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Administration Guide |
Administering Commerce Services
Using the WebLogic Portal Commerce tools, you can market your products effectively and efficiently. Once a developer has created and verified your product catalog database, you are ready to start administering your catalog for use by visitors. The product catalog administration tools are provided to let you easily manage and modify the presentation of catalog items.
Several types of commerce services are provided with WebLogic Portal: catalog services, order services, customer payment services, and discount services.
This section contains information on the following subjects:
Creating and Administering a Catalog
Through WebLogic Portal's catalog administration tools, you can divide your catalog items into categories for better presentation. These categories in the Product Catalog exist in a hierarchy.
Figure 10-1 Categories and Subcategories
A catalog can have the following components:
Categories cannot exist outside their hierarchical path. A subcategory of Java Books cannot be a subcategory of Programming Books and Certification Books.
In the above example, a Java Certification book could be in the categories "Certification Books" and "Java Books".
If you delete an item in one category, it remains in any other categories it was already in. If you delete all the categories that an item belongs to, the item is moved to a separate, Uncategorized Items category in the catalog. (Sometimes these uncategorized items are referred to as orphaned items.) These items won't appear under the normal navigation by category; check Uncategorized Items regularly to verify whether items have become orphaned.
Starting the Catalog Management Tools
Add Categories and Items to the Catalog
The following steps describe how to add data to the product catalog. It is assumed that the bulk of your data has been loaded into the catalog by a developer.
Adding Categories to the Catalog
To add a category to the catalog, do the following:
Figure 10-2 Catalog Management Page
Figure 10-3 Categories page
Figure 10-4 Create New Subcategory page
To create subcategories in a existing category:
Repeat the previous steps to create additional categories and subcategories.
Adding Items to the Catalog
To add an item for display in the catalog, do the following:
Figure 10-5 Create New Item page
Modify Categories and Items in the Catalog
Once you have created items and categories, you can complete the following tasks:
Assigning Items to Categories
Figure 10-6 Editing Category page
Figure 10-7 Modify Items Assigned to Category page
Editing the Attributes for Categories and Items
You can use the Catalog Management Administration Tools to edit the attributes for existing categories and items. This section documents the following tasks:
Editing Category Attributes
To edit the attributes for a category, follow these steps:
Figure 10-9 Editing Category: Java Books Sample page
Editing Product Item Attributes
price > 10 && price <= 50
name like 'H*'
!(price > 20) || (msrpAmount >= 30)
modifiedDate < now
Figure 10-11 Sample Initial Edit Item Attributes page
Changing the Availability of an Item
The Edit Item Information page includes a link to the inventory function.
Figure 10-11 in the previous section shows the top portion of an Edit Item Information page. Figure 10-12 shows the Item Inventory page that is displayed when you click this link.
Figure 10-12 Sample Item Inventory page
Deleting Items or Removing Items from One or More Categories
As previously mentioned, you can assign an item to one or more categories. You can use the administration tools to:
Deleting an Item from the Catalog
Perform Catalog Management operations during non-peak Web site usage. When you delete an item or remove an item from a category using the WebLogic Portal Administration Tools, the item record is automatically removed from the Web site, ensuring that subsequent Web site visitors get a valid view of the available, categorized items.
The steps to delete an item are as follows:
Removing an Item From One or More Categories
You can remove (unassign) an item, one category at a time. If you remove the item from all categories, it remains in the Commerce database and is flagged as an uncategorized item, also known as an orphaned item.
Before you begin the following procedure, make sure you know the exact name of each category from which you want to remove an item.You can run the catalog's Web application and browse through the hierarchy of categories to find the item name.
Removing Categories
When you remove a category, any subcategories are also removed. Any items in the category or subcategories that are not assigned to another existing category become "orphaned items" and remain in the catalog, available for reassignment to another category.
If you need to move existing subcategories to another category, do so now before proceeding.
To remove a category, do the following:
Warning: Be aware that deleting a category removes it and all of its subcategories (if any).
Moving Items from One Category to Another Category
To move an item from one category to another category:
Administering Customer Order Information
These services handle all of the tasks necessary to process customer orders, from the acceptance of items in their shopping cart to final order confirmation.
This section covers information on the following subjects:
Locating Orders
To access the Order Management tools, click the Orders icon in the Portal Administration Home page, the Order Management search page (shown in Figure 10-15) appears.
Figure 10-15 The Order Management Search Page
Note: The results for searches by date range are inclusive. That is, if you search for orders placed between July 22, 2002 and August 24, 2002, results will include orders placed on July 22 and orders placed on August 24.
Figure 10-18 Sample Order Status Page
Updating Order Status
The Order Status Page (shown in Figure 10-19) appears after you click the hyperlinked Order Identifier number on the Order List page. This section describes how to change the status of an order.
Figure 10-19 Sample Order Status Page
Administering Customer Payment Information
You can use the Portal Administration tools to search for payments and then troubleshoot that payment information if necessary. This section contains the following information:
Searching for Payments
Figure 10-20 The Payment Management Search Page
The actual results appear as shown in Figure 10-21.
Figure 10-21 Sample Results for Payment Search by Customer ID
Authorizing Transactions The Payment Transaction History section (which appears in the lower portion of the Payment Management search page after a search is performed, see Figure 10-21) shows information about each payment transaction, including the date, the transaction ID, the payment amount, the payment status, and a masked version of the credit card that was used to complete the transaction. Table 10-1 provides a description for each of the possible payment status values.
