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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Business logic layer
The business logic layer is the business components that provide OAGIS services to return data or start business processes. The presentation layer uses these OAGIS services to display data, or to invoke a business process. The business logic provides data required by the presentation layer. The business logic layer exists because more than just fetching and updating data is required by an application; there is also additional business logic independent of the presentation layer.
Business context service
The business context service manages contextual information used by business components. The information is encapsulated within different types of business contexts. This process formalizes the context infrastructure and fosters reuse between different business models.
Sequence diagram: Creating a new activity based on an existing one
This diagram shows the interactions between BCS and the Context SPI when the Solution Controller creates an activity based on an existing activity. Creating a new activity could be initiated when a user switches from one store to another, or when an administrator performs a task on behalf of a customer.

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- Planning
  Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
- Installing
  Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
  - Functional architecture
    Functional architecture provides both the set of patterns used to implement the business functionality and the frameworks in which these business functions execute.
  - Persistent object model
    WebSphere Commerce deals with a large amount of persistent data. There are numerous tables defined in the current database schema. Even with this extensive schema, however, you might need to extend or customize the database schema for your particular business needs.
  - 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.
  - Controller layer
    The Controller layer is the conductor of operations for a request. It controls the transaction scope and manages the session related information for the request. The controller first dispatches to a command and then calls the appropriate view processing logic to render the response.
  - Business logic layer
    The business logic layer is the business components that provide OAGIS services to return data or start business processes. The presentation layer uses these OAGIS services to display data, or to invoke a business process. The business logic provides data required by the presentation layer. The business logic layer exists because more than just fetching and updating data is required by an application; there is also additional business logic independent of the presentation layer.
    - Business context service
      The business context service manages contextual information used by business components. The information is encapsulated within different types of business contexts. This process formalizes the context infrastructure and fosters reuse between different business models.
      - Sequence diagram: Initiating an activity
        To invoke a method on a business component, a client or a solution controller obtains an activity token by calling BCS begin method. In the process of obtaining this activity token the client may optionally supply initialization data. This initialization data is used to populate the contexts that are preloaded when a new activity is created. When a particular service method is invoked on a Business Component Service interface the client must pass the activity token.
      - Sequence diagram: Creating a new activity based on an existing one
        This diagram shows the interactions between BCS and the Context SPI when the Solution Controller creates an activity based on an existing activity. Creating a new activity could be initiated when a user switches from one store to another, or when an administrator performs a task on behalf of a customer.
      - Sequence diagram: Terminating an activity
        This diagram shows the interaction between the Solution Controller and BCS when an activity is terminated. Usually, an activity terminates when a user logs out of the site.
      - Sequence diagram: Pre-request and post-request processing
        This diagram shows the interaction between the BCS and Context SPI. Either interface can indicate that is about to start execution or has completed execution.
      - Sequence diagram: Retrieving and updating business contexts
        This diagram illustrates how a business component retrieves and updates context information. The following example shows how the preferred language of a user is set on the GlobalizationContext.
      - Business Context configuration file
        Default business contexts are defined in the xml/config/businessContext.xml file. The location of the file is defined in the BusinessContextService/BusinessContextConfigFile attribute in WebSphere Commerce configuration file (xml/wc-server.xml). Multiple file locations separated by commas are allowed for this attribute to support component-based development. That is, when creating a new business context, instead of modifying the default configuration file, you can define it in a separate file and append it to the end of the BusinessContextConfigFile attribute on the BusinessContextService element. This implementation allows for future upgrade to the businessContext.xml file without affecting the business context that you have registered.
      - Defining business context sets for a Web application
        Business contexts establish an execution environment that affects the output of a business component for the equivalent input based on the solution needs. The output produced by a component for a given input is always identical for the same set of contexts. Contexts are not directly invoked by clients of the business processes. Instead it is the business component that uses the services provided by the contexts during the execution of a request. A context provides a set of service methods and may optionally store session data that does not change very often over an activity lifespan. The lifespan of a context starts with the creation of an activity and ends with the completion of the activity.
      - Creating a new business context
        All business contexts are registered in a business context configuration file. In the file, you have to specify a business context factory class to create the business context. If the SimpleBusinessContextFactory class, the default factory class, is used to create the business context, you must provide the name of the implementation class as one of the parameters to the factory. To register a business context in the system, refer to the business context configuration file.
      - Using business context data in customization
        Some customization tasks involve writing business logic that must retrieve business context data about a user session. For example, this data might be the user ID, the store ID, the language ID, or the ID of the catalog the user is browsing. WebSphere Commerce provides a set of interfaces you can use to retrieve the specific business context data you need.
    - Name-value pair command framework
      The name-value pair command framework uses name-value pairs as input to the business logic layer, and returns the responses as name-value pairs.
  - Persistence layer
    The interaction between the business objects and persistence layer is isolated in an object called the Business Object Mediator. Business object document (BOD) commands interact with the Business Object Mediator to handle the interaction with the logical objects and how they are persisted.
  - Business model information model
    A business model, a representation of the business processes used throughout the site, provides a sample commerce solution which includes an organization structure, default user roles and access control policies, one or more starter stores, administration tools, and business processes that demonstrate best practices. A business model can be customized to support business requirements and scenarios. WebSphere Commerce provides sample business models that show some common commerce solutions. These business models are created by setting up an organization hierarchy structure, access control policies, stores, and contracts that help satisfy the necessary business requirements.
  - Business models
    Before starting to develop your site with WebSphere Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by WebSphere Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with WebSphere Commerce will be implemented based on of one of these business models.
  - Store data information model
    Store data is the information that is loaded into the WebSphere Commerce Server database, which allows your store to function. The URL Registry Entries and View Registry Entries packages are included in the diagram, but they are not database assets. These entries are presentation configuration (that is, struts actions and forwards) that must be deployed. URL registry entries are shown in the diagram to illustrate the entire store data information model. To operate properly, a store must have the data in place to support all customer activities. For example, in order for a customer to make a purchase, your store must contain a catalog of goods for sale (catalog data), the data associated with processing orders (tax and shipping data), and the inventory to fulfill the request (inventory and fulfillment data).
  - Customizing WebSphere Commerce
    You can extend the WebSphere Commerce product to fit your business needs. This topic describes the prerequisite skills and required knowledge that you need to customize business logic. After you have the required knowledge, use WebSphere Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
  - WebSphere Commerce development environment
    WebSphere Commerce Developer is the development toolkit for customizing a WebSphere Commerce application.
  - Web services and WebSphere Commerce
    A web service is an interface that describes a collection of operations that are accessible through the network by using standardized XML messaging.
  - WebSphere Commerce Search
    WebSphere Commerce comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in WebSphere Commerce provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on open standards, WebSphere Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization. A key feature of Search is that sales personnel can create and manage search term associations, and search-based merchandising rules, from within the Management Center and Store view.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

Sequence diagram: Creating a new activity based on an existing one

This diagram shows the interactions between BCS and the Context SPI when the Solution Controller creates an activity based on an existing activity. Creating a new activity could be initiated when a user switches from one store to another, or when an administrator performs a task on behalf of a customer.

The following sequence diagram shows the interaction when the solution controller obtains a new activity based on an existing one:

Checks whether the existing activity token is valid
Obtain a new activity identifier
Retrieves a list of business contexts of this particular request and associate them to the activity.
Initializes each of the business contexts in the returned list based on the existing business context of the same type.

Sequence diagram showing the interaction when the solution controller obtains a new activity based on an existing one