This chapter covers the following topics:
After you build a site in the Site Administration Application and tie a customer responsibility to it, it becomes a specialty site in the Customer Application.
After you construct them, specialty sites are listed on the default customer-facing landing page, the Site Selection Page. Customers select a specialty site to retrieve a specialty site's web pages.
In the Site Administration Application, administrators can use the site grouping functionality to organize specialty sites into groups. The site grouping functionality supports your integration with Oracle iSupport and Oracle Partner Management applications. Seeded groups include: Stores, Support, and Partners. These groups are presented in the Customer Application, allowing you to categorize your specialty site presentation by purpose or application. Additional groups can be created as well.
For more information, see the "Implementing Site Management" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
In the Site Selection Page, specialty site names display in alphabetical order, unless manually ordered by the iStore Administrator. In a multi-column layout of the Site Selection Page, hyperlinks automatically appear for each installed language. In a single-column implementation, a drop-list of available specialty sites is presented to the customer. You also can configure Oracle iStore to send customers to a specific home page of a specialty site.
For more information, see the "Implementing Customer Application Initial Pages" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
In the catalog, from the top level page of a specialty site, customers can browse through sections and their associated products, and ultimately add items to their shopping carts for checkout and purchase. At any time up to checkout, customers can share their carts with other users, in partner, B2B and B2C scenarios. Customers also can create shopping lists to store products. Following order placement, customers can track their orders, optionally cancelling orders or submitting return orders.
For more information, see the "Implementing the Catalog" and "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapters of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
Hundreds of Display Templates that link to JSP files present the Customer Application's product catalog and section hierarchy. The product catalog and section hierarchy are built in the Site Administration Application. Oracle iStore installs with a complete set of templates for the Customer Application pages and related process flows. The template structure of Oracle iStore's Customer Application allows you to map your own JSPs to the templates (using the Site Administration Application) in order to provide a unique web page presentation. Seeded bins for the catalog, shopping cart, and registration pages allow you to present content along with top, bottom, and sides of these pages.
For more information, see the "Implementing the Catalog" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
All of the graphical elements on the web pages can be changed using the Site Administration Application's content components and media object functionality. For example, the logo shown on the Site Home Page can be mapped to any image you wish.
For more information, see the "Implementing Customer Application Initial Pages" and "Implementing Content" chapters of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
After you build the site sections and product catalog in the Site Administration Application, the catalog pages are available to customers in the Customer Application. The default landing page after customers select a specialty site is the Site Home Page.
Depending upon the configuration, the Site Home Page features:
Product search functionality
Tabs and subtabs derived from section names
Section names and descriptions
Product names and descriptions
Product prices, including discounts
Images at section or product level
Add to Cart buttons
Configure buttons for items set up through Oracle Configurator
Support for bundle items set up through Oracle Bills of Material
Navigational links for browsing, including a Browse Bin that displays all specialty sites and allows drill-down into site sections
Several other bins, including a Welcome Bin, a Global (currency selection) Bin, an Account Switcher Bin, and a specialty site selector
Navigation icons that link to account management menus, allowing self-service administration of customers' accounts -- including carts, orders, and customer profile
Drill-down links to product details
See the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for complete details.
In Oracle iStore's Customer Application, shopping carts enable customers to store products that they may wish to purchase and then ultimately to purchase these items.
Oracle iStore shopping carts enable partner, B2B and B2C customers to:
Add products to carts and then place an order
Maintain any number of saved carts
Duplicate carts
Share carts and quotes with other users, who then are allowed to re-share the carts and quotes
Save products to shopping lists
Use promotion codes, commitments, and pricing agreements
Attach files to carts (B2B only)
Add merchant-requested information to the cart through descriptive flexfield functionality
Check the availability of items in inventory
Configure items through guided selling and purchase model bundle items
Add items to carts by entering part numbers directly (B2B only)
Purchase serviceable items and their related services
Request sales assistance and view or update published quotes
For the site administrator, shopping carts are highly configurable, including the ability to:
Modify the look and feel of the carts and lists using Display Templates
Turn on or off specific cart features, including shopping lists, cart sharing, and quote publishing
Set the expiration dates of saved and active carts
Offer promotion codes, commitments, pricing agreements, serviceable items, promotional goods, and Express Checkout to the customer
Allow quote publishing and updating from Oracle Quoting
Utilize Oracle Workflow for e-mail notifications of user events and activities
Security inherent in Oracle iStore ensures that customers do not access each others' carts and information.