Note: For a merchant to obtain the funds associated with a payment transaction, the transaction must be authorized, captured, and settled. Depending on the status of the transaction, a text field and associated button may appear at the end of the line in the Payment Transaction History section, making it possible to manually change the state of the transaction.
Figure 10-22 Payment Transaction History With Authorize Button
Administering Discounts
Discounts enable you to put permanent or temporary price reductions on items, providing incentives to customers to buy additional products, buy products by a particular date, or by other criteria you use to define the discount.
This section includes the following information about administering discounts:
Defining a New Discount and Attributes
This section provides the following information:
Define a New Discount
You can specify three kinds of discounts:
To define a new discount, do the following:
Figure 10-23 Choosing to Create a New Discount
Figure 10-24 Discount Editor
Specify General Discount Information
Figure 10-25 General pane of the Discount Editor
Specify Discount Terms
Figure 10-26 Discount Terms pane in the Discount Editor
A) Per Item Discounts
A Per Item discount is a discount attached to an individual item. To define the discount terms, use the Discount Terms Editor to complete the following steps:
Figure 10-27 Specify Trigger Items window
Figure 10-28 Specify Discount Value window
Figure 10-29 Specify Target Items window
B) Set-Based Discounts
A set-based discount is a discount based on a grouping of items. To define a set-based discount, complete the following steps:
Figure 10-30 Specify Trigger Sets window
C) Order Discounts
An order discount is a discount attached to an order. If you selected the Order discount type, complete these steps to provide the specifics of the discount:
Figure 10-31 Specify Trigger Subtotal window
Figure 10-32 Specify Order Discount Target window
Establish the Discount Duration and Overall Limit
Figure 10-33 Discounts Start/Stop Window
Saving, Finalizing, and Synchronizing a Discount
Once you've created and defined the discount, use the procedures in this section to make sure it persists in your system.
Saving, Finalizing, and Synchronizing
This section discusses the differences among saving, finalizing, and synchronizing a discount.
Requirements for Saving and Finalizing a Discount
To save a discount, the only information you need to specify is a unique name. To finalize a discount, however, you must be sure to specify each of the following:
Saving a Discount
To save a discount, complete the following steps:
Figure 10-34 Save Icon
Finalizing a Discount
To finalize a discount, complete the following steps:
Caution: Do not check the Finalize This Discount box unless you are absolutely positive that the discount you are defining is exactly as you want it. After discount definitions are finalized, modifications to the discount are extremely restrictive. For more information about the items you can change after finalizing and synchronizing the discount, see Modifying an Existing Discount. Remember, you can always return to the Start/Stop pane and finalize the discount at another time.
Synchronizing a Discount
Before synchronizing a discount, make sure that the discount definition is complete, that the Finalize This Discount check box in the Start/Stop pane is checked, and the discount has been saved. If these requirements are not met, the discount will not work.
To synchronize a discount, use the Tools
Figure 10-35 Synchronization menu option
Warning: If you and other developers concurrently synchronize data to a single enterprise application, it is possible to overwrite each others' work or create sets of changes that are incompatible and difficult to debug. To prevent this possibility, synchronize to separate instances of your application. Finding Existing Discounts and Items This section contains information on the following subjects:
Browsing a Catalog
The browsing feature of the Catalog Browser allows you to select categories or specific items from your catalog.You can select one or more items or categories.
Figure 10-36 Window for Accessing the Browse Catalog Feature
Figure 10-37 Logging Into the Browse Feature
Figure 10-38 The Catalog Browser
Searching a Catalog
The search feature of the Catalog Browser allows you to find a specific item or category from your catalog. You can use a wildcard (*) to help you find items when you don't know the exact SKU.
Figure 10-39 Search window
Locating an Existing Discount Quickly
If you have defined numerous discounts, it can be time consuming to locate a particular discount by simply looking in the Discounts list. The WebLogic Portal provides you with a mechanism to filter existing discounts by name.
To locate an existing discount using the name filter, do the following:
Figure 10-40 Explorer window with Filter icon highlighted
Modifying an Existing Discount
You can also view and modify existing discounts. If a discount has not yet been finalized, you can modify any information about the discount. If the discount has been finalized, you can only modify the following:
Regardless of whether the discount has been finalized, you will need to open the discount for modification. To open an existing discount for modification, complete these steps:
Figure 10-41 Explorer window with discounts listed
Figure 10-42
Caution: If the discount you modify is in use by a promotional campaign, saving modifications to the discount will affect every scenario action that refers to that discount. Be certain that the modifications you make are in line with your organization's established policies and that you entered the modifications correctly in the WebLogic Portal.
Controlling Active Status and Deleting Discounts
This section contains information on the following topics:
Activating and Deactivating Discounts
Once discounts are synchronized, they are considered active. In other words, synchronized discounts are working on your enterprise application.
Deactivating a Discount
To stop offering a discount, do the following:
Reactivating a Discount
To reactivate a discount, do the following:
Note: Deactivating a discount will not release the modifications restrictions placed on finalized discounts.
Deleting an Existing Discount
If no pending offers or customer orders are associated with a discount, you can also delete existing discounts using the WebLogic Portal.
Warning: BEA recommends that you do not attempt to delete discounts until the discount has expired (that is, the end date associated with the discount is reached) and until any orders associated with the discount have cleared. And, as with any deletion you make, be absolutely certain that you select the correct discount and that you are sure you want to delete it. Deleted discounts cannot be retrieved.
To delete an existing discount, complete these steps:
Figure 10-43 The Delete icon