Management Center user interface enhancements

The Management Center provides several new features, functions, and enhancements in Version 7.0. These features allows you to navigate through Management Center more easily and efficiently.

Feature Pack 7 or later

Enhanced rich text editing with CKEditor

CKEditor supports more functions than the default WebSphere Commerce rich text editor when you edit rich text. The CKEditor toolbar provides business users with more editing options to control formatting and style. Business users can also edit content by adding HTML code. When adding HTML code, CKEditor contains an auto-correct feature to ensure that valid HTML code is entered only. For more information about CKEditor, see Rich text editors.

Introduced in Feature Pack 2

Flow connectors in the Activity Builder are now longer

The flow connector, the area that is displayed as thick sections of the horizontal line in the work area of the Activity Builder, is now longer. This larger area allows you to drag your target element into the work area with ease when you add your triggers, targets, branches and experiment elements.

Introduced in Feature Pack 2

Increase efficiency with the tab key

You can now tab through sections in the work area faster in Management Center. The tab key now moves your cursor from editable cell to editable cell in the work area, where previously the tab key would take you to the style icons, information icons, list boxes and radio buttons along the way before you could get to the work area to enter your information.

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Consolidated status messages in the message console

The message console in Management Center now shows only one status message when you create, update or delete a group of items of the same type. For example, if you select 20 products from the list view to delete at the same time, a single message is displayed in the status area and in the message console to indicate that the 20 products were deleted. Now, with one message, the message console is easier to view and keep track of all related activities for your actions which are grouped together. You will still see individual error messages in the message console.

Introduced in Feature Pack 2A progress indicator now shows the status when you are running large tasks, such as generating SKU, to indicate how far the task is from finishing. For example, if you are generating SKU, the message console will indicate how much is completed as the task runs with the status message: x of y completed. The "x" in the status message is the current object.

For more information on the message console and different types of messages, see Recovering from errors

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Getting Started page

To learn how to use Management Center more efficiently, and to understand key features of the Catalogs, Marketing, and Promotions tools, the Show Me Video Series is the place to start. Each video is short, easy to follow and gives step by step instructions.

The Show Me Video Series shows you examples of how to:
  • Generate SKU for products, create merchandising associations, delete merchandising associations, and uploading catalog data.
  • Premium product placement using features such as display sequences, configuring columns, up-sells, and cross sells.
  • Create different sales catalogs, such as seasonal catalogs.
  • Create a promotion, and how to test it on the storefront to see if it is applied properly.
  • Create a Web activity.
To view the videos, log onto Management Center and go to the Getting Started page, or see Management Center Show Me Video Series
Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Find and Replace function increases efficiency

The Find and Replace function allows you to replace text strings in multiple items more quickly. Use Find and Replace to change text strings in business objects such as product descriptions, promotion names, or attachment descriptions. You can use Find and Replace in all Management Center tools. For more information on how to use Find and Replace, see Replacing text strings

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Pagination controls help you manage large search results

New pagination controls are displayed in the utilities view and the explorer view to help you manage large search results. The pagination controls allow you to move through pages of search results to view additional objects when more than 500 objects are returned.

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Page size selection improves response time

To improve response time, you can specify a page size preference in the Management Center Preferences window. The Management Center tools use this preference setting to determine how many business objects to display on each page so that you do not have to wait while all objects are loaded. For example, if you specify 50 as the page size, 50 business objects are displayed on each page. For more information on page size settings, see Changing your preferences

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Text color reflects publish status of a category or subcategory

You can change the text style used for categories and subcategories in the explorer view, utilities view, and list views to indicate the publish status of a category or subcategory. For example, you can change the text style for all published categories to display the text label using green, italics, and boldface text. The publish status is an indication of whether a category or subcategory is currently displayed or hidden from customers in the storefront. The publish status is controlled by the Display to customers check box in the Manage category tab of the Catalogs tool in the Management Center.

