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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 prices from price rules
If your store uses price rules to set catalog entry prices, you can customize the data extraction utility to extract price rule prices. By default, the data extraction utility uses the access profile IBM_Admin_DataExtract, which extracts prices directly from the OFFERPRICE table. To extract price rule prices instead, you can switch to a different access profile provided with the utility, IBM_Admin_DataExtract_with_PriceRule.

Introduced in Feature Pack 3

Extracting prices from price rules to the EPCMF file

If your store uses price rules to set catalog entry prices, you can customize the data extraction utility to extract price rule prices. By default, the data extraction utility uses the access profile IBM_Admin_DataExtract, which extracts prices directly from the OFFERPRICE table. To extract price rule prices instead, you can switch to a different access profile provided with the utility, IBM_Admin_DataExtract_with_PriceRule.

Procedure

Open your business object configuration file for EPCMF data at the following path:
- WCDE_installdir/samples/DataExtract/Catalog/CatalogEntry/wc-dataextract-catalog-entry.xml
- WC_installdir/samples/DataExtract/Catalog/CatalogEntry/wc-dataextract-catalog-entry.xml
Specify the access profile that extracts price rule prices:
1. Locate the following line of code, which specifies the default access profile that the utility uses:
```
<_config:property name = "accessProfile" value = "IBM_Admin_DataExtract"/>
```
2. Replace the value IBM_Admin_DataExtract with the name of the access profile that extracts price rule prices, IBM_Admin_DataExtract_with_PriceRule.
  The revised line of code should look like this:
```
<_config:property name="accessProfile" value="IBM_Admin_DataExtract_with_PriceRule"/>
```
Save and close the file.
Test your customization by running the data extraction utility for IBM Product Recommendations, formerly known as Coremetrics Intelligent Offer. View the EPCMF file that contains price rule prices. For more information, see Running the IBM Product Recommendations data extraction utility.