For complete information, see the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
After they create them, customers can access saved or shared shopping carts in the Carts page within the Cart menu. Carts are organized into the following areas of the page:
Saved Carts: Users' saved carts appear here.
Shared Carts: Users' shared carts appear here, separated by type:
Carts Shared By You: Carts the user is currently sharing with other users appear here.
Carts Shared With You: Carts being shared with a B2B user display here.
Cart Retrieval Textbox: B2C customers enter the unique cart retrieval number in a textbox to retrieve their shared carts.
The cart names are hyperlinks with which users can access the Saved Cart Details or Shared Cart Details pages. B2C users must enter the unique cart retrieval number in the textbox or select the URL hyperlink in the notification e-mail. From these pages, users can activate the carts and modify them.
Users can use the Save Cart action at any time to save a cart. The cart will be saved until it expires. Expiration time frames can be specified by the implementer via a profile option. If customers do not explicitly save them, carts are system-saved and named.
To retrieve a saved cart from the Carts page, users select the hyperlink of the cart name, thus retrieving the Saved Cart Details page. From this page, a limited set of cart activities is available, depending upon the features that the site administrator has configured. Users must activate the cart to fully modify it.
From the Saved Cart Details page, users typically can perform the following activities:
Update the Cart: Users must update (activate) a saved cart in order to modify it.
Share the Cart: This begins the process of sharing the cart. The Share Cart action only appears if the site administrator has enabled this feature.
Duplicate the Cart: Users select the Duplicate Cart action to create a copy of the cart. Copied carts are saved with a new, user-defined name.
Checkout/Place Order: Users press the Checkout button to enter the checkout phase and place an order with the cart.
Delete the Cart: This action deletes the cart.
Once the user activates the cart by updating the cart or checking out, the cart becomes the active cart.
Partner, B2B and B2C customers can utilize Oracle iStore's shopping cart sharing functionality to shop and purchase products collaboratively. Site administrators can turn the feature on/off by setting a profile option.
Cart sharing enables multiple users to make changes to a cart. The actions that a user receiving a shared cart (cart member) can perform depend on the role granted by the user initiating the cart sharing (cart owner). Customers with the required role can re-share carts with other users. Cart updates can be seen in real-time by all customers associated with the cart. The cart owner or a recipient with Administrator role can then place an order with the cart.
Automatically generated e-mail notifications and the ability to enter comments keep shared cart members informed of shared cart activities. Users sharing carts can selectively notify members on the cart. For example, when a cart member shares a cart, re-shares a cart, or changes members' access levels, the member can choose which recipients to notify about the changes, adding comments if desired. When the owner stops sharing a cart or an order is placed with a shared cart, all recipients are informed that the cart is no longer available.
To view the details of a shared cart, B2B users retrieve the Shared Cart Details page from the Carts page, or select the URL hyperlink in the notification e-mails. B2B users must log in to view a shared cart. B2C users enter a cart retrieval number provided in the e-mail notification, or select the URL hyperlink in the notification e-mail.
The actions a user can perform from the Shared Cart Details page differs depending upon whether the user is the cart owner and which role he has been granted. See the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for complete details.
Once the user activates the cart by updating the cart or pressing Checkout, the cart becomes the active cart. In the active cart, the customer can perform a variety of activities, as described below. Note that some of this functionality requires additional setups and, possibly, integration with other Oracle applications.
Following are the typical cart activities. Different activities will be available depending upon status of the cart (active/inactive, saved, shared, etc.)
Continue Shopping: Customers can select the Continue Shopping button to continue browsing the web site and potentially add more items to the active cart.
Save the Cart: Customers can name and save carts for later retrieval.
