Websphere Commerce FEP6 Highlights

1. Search Enhancements : Enhancements to the Search Rules to improve search – enabling to promote , demote or exclude the products from search results based on product attributes and dynamic content such as inventory.

2. Improved Navigation and product Recommendations using Dynamic Merchandising

3. Improved Content Management through Management Centre: 

• Simplified marketing asset , promotion and attribute management
• Business control over labels for eMarketing Spots without IT involvement
• Enable the business user to define image map content by specifying coordinates and links without the need for IT involvement.
• Enhancements to the Store Update and Preview – In-context previews , “click-to-edit” capabilities , Preview link generation and shares

4. Data load enhancements – Support for XML file uploads and support for delta uploads

5. Mobile enhancements ( using IBM Worklight ) – Integration with IBM Worklight and hybrid Android reference application built on the IBM Worklight platform provided OOB. Worklight software licenses need to be acquired separately

6. Tealeaf Integration- The Aurora starter store checkout flow is pre-configured for Tealeaf Customer Experience in Feature Pack 6.0. Tealeaf software needs to be acquired separately.

7. Advanced catalog integration - extensive work flow support to foster collaboration in the creation and maintenance of product information, and with advanced access control (sub-trees and field-level), can help ensure trusted data quality of product information.Enabled by IBM InfoSphere® Master Data Management Collaborative Edition V10.1, which is licensed seperately.

WebSphere Commerce Search Cookbook

The IBM Support blog, called the 'Commerce Search Cookbook' covers common customizations requested by customers.

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/CommerceSearch/?lang=en

This is a great reference  point for SOLR issues and solutions - so sharing with the readers.

Happy Exploring!

Tutorial : E-mail Templates & Custom Placeholders

E-mail templates define the structure and content of marketing e-mails that you send to customers using an e-mail or dialog activity. 

E-mail templates can contain placeholders for content, such as e-Marketing Spots, links, unique promotion codes, and the customer's first and last name. When it is time to deliver the e-mail, the server replaces the placeholders with actual content.

To know more about how to work with e-mail templates , visit the Infocenter link

While using the email templates , we may be faced with providing custom placeholders , as per the client requirements.

Below are the steps to do so. For demonstration purposes , we would be introducing the customer's phone number as a custom placeholder attribute.

1. Customize the Management Center Open-laszlo files to include the new custom tag for your new custom attribute.

 File
/LOBTools/WebContent/WEB-INF/src/lzx/commerce/marketing/restricted/widgets/EmailTemplateRichTextEditor.lzx

Step 1: Modify the  open lazlo file to introduce "Customer Phone Number" in the selection dropdown.

1. Locate the text "<mktTextlistitem value="lastName" displayName="${mktMarketingResources['lastName'].string}"/>"

2. Add the below text in the next line
<mktTextlistitem value="phoneNumber" displayName="Customer Phone Number"/>

The completed code will look as follows :

Step 2: Modify the  on-click handler to insert the custom tag <e-mail:PhoneNumber /> in the editor when the user selects "Customer Phone Number" and clicks on "Insert"


1. Locate the text "<handler name="onclick">"

2. Add the below text in the function implementation
  else if(selected == "phoneNumber") {
     classroot.insertTextAtSelection("<e-mail:PhoneNumber />");
   }

The completed code will look as follows :

Step 3: Build the Open Lazlo project - LOBTools

Right Click "LOBTools" project and click on "Build OpenLaszlo Project" as show in the figure below. Restart server.

.

This concludes the Management Center customizations.

  

2. Introduce a Tag implementation class

1. Create a tag implementation class which would contain the logic to replace the placeholder tag <e-mail:PhoneNumber /> with actual content.

This class should implement the "com.ibm.commerce.emarketing.emailtemplate.tag.Tag" interface. Follow the link to understand the interface methods which need to be implemented.

For the pupose of this tutorial , let the fully qualified name of this class be :

'com.wcshub.commerce.emarketing.emailtemplate.tag.TagPhoneNumber' 

2. Make an database entry in the table TAGCLASS.
To more about this table , follow the Infocenter link.  The sample query is provided below:

 insert into tagclass values ('PhoneNumber',  'com.wcshub.commerce.emarketing.emailtemplate.tag.TagPhoneNumber' ,  'Implementation class for Phone Number Tag' , NULL  );

The tutorial is now complete. Test the customizations.

I hope you found this topic interesting and informative - Please leave your feedback comments.