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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.
Customer Management
Customer Management tools are used to manage business accounts and catalogs for Commerce Lab.
Accounts and Catalog
Managing a business account and catalog involves tasks that create and modify business accounts and catalogs. The various tasks that are involved in managing a business account and catalogs are performed by different roles.
Contracts
Contracts enable a customer organization or a customer group to purchase products from a store at a specified price for a specified time under specific conditions.
Creating contracts
There are two methods to create contracts in Commerce+. You can use Commerce Lab Tools to create contracts.

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.
    - 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.
      - Accounts and Catalog
        Managing a business account and catalog involves tasks that create and modify business accounts and catalogs. The various tasks that are involved in managing a business account and catalogs are performed by different roles.
        Creating a business account
        To create a business account, use the Business Relationship Management tools in Commerce Lab Tools. The seller administrator creates a buyer organization by using the Organization Administration Console before a new business account can be created. Ensure that at least one person who is associated with the buyer organization is a registered customer (a contact at the buyer organization is required).
        Changing business accounts
        Use the Commerce Lab Tools to change business accounts.
        Finding business accounts
        Use the Commerce Lab Tools to find business accounts.
        Contracts
        Contracts enable a customer organization or a customer group to purchase products from a store at a specified price for a specified time under specific conditions.
        Contract states
        A contract passes various states from the time it is created until the time it is deleted. In most cases, the change of state is triggered by actions you take. Some state changes occur automatically.
        Contract referral
        A base contract is a contract that can be referred to by other contracts. For example, contract B refers to (base) contract A. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to the terms and conditions in contract B is also entitled to all the terms and conditions in contract A. Multiple customer contracts can refer to the same base contract so that all the customer contracts can share a set of terms and conditions.
        Display customization
        Through the Commerce+ you can change the look of display pages in your store for every business customer by specifying the DisplayCustomizationTC term and condition in the business account definition. This display customization can be as simple as adding a different logo, or as complex as having a custom store name and message, for each customer.
        Creating contracts
        There are two methods to create contracts in Commerce+. You can use Commerce Lab Tools to create contracts.
        Creating a contract by using the Commerce Lab
        Create a contract by using the Commerce Lab Tools, which creates a contract in the draft state. The contract then goes through any approval process that is defined for your store. If you want to create a new contract in either the approved or active state, you must import the contract from an XML file.
        Creating a new version of a contract
        Creating a new version of the contract creates a draft version of an existing contract. This new version has the same name as the original contract, but the version number is incremented. When you deploy a new version of a contract, the existing contract is moved to the closed state. You can create a new version of a contract for contracts that are in the approved, active, or suspended states. You can duplicate a contract if you want to create a new version of an existing contract with a different name. Duplicating a contract does not move the existing contract into the closed state.
        Creating a contract that can be referred by other contracts
        A contract can refer to another contract. For example, contract A can refer to contract B. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to contract A is entitled to all the terms and conditions from contract A and contract B. A base contract must be in active state to allow customer contracts to refer to the base contract. You might not suspend or cancel a base contract if active customer contracts refer to the base contract. After you specify that a contract refers to another contract, you can change the reference, but not the fact that the contract refers to another contract.
        Examples: Contract product selection and pricing
        The following examples show how to define the products available for sale under a contract and the prices that are charged for the products.
        Managing contracts
        Managing a contract involves tasks that take the contract from creation to the end of the contract's lifecycle. The various tasks that are involved in managing a contract are performed by different roles.
    - 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.

Creating contracts

There are two methods to create contracts in Commerce+. You can use Commerce Lab Tools to create contracts.

About this task

You can create contract by following one of the methods given below:

From the Commerce Lab left navigation menu, go to Business tool > Customer Management > Customer Accounts. The three dots shown below the Action menu represent Contract. Select Contact from the Action menu, or click on the contract count of the business account for which you want to create a new contract.
From the Commerce Lab left navigation menu, go to Business tool > Customer Management > Contracts.

See Creating a contract by using the Commerce Lab for more information.