Remove Items: Customers can select the Remove icon to remove items from the cart.
View Product Details: Customers can select product names to view details of products in the cart.
View Configuration Details: If applicable, customers can select the Details hyperlink to view details of a configured product.
Add Services: If applicable, customers can select the Add Service hyperlink to add services (e.g., warranties) to a product in the cart.
Reconfigure items: If applicable, customers can select the Reconfigure hyperlink to launch Oracle Configurator and reconfigure a configured product.
Recalculate the Cart: Customers can recalculate cart totals.
Add Information: If the Additional Information descriptive flexfield has been implemented, customers add cart-level information requested or offered by the site administrator. For example, users making purchases can be allowed to enter additional information.
Access Pricing Agreements: Customers can select pricing agreements to associate pre-defined pricing agreement with the cart.
Use Promotion Codes: Customers can enter promotion codes that have been pre-defined.
Add Attachments: If the functionality is enabled, B2B customers can add attachments to the cart.
Check Product Availability: Customers can check whether a product is available on their desired shipping dates.
Share the Cart: If the functionality is enabled, customers can select share the cart with other customers.
Save as List: If the functionality is enabled, customers can save the items in the cart to a shopping list.
Checkout: Customers can select Checkout to enter the checkout phase and eventually place the order.
Express Checkout: If the functionality is enabled, customers can submit the cart as an Express Checkout order.
For complete information, see the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide chapter, "Implementing Carts and Orders".
If you integrate Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting, sales representatives can publish quotes to users, and users can share these published quotes with others.
Customers retrieve quotes in the Quotes page within the Cart menu. The Quotes page organizes quotes into different areas:
Quotes: Customers' published quotes display in the Quotes area.
Shared Quotes: Customers' shared quotes appear in the shared quotes area, separated by type:
Quotes Shared By You --- Quotes the user is currently sharing with other users appear here.
Quotes Shared With You --- Quotes being shared with a B2B user display here.
Quote Retrieval Textbox --- B2C user enter the unique quote retrieval number in a textbox to retrieve shared quotes.
The quote names are hyperlinks with which the customer can access the Quote Details and Shared Quote Details pages. B2C user must enter the unique quote retrieval number in the Quotes page to retrieve the Shared Quote Details page.
See the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide, "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting" chapter, and the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide, for more information on the integration.
One of the many features of Oracle Quoting is the ability for sales representatives to build and then publish quotes to Oracle iStore users in the Customer Application. In addition to originating as published quotes from Oracle Quoting, quotes also can be carts that have become quotes when a customer requests sales representative assistance during checkout. Site administrators also can allow user updating of quotes in the specialty sites.
In the Quotes page, customers select the hyperlink of a published quote to retrieve the Quote Details page. In the Quote Details page, customers cannot alter quote information unless the site administrator has enabled the update quote feature. Non-updateable quotes can only have their payment information changed. Users can check out with a quote to place the quote's items as an order, or they can share the quote with other users.
If the site administrator has enabled the share cart functionality, users can share and re-share quotes with others in a similar manner as they would share carts.
To share or re-share a quote, users select the Share Quote action from the Quote Details page, and then select recipients and roles for the recipients.
For complete information, see the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter in the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
If you have integrated Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting and set up the Sales Assistance feature, customers can request sales assistance from the shopping cart or in the checkout phase. After a customer requests sales assistance and submits the request, the cart becomes a quote and the default sales representative receives an e-mail notification of the request. The sales representative can then make changes to the quote and publish the changes to the customer in the Customer Application.
Specific user permissions can be removed from B2B user roles in order to disable the sales assistance functionality.
This functionality requires that both Oracle Quoting and the Sales Assistance feature have been implemented. For more information, see the following chapters in theOracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide: "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Sales Contracts", "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting", and "Implementing Customer Assistance".
Shopping lists allow users to save items in shopping carts to lists, and then add the items in the list of the current active cart for checkout. Site administrators can turn the feature on/off by setting a profile option. Shopping lists are accessible in the Shopping Lists subtab in the Cart menu in the Customer Application.
