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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
IBM Product Recommendations and WebSphere Commerce
IBM Product Recommendations is an IBM Digital Analytics solution that you can subscribe to that automatically generates personalized product recommendations on the storefront. The recommendations are based on the browsing, shopping, and purchasing behavior of individual customers. If your site is integrated with IBM Digital Analytics, you can display recommendations from IBM Product Recommendations on your store pages.
Data extraction utility for dynamic recommendations in IBM Product Recommendations
The Intelligent Offer data extraction utility is a command-line utility that you can use to create the Enterprise Product Report (EPR) data for dynamic recommendations that is required by IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer. The utility extracts catalog data from your database and generates ECDF and EPCMF files in the correct format to load into IBM Product Recommendations. You can provide these two files to IBM Product Recommendations regularly for processing dynamic recommendations.
Customizing the IBM Product Recommendations data extraction utility
If the default EPCMF file output by the data extraction utility for IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer does not meet your business needs, you can customize the utility.
...extracting non-attribute-dictionary attributes
The data extraction utility for IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer can extract attributes that are defined in the attribute dictionary without the need for customization. If your catalog entries use non-attribute-dictionary attributes, however, you must customize the data extraction utility to include these attributes in the EPCMF file.

Introduced in Feature Pack 3

Customizing the IBM Product Recommendations data extraction utility to extract non-attribute-dictionary attributes

The data extraction utility for IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer can extract attributes that are defined in the attribute dictionary without the need for customization. If your catalog entries use non-attribute-dictionary attributes, however, you must customize the data extraction utility to include these attributes in the EPCMF file.

This customization involves creating a custom access profile that extends the default access profile, IBM_Admin_DataExtract, in a query template file. The query template file must contain the associated SQL statements necessary to extract the non-attribute-dictionary attributes and their associated values. You must then update the business object configuration file to use the custom access profile.

Review the following definitions to understand the difference between attribute dictionary attributes and non-attribute-dictionary attributes:

attribute dictionary attribute: An attribute that is defined within the Management Center attribute dictionary and then referenced by one or more catalog entries. A single attribute dictionary attribute can be referenced by multiple catalog entries. Changes to an attribute dictionary attribute are reflected in all catalog entries that reference the attribute. To include attribute dictionary attributes in the EPCMF file, see Changing the catalog entry data that is extracted to the EPCMF file instead of this topic.
non-attribute-dictionary attribute: An attribute that is defined within a specific, single catalog entry, and therefore cannot be referenced by more than one catalog entry. To include non-attribute-dictionary attributes in the EPCMF file, complete the customization tasks in the following links.