If you receive flat file recommendations from IBM Product Recommendations, formerly
known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer,
you can import the recommendations into WebSphere Commerce database
according to a schedule. The ImportIntelligentOfferAssociations scheduled
job creates merchandising associations by using the flat file recommendations.
Use the Administration Console to schedule the ImportIntelligentOfferAssociations
job to run on your store.
Procedure
- Open the Administration
Console and select Store on the Administration
Console Site/Store Selection page.
- Select the store in which you want to create the merchandising
associations. For an extended site, the merchandising associations
can be created in an extended site store. Alternatively, select a
catalog asset store if the merchandising associations should be shared
with all the extended site stores that refer to the catalog asset
store.
- Click . A list of jobs that
are scheduled to run is displayed.
- Click New. The New Scheduled Job
page opens.
- From the Job command list, select ImportIntelligentOfferAssociations.
- Enter the appropriate mandatory and optional parameters
in the Job parameters field.
The
following table contains some examples of entries; the full set of
mandatory and optional parameters are described after the table:
Your goal |
Example of Job parameters field entry |
To import recommendations from all the flat
files in a directory |
directory=C:\IntelligentOffer |
To import recommendations from an individual
flat file |
directory=C:\IntelligentOffer&file=IO_912345_ProductPageOffer_20100427_I.txt |
To import recommendations from all the flat
files in a directory into a workspace |
directory=C:\IntelligentOffer&workspaceIdentifier=W_10001&taskGroupIdentifier=G_10001&taskIdentifier=T_10001 |
- directory
- (Mandatory) Specify the directory in which the flat files are
located. If the file parameter (see below) is
not specified, then the recommendations are imported from all the
files in this directory that match the pattern
IO_****_I.txt
.
If the file parameter is specified, then the
file must be located in this directory. Any error logs generated during
the import are created in this directory.
- file
- (Optional) Specify an individual flat file from which to import
the recommendations.
- offerName
- (Optional) If you do not want the command to determine the offer
name from the flat file name, then you can specify the offer name
with this parameter. This is required only if the offer name entered
in the IBM Product Recommendations tool
contains underscores. In most situations, this parameter is not required.
The value of this parameter should match the offer name that is contained
within the flat file that IBM Product Recommendations provides.
Use the offerName parameter only when you include
the file parameter.
The following optional parameters are used to
import the recommendations into a workspace:
- workspaceIdentifier
- The system-generated identifier for the workspace, not the name
that is assigned to the workspace by the Workspace Manager.
- taskGroupIdentifier
- The system-generated identifier for the task group, not the name
that is assigned to the task group by the Workspace Manager. Specify
either this parameter or the taskGroupName parameter.
- taskGroupName
- The name that is assigned to the task group by the Workspace Manager.
Specify either this parameter or the taskGroupIdentifier parameter. If
you specify this parameter, ensure that there is only one working
task group with the specified task group name, since multiple task
groups can have the same task group name. Otherwise, the data load
utility throws an exception.
- taskIdentifier
- The system-generated identifier for the task, not the name that
is assigned to the task by the Workspace Manager. Specify either this
parameter or the taskName parameter.
- taskName
- The name that is assigned to the task by the Workspace Manager.
Specify either this parameter or the taskIdentifier parameter. If
you specify this attribute, since multiple tasks can have the same
task name, ensure that there is only one working task with the specified
task name. Otherwise, the Data Load utility throws an exception.
- Set the Schedule interval field
to reflect your preferred interval. This value is the number of seconds
between when the job is restarted. If you receive flat files daily
from IBM Product Recommendations,
set this value to 86400 (86400 seconds equals
24 hours).
- Complete the remaining fields and click OK.
Your job is listed on the Scheduler Status Display page and runs
at the specified start time.
Results
If the import completes successfully, then the status of the
scheduled job on the Scheduler Status Display page is Successful.
If the import fails, then the status is Failed.
If there are errors during the data load portion of the import, then
an error log file is created in the directory that is specified in
the directory parameter. Other errors during
the import are logged in the SystemOut.log error
log file.You can view the import status in
the Management Center Catalogs tool. See Viewing the import status of flat file recommendations for IBM Product Recommendations
What to do next
To test flat file recommendations, marketing managers
can create web activities by using the
Display IBM Product Recommendations action:
For the web activity, you can use any e-Marketing Spot
that uses one of the following e-Marketing Spot snippets:
- ContentAreaESpot.jsp
- ESpotNavDisplay.jsp
- ScrollingProductESpot.jsp