Exporting pricing data from WebSphere Commerce to Dynamic Pricing

You can configure a scheduled job to export product data and pricing data from WebSphere Commerce to Dynamic Pricing 16.4. After the pricing data that is exported to Dynamic Pricing, merchandisers can use Dynamic Pricing to analyze this data in relation to defined business strategies. Dynamic pricing makes real time pricing recommendations based on competitor pricing and market activity.

About this task

This scheduled job runs the Data Load utility, which exports product and pricing data into .csv files. The set of files are compressed into a .zip file, and then uploaded to Dynamic Pricing through an SFTP transport.

Note: In a production environment, this scheduled job is configured on the staging or authoring server.

Procedure

Configure the Dynamic Pricing SFTP transport.

Open the Administration Console, then select Site on the Administration Console Site/Store Selection page.
Click Configuration > Transport. The Transport Configuration page displays.
Click Add to open the Add Transport page.
Select the Dynamic Pricing SFTP Export connection settings check box.
Click Add to accept the changes. When you add a transport method to a site, it is automatically activated.
From the Add Transport page, click the check box beside Dynamic Pricing SFTP Export connection settings, and click Configure.

Specify the following configuration parameters for the SFTP transport, and click Ok.


Parameter	Value
Host name	Enter the FTP host name.
Port number	Enter the port number. By default port for Dynamic Pricing is 160.
User name	Enter your FTP user name.
Password	Enter your FTP password.
Remote directory	Enter remote FTP upload directory.

Configure the scheduled job to export products and prices from WebSphere Commerce to Dynamic Pricing.

Click Configuration > Scheduler. A list of jobs that are scheduled to run is displayed.
On the Scheduler Status Display page, click New.

Create the Dynamic Pricing export job with the following values:


Parameter	Value
Job Command	Dataload
Job parameters	Enter the following job parameter: dataLoadType Use DynamicPricingExport for the type of Dataload command.
Start date	Enter the current date.
Start time	Enter a time that you want to start the job for the first time.
Schedule interval	Type the number of seconds between successive runs of this job. If this parameter is omitted, the job runs only 1 time. Note: For this integration, run the Dynamic Pricing export job once daily.

Click OK.

Optional: Alternatively, you can create a scheduled task at the operating system level to export your data to Dynamic Pricing.
Notes:
- This is an alternative to the scheduler in WebSphere Commerce.
- Configuring a scheduled task at the operating system level reduces excessive load on the WebSphere Commerce server if you have a large product catalog.
1. Go to your WebSphere Commerce Developer environment.
2. Copy the following directory:
  
  local_temp\WCS7_DP\samples\DataExtract\DynamicPricingExport
  
  Where:
  
  local_temp
  
  Is the temporary directory where you extracted the WC7_DP.zip package. For more information about this package, see Preparing to integrate with Dynamic Pricing.
3. Paste the DynamicPricingExport directory in the following directory:
  WCDE_installdir\components\
  For example: WCDE_installdir\components\DynamicPricingExport
4. Open the following file and validate that the keyConfigFile property value is correct for your environment. If the value is incorrect, update the file with the correct path.
  WCDE_installdir\components\DynamicPricingExport\wc-dataextract-env.xml
  For example:
```
<_config:property name="keyConfigFile" value="C:\IBM\WCDE_ENT70\workspace\WC\xml\config\WCKeys.xml" />
```
5. Still within the wc-dataextract-env.xml file, specify your database information in the <_config:Database section.
  Notes:
  - Depending on your database type, you might need to uncomment or comment configuration lines within the file.
  - Your database password must be encrypted. For more information about encrypting your password, see Generate encrypted data (wcs_encrypt).
6. Save and close the wc-dataextract-env.xml file.
7. Validate that the transportId in WCDE_installdir/components/ DynamicPricingExport/FTPUpload.csv matches the transportId that is specified in the DPExportFTP query within the local_temp\WCS7_DP\sql\DynamicPricingIntegrationSQL.txt file. If the FTPUpload.csv contains a different transportId, update the file to match the transportId specified in the DynamicPricingIntegrationSQL.txt file.
8. Open the WCDE_installdir\bin\dataextract.bat file and add the toolkitInstallDir, as shown in the following example:
```
%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=%DATAEXTRACT_CONFIG%\logging.properties -Dj2se=true -Ddataextract=true 
-DtoolkitInstallDir=%WCTOOLKIT% -classpath "%DATAEXTRACT_CONFIG_PATH%;%DATAEXTRACT_CP%" %DATALOAD% %* 
-DdataLoadConfigXSDLocation=%DATAEXTRACT_XSD_PATH% -DdbType=%DB_TYPE%
```
9. Save and close the dataextract.bat file.
10. If you are configuring this scheduled job on a runtime environment, check the updated files into your source control repository, and then build and deploy the updated files. For more information, see WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.
11. Go to the environment where you want to schedule the operating system task. Then, use one of the following options to schedule a task to export pricing data:
  - Schedule a Windows task.
  - Use Crontab.
  As an example, when you configure a scheduled task in Windows, use the following parameters:
  - Program/script: dataextract.bat
  - Parameter (argument) full path: WCDE_installdir\components\DynamicPricingExport\wc-dataextract.xml
  - Start path: WCDE_installdir\bin

Results

When the scheduled job runs, from either WebSphere Commerce or your operating system task, your products and prices are exported from WebSphere Commerce to Dynamic Pricing. Business users can begin using Dynamic Pricing to analyze and adjust the pricing data. For more information about how to use Dynamic Pricing, see your Dynamic Pricing product documentation.

Note: Any data that is external to WebSphere Commerce, such as competitor pricing, needs to be extracted separately by a designated provider.

What to do next

Import prices from Dynamic Pricing to WebSphere Commerce.