Creating promotion folders

You can create your own promotion folders to improve the organization and management of your store promotions. If you are a business user, an Operations Manager or Site Administrator is required to aid in creating the promotion folder.

Feature Pack 6 or later Support for creating promotion folders within the Management Center Promotions tool is provided by default. If you are a business user, you no longer require an Operations Manager or Site Administrator to create promotion folders. Use Management Center to create your promotion folders. For more information, see Creating promotion folders

Feature Pack 8 As an administrator, you can also use the Data Load utility to load new promotion folders. Sample configuration and input files are provided which you can copy and modify to help you configure the Data Load utility to create promotion folders. For more information, see Loading promotion folders and promotions into promotion folders.

About this task

A promotion folder can contain sub folders or promotions. To create a promotion folder, you must run SQL insert statements to insert folder information into your WebSphere Commerce database. When the promotion folder is created, business users can add and remove promotions into the promotion folder with Management Center. For more information about managing promotion folders with Management Center, see Organizing promotions with folders

Procedure

Determine the unique primary key for your promotion folder. Each new folder requires a unique identifying key. You can retrieve this key from the WebSphere Commerce KEYS database table.
1. Open a connection to your database to run SQL statements against your database.
2. In the input box, run the following SQL query:
```
SELECT COUNTER FROM KEYS WHERE tablename='folder' AND columnname='folder_id';
```
  Make note of the value. This value is used for the FOLDER_ID of your promotion folder.
3. Update the KEYS table to set the counter to the next value to be available for use.
4. Run the following SQL statement: UPDATE KEYS SET COUNTER=COUNTER + 1 WHERE tablename='folder' AND columnname='folder_id';
Run the following SQL query to determine the unique Id of your store to associate with the promotion folder:
```
SELECT STORE_ID FROM STORE WHERE DIRECTORY='YourStoreName';
```
Make note of this STORE_ID value. This value is used for the STOREENT_ID of your promotion folder.
Determine the PARENTFOLDER_ID for your promotion folder:
- If you are creating a top-level folder, the parent folder is NULL.
- If you are creating the folder under an existing folder, you must find the Id of the parent folder. Run the following SQL query to list all current folders for your store:
```
SELECT FOLDER_ID, IDENTIFIER, DESCRIPTION FROM FOLDER WHERE STOREENT_ID=YourStoreID AND TYPE='IBM_PromotionFolder';
```
  Select the parent folder and make a note of the FOLDER_ID value for the folder. A promotion folder can have only one parent folder, but a parent folder can have multiple sub folders.
Determine the IDENTIFIER and DESCRIPTION for your new folder.
For example, the following steps use the name 'Spring Promotions' and the description 'A folder that contains Spring promotions'.
Note: Multiple language support is not available for folders. Folders display with the IDENTIFIER and DESCRIPTION values you specify when you are creating the folder, regardless of what language you are working in with Management Center.
Determine the identifying TYPE for your new folder. Folders can exist for multiple objects, so you must associate your folder with an identifying type.
For example, the following steps use the IBM-reserved name of 'IBM_PromotionFolder' for the identifying type.
Run the following SQL insert statement to create your promotion folder in your store database with the values determined in the previous steps. Not all available fields for the FOLDER database table are included in the following SQL statement. You can insert values for more descriptive fields. For more information about the available fields, see FOLDER:
```
INSERT INTO FOLDER (FOLDER_ID, STOREENT_ID, MEMBER_ID, PARENTFOLDER_ID, IDENTIFIER, DESCRIPTION, TYPE) 
VALUES (YourFolderID, YourStoreID, NULL, YourParentFolderID, 'Spring Promotions', 'A folder containing Spring promotions', 'IBM_PromotionFolder');
```
Where YourFolderID is the value your retrieved in step 1. If you are creating a top-level folder, the value of YourParentFolderID is NULL. If you are creating a sub folder, the value of YourParentFolderID is the unique ID value of the parent folder you found in step 3. The value for MEMBER_ID is NULL as this field is reserved for future usage.
Verify that your promotion folder is created:
1. Open the Promotions tool.
2. Click Promotion Folders. The Promotion Folders List displays. Verify that your created promotion folder displays.
  Note: If your promotion folder does not display, click File > Reload All and Close. Click Promotion Folders. The Promotion Folders List is updated. Verify that your promotion folder displays.

Results

Your folder is created. Business users can now associate promotions to the created promotion folder with the Management Center Promotions tool.