For complete information, see the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter in the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
Oracle iStore ships with full checkout, order placement, and order tracking capabilities in the Customer Application.
Some of the functionality discussed in this section requires integration with Oracle iStore dependencies and assumes you have performed the required setup tasks. For more information, see the following chapters in the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide: "Verify Mandatory Dependencies", "Implementation Tasks for Oracle iStore", and "Implementing Carts and Orders".
When customers press the Checkout button, Oracle iStore initiates the checkout/order placement phase. Customers then enter shipping and billing information and place the order.
In the Shipping Information page, customers select shipping methods and select or enter address information. If the site administrator has enabled the functionality, shipping instructions, shipping priority, and item-level shipping information also are available.
In the Payment and Billing Information page, customers select payment types, select or enter billing address information, enter commitments (if enabled), and enter tax-exempt information. If the site administrator has enabled the functionality, B2B customers can enter item-level billing information.
Specific user permissions can be removed from B2B user roles in order to disable the address change and entry functionality. User permissions also control checkout and order placement abilities for B2B customers.
For more information, see Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide, "Implementing Payment Types and Shipping Methods" and "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapters.
If the functionality is enabled, customers can enter details about the end customer(s) on the order. Typically, this functionality would be applicable in a partner scenario where a vendor wishes to capture the end customer information.
If the functionality is enabled, customers can review Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) of an order before placing the order. If the customer rejects the T&Cs, the cart becomes a quote in Oracle Quoting.
For more information, see the following chapters in theOracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide: "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Sales Contracts", "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting", and "Implementing Carts and Orders".
When the customers have completed the information entry process, they press the Place Order button in the Review and Place Order page to commit the order. In a typical implementation, Oracle iStore submits the order to Oracle Order Management. Specific user permissions can be removed from B2B user roles in order to disable the checkout and place order functionality.
For more information, see the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
Available for all registered users and controllable by a profile option, Express Checkout allows orders to be submitted as batch jobs through a concurrent program. Oracle iStore automatically places the orders, depending on how often the concurrent program is run.
Customers must enable Express Checkout and set up their Express Checkout preferences before they can use the feature. Site administrators can enable/disable Express Checkout simply by setting a profile option. Once enabled, in the Oracle iStore Customer Application, the Express Checkout preferences link appears in the Welcome bin, and the Express Checkout Preferences page is available through the Profile menu. Express Checkout is available from the catalog and shopping cart pages.
Once an order is submitted in an Oracle iStore specialty site, customers can log into the specialty site and access their order details by selecting the Orders icon. Customers also can cancel or return orders, if this functionality has been enabled.
In the Customer Application, the Orders button gives customers access to the following order information and functionality:
Search mechanism, including advanced searches
Order details
Invoice details
Payment details
Shipping details
Returns details and submission
Pending Express Checkout orders
Installed base details
For B2B customers, only orders belonging to their current organization display. The ability to see orders across an organization can be removed through a permission supplied in the seeded B2B user role.
Oracle iStore allows partner, B2B and B2C users to cancel orders and return orders. These features are enabled by setting up the back-end applications and enabling them through profile option settings. In addition, by revoking specific user permissions in the seeded B2B user role, this functionality can be removed for specific users.
Integration with Oracle Installed Base enables customers to view details of their installed base, and if applicable, to reconfigure items from these pages.
For more information, see the "Implementing Carts and Orders" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
Oracle iStore features support for multiple user types, self-service customer registration, storage of personal customer data, and comprehensive B2B user management functionality. Full support is provided for users of Oracle iSupport and Oracle Partner Management.
Through its comprehensive user registration and management framework, Oracle iStore supports several customer user types, including:
Guest users
Business-to-business (B2B) users of Oracle iStore and Oracle iSupport
Business-to-consumer (B2C) users of Oracle iStore and Oracle iSupport
B2B primary (administrative) users of Oracle iStore and Oracle iSupport
Business partner regular B2B users and primary users of Oracle Partner Management
In addition to the standard user registration, Oracle iStore also offers Online Access to Existing Account registration, whereby users who have placed an order via a channel other than iStore can register and gain immediate access to their existing orders.