Introduced in Feature Pack 1

Adding new words or phrases to the Management Center dictionary

You can now add new words or phrases to your Management Center dictionary to prevent the spell checker from flagging the words as misspelled. You can add words or phrases, such as product names, to the dictionary, that are specific to your company so the spell checker recognizes them. For more information, see Adding words to dictionaries

Spell check text in explorer and properties views

You can now check the spelling of text in a text editor or rich text editor embedded into a Management Center properties view or editable list view. For example, in an entry field, right-click and click Check Spelling. The Spell Check dialog opens and displays each misspelled word within the text that you are editing. You can replace each misspelled word with one of the suggested words or skip the misspelled text.
Note: Spell check does not support the following languages:
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Romanian
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Traditional Chinese

Clipboard now supports copying multiple items

You can now copy multiple items to the Clipboard tab within the utilities view at one time. For example, you can select one or more list items from a list view in the Management Center main work area, right-click these selected items, and click Copy to Clipboard. You can also select all of the items that are in the Clipboard tab (right-click and click Select All) so that you can drag or copy all of the items out of the clipboard at one time. For more information on the Clipboard, refer to: Copying to the clipboard

Edit tables more productively

You can now change the width of columns in list view tables. You can also edit several cells in the same column at once to contain the same value. For example, in an editable list view, you can select multiple rows that you want to contain the same value, and click Edit Column. The Edit Column dialog opens so that you can choose a column to edit and specify the value that you want to apply to this column for each of the selected rows.

You can set the width of a column in number of pixels by using the Configuration Column dialog.

Editing table cells is now more efficient, click within the cell; then type. (In previous versions, you needed to click an icon, then type.) For more information on editing tables, refer to: Using table views

Edit text in rich text format or HTML mode

You can now choose to edit text in either rich text format or HTML mode.

For example, in a rich text editor, you can use the following methods to edit text:
  • Enter text, apply formatting (such as bold) to that text, and click Display rich text format or HTML. The HTML version of the formatted text is displayed in the rich text editor.
  • Enter text with HTML formatting and click Display rich text format or HTML to display your HTML in rich text format.

Find and associate objects button

The user interface button used to find and associate objects in the Management Center has changed. In the previous release, the Find and Add button button was used to find and associate objects. Although the find and add button still exists, it no longer displays a graphical image. Instead, the text Find and Add appears on the button.

Manage extended sites

Beginning with WebSphere Commerce Version 6, Feature Pack 4, you can perform tasks for an extended sites store within the Management Center

By using extended sites stores, your selling organization can provide unique storefronts for different enterprise customers or showcase a number of branded storefronts. You can customize sites by:
  • geography
  • brand
  • market
  • segment
  • customer

Each site appears unique to the customers that access it, and each site can implement business rules unique to that site. For example, different geographical areas might have unique legal and tax regulations. A set of common configuration data assets can be shared across all sites.

In the Management Center, you can now create, edit, and view business objects that are owned by an extended sites store, as well as duplicate a read-only inherited business object onto a new extended sites business object. You can also view, edit, and delete business objects inherited from an asset store, and easily distinguish between business objects that are from the local store or are inherited from an asset store. For more information on extended sites and how to set one up, refer to: Setting up the Extended Sites environment

New keyboard shortcuts

After you have focus on the user interface, you can use the Management Center keyboard shortcuts to access user interface functions or complete tasks, using a single key or combination of keys.

The Management Center now supports various types of keyboard shortcuts for common tasks within the following parts of the user interface:
  • Management Center menu
  • Menu bar
  • Toolbar
  • List view
  • Properties view
  • Rich text editor
  • Explorer view
  • Utilities view
  • Message console
  • Dialogs
  • Lists
  • Numbers
  • Calendar
  • Time
  • Generic

For more information on the Management Center menu keyboard shortcuts, see Management Center keyboard shortcuts

Support for Bidirectional and Right to Left text

You can now update Bidirectional and Right to Left text in the Management Center. For example, when you are working with a Management Center tool and the selected store supports an alternate language, such as Arabic or Hebrew, you can now right-click a text entry field that edits a string property and click Edit Bidirectional Text to edit the Right to Left text.

Support for new languages

Management Center now supports three new languages. In addition to the 10 languages that were supported in the previous release, you can now view the Management Center user interface in Russian, Polish, and Romanian. For more information on setting the language preference, refer to: Setting the default language

Time zone support

You can now choose the time zone that you want to use as the default time zone in the Management Center. Previously, business users entered start and end times for promotions and marketing activities based on the time zone of the WebSphere Commerce Server. Now, business users select the country as the time zone. For example, business users in Germany select Germany. For more information on selecting your time zone, see Changing your preferences

User password can now be changed using Management Center

You can now change your user password using Management Center Previously, you had to change the password used to access Management Center by using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

Participate in Management Center usability surveys and usability sessions

The IBM User Experience Design team is looking to work directly with you to gain insight into your job role & responsibilities, as well as gather feedback on our Management Center tools. For more information on the survey and sessions, or to participate, see cwnusabilitysessions.html