearch
        You can customize the behavior of Elasticsearch through ZooKeeper, or by adding your own REST API endpoints. A variety of approaches to extending the Elasticsearch service are discussed and methods are provided.
        Fine-tuning search results
        Commerce Search helps you to enhance the search experience of shoppers by adjusting your search results based on your shoppers' interactions at the storefront.
        CI/CD strategy to deploy customizations
        The Commerce Search Elasticsearch solution does not dictate the data repository or scripting needed to automate a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. You have the flexibility to use your own data repository and build structure. The following topics describe a recommended approach including a suggested data pipeline structure.
        Updating Elasticsearch-based search customizations
        You can update existing Solr extensions to the data service model, and keep your custom connectors and NiFi flows up to date with the latest version of Commerce Search.
      - Solr-based solution
        In keeping with HCL's commitment to current and open standards, Commerce Search uses Apache Lucene as the basis of its Search framework. Lucene powers the Apache Solr search engine and the Elasticsearch search engine. The indexing pipeline is a more open, flexible and scalable and is tightly integrated with the data service. Using the underlying dataflow technology and architecture, you can easily customize the pipelines. This open-standards approach considerably eases the process of integrating Search with existing and third-party applications.
    - Customizing with xC
      Commerce+ service includes access to an externalized customization server that runs your custom Connectors and any functional extensions you may write. The xC service uses an Open Liberty server on OpenJDK, with webapplications executed via Spring Boot 3.x for development.
  - Developing stores
    Commerce+ offers customizable features for storefronts using the Next.js framework. Commerce+ supports headless commerce to use any front end storefront.
- 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.

Ingest Inventory index schema

The complete data mappings from specification, database and schema are shown for the Inventory category.

Inventory index schema design

Definitions for field type aliases (in italics) are described in Index Field Type Aliases and Usages page. For information about calling the Ingest service, see Search Ingest Service API. For a complete listing of Elasticsearch index fields and parameters, see Elasticsearch index field types.


Index Field Name	Index Field Type and Options	Commerce+ Equivalent Index Field Name	Description
Internal Meta Data
_id	internal	catentry_id	id/store + id/catalog + id/catentry
__meta/version/min	integer	-	Minimal compatible version of the runtime to work with this document
__meta/version/max	integer	-	Latest compatible version of the runtime that works with this document
__meta/created	date	-	Creation date and time of this document
__meta/modified	date	indexedTime	Last modification date and time of this document
Document Identifier
id/store	id_string	storeent_id	Internal id of the owning store
id/catalog	id_string	catalog_id	Catentry's parent catalog
id/cntentry	id_string	catentry_id	Catentry's basic attributes
Inventories
inventories/<id>/quantity	float	inv_strlocqty_*	Inventory counts; mapped to table INVENTORY
inventories/<id>/id	id_string	-	Identifier of the fulfillment center