Access to the specialty sites is controlled through the use of responsibilities and -- in the case of B2B users -- by associating roles with the users. Responsibilities and roles are awarded during registration by implicit enrollments. Various approval processes can be defined, depending upon your business requirements.
For more information, see the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide, "Implementing User Management" chapter.
Typically, Oracle iStore users register in the Registration page in the Customer Application. B2B users select the option to register as a member of an organization, while B2C customers register as individuals. If integrating with Oracle iSupport, these users also utilize the Oracle iStore B2B and B2C user registration links. If integrating with Oracle Partner Management, users select the primary partner and regular business partner registration links provided on Oracle iStore's registration page. Oracle iStore framework also supports the Online Access to Existing Account functionality, whereby users who have placed an order via some other channel than Oracle iStore can register and gain access to their orders information.
While registration templates and related processing templates are provided by Oracle iStore, setup of registration approval processes is done in the Oracle Applications CRM System Administrators Console.
Following registration, users are either automatically approved or go through an approval process, depending upon your setup.
If customers forget their user sign-in information, they can select access the Forgot your Username/Password Information link, and this information will be automatically e-mailed to them.
For more information, see the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide, "Implementing User Management" chapter.
Note that you also can integrate Oracle iStore with Oracle Single Sign-On Server for user authentication. See the "Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Single Sign-On Server" chapter of the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide for more information.
Organizations can utilize the B2B role functionality to specify granular permissions for these users. Oracle iStore ships with numerous user permissions, allowing site administrators to configure which user interface components and functionality B2B users are allowed to access.
Once an organization's primary user (or users) has been set up, this B2B user can serve as the user management administrator. Primary users can create users within their organization, assign roles, and reset passwords. Permissions in their user role allow them to access Oracle iStore's user management functionality in the Customer Application Profile menu. The Profile menu also supports users of Oracle iSupport and Oracle Partner Management.
For example, there are permissions which control:
Access to list prices versus net and discount prices
Requesting sales assistance
Placing order capabilities
Viewing orders across an organization
Viewing the Checkout button
Creating bill to customers, contacts and addresses
Creating ship to customers, contacts, and addresses
Creating sold to customers
Changing bill to contacts and customers
Changing ship to contacts and customers
Allowing customers to bill to or ship to other accounts
Creating returns
Viewing returns across an organization
Cancelling orders
A complete list of the Oracle iStore B2B permissions can be found in the "Seeded User Data" appendix in the Oracle iStore Implementation and Administration Guide.
For the convenience of Customer Application users and organizations, Oracle iStore allows users and organizations to store their personal and company data, and to manage this data in a self-service fashion. All user and company data is stored in the Oracle Trading Community customer model, allowing consistent and accurate display of data across the Oracle E-Business Suite.
Self-service management of user and company information is allowed through the Profile menu in the Customer Application. Users can maintain several billing and shipping addresses (along with associated telephone, fax, and e-mail data) and specify whether an address is a preferred billing or shipping address. Payment information can be stored as well, allowing Oracle iStore to automatically default this information into shopping carts. Organizations can store and present for their users information about the company, such as contact information, annual revenue, web site address, and more.
Oracle iStore defaults users' preferred shipping and billing information into the cart during the checkout phase. When customers place the order, the addresses used in the order are populated into Oracle Receivables, Oracle Order Management, and other ERP modules. Full Profile support is provided for users of Oracle iSupport and Oracle Partner Management applications.
Several Oracle applications --- such as Oracle Sales and Oracle TeleSales --- can send marketing communications to customers whose contact information is captured by Oracle iStore. In the registration, Profile, and checkout pages, Oracle iStore captures customer addresses and other personal data, and this data can be used for marketing purposes.
Users may choose whether or not to receive marketing communications. A checkbox in the registration and Profile pages enables this choice. Users can select the checkbox to receive marketing information ("opt in") or deselect it to refuse marketing information ("opt out"). The default choice is to opt out.