Getting started

The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is the next generation business user tool for managing business tasks for online businesses. Management Center enables business users to perform catalog management, promotion, and marketing tasks to create, update, and maintain merchandising and marketing assets in stores using the consumer direct, B2B direct, demand chain, supply chain, and extended sites business models. Continue to use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to perform other business operations, such as managing stores, shipping, taxes, vendors, inventory, fulfillment, orders, returns, payments, auctions. You can open WebSphere Commerce Accelerator from the Management Center, by using the Management Center application menu.

There are some catalog management, promotion, and marketing tasks that you need to complete in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. The following table describes when to use Management Center or WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.


Business function	Tasks	Preparing to use Management Center
Catalog management	Management Center Work with the master catalog Work with categories Work with catalog entries Work with attributes Work with merchandising associations Work with assets in the Catalogs tool Work with sales catalogs Preview the store WebSphere Commerce Accelerator Catalog import Catalog filter	Review the changes in catalog behavior between WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and Management Center. See, rpnchangesbeh.html. If the Management Center Catalogs tool is appropriate for your business, disable the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator Catalog tool.
Promotions	Management Center Manage promotions Preview the store	Review the changes in promotions behavior between WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and Management Center. See, Promotions. If the Promotions tool is appropriate for your business, disable the Promotions tool in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
Marketing	Management Center Manage campaigns Manage web activities Manage e-mail activities Manage e-mail templates Manage content (Manage files) Manage experiments Preview the store WebSphere Commerce Accelerator Manage customer segments Create e-Marketing Spots	Review the changes in Marketing behavior between WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and Management Center. The web activity promotion activity type is not supported in Management Center. You cannot create a web activity then associate a promotion to this activity and the corresponding content. You cannot create web activities that recommended products using the following criteria: Let the system suggest products based on clickstream analysis Let the system suggest products based on one or more filters If the Marketing tool is appropriate for your business, disable the Marketing tool in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator. If necessary, re-create the web activities from WebSphere Commerce Accelerator in Management Center. This enables you to manage the web activities in Management Center.
Assets	Management Center Work with managed files Work with attachments Preview the store	Review the changes in managed file and attachment behavior between WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and Management Center. See, Managed files and attachments.

Show me

To help you quickly learn how to use the Management Center, this documentation includes several small movies. These movies demonstrate how to use the Management Center user interface. Show me movies are indicated by a Show Me icon.