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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.
Operating
IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce
The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, and others).
Store Management tool
As a Seller, Site Administrator, or Channel Manager, you can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage your stores. The Store Management tool in Management Center replaces all of the store management features in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. Continue to use the Store Creation wizard in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to create new stores; continue to use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to suspend and resume stores.
Store Management
You can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage the stores that you are authorized to work with.

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
  - IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce
    The IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce, or Management Center, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, and others).
    - Planning to use Management Center
      If you are using WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, consider using Management Center to manage your store.
    - management-center/refs/rtfgetstart.htm
    - Management Center keyboard shortcuts
      Use the Management Center keyboard shortcuts to access user interface functions or complete tasks, using a single key or combination of keys.
    - Working in extended site stores in Management Center
      If your company operates an extended site, you can perform certain tasks directly from your extended site store within Management Center.
    - Manage content externally for use in Management Center
      If content management capabilities other than the functionality that is provided by default with WebSphere Commerce is required, WebSphere Commerce can be integrated with IBM Web Content Manager. If WebSphere Commerce is integrated with IBM Web Content Manager, you can use content from IBM Web Content Manager content libraries with Management Center objects.
    - Manage marketing externally with IBM Marketing Center
      If your site is integrated with IBM Marketing Center, Management Center users can open IBM Marketing Center from Management Center to upload promotion codes and to create and manage marketing campaigns.
    - Management Center user interface
      The Management Center user interface provides a usable, intuitive, and efficient way to complete your business tasks.
    - Using the Management Center
      The starting point for all Management Center tasks is to open the tooling. Afterward, you can use several methods to complete a task: by selecting menu options, by clicking toolbar buttons, by right-clicking and selecting menus, or by keyboard shortcuts.
    - Catalogs tool
      Use the Catalogs tool in Management Center to manage catalogs, categories, catalog entries, merchandising associations, product attributes, and attachments in your store. The Catalogs tool lets business users create, and manage online catalogs. Catalogs provide a way of organizing the products that you want to sell. You define catalog data in groups of categories and products. Catalog data contains descriptions and pricing information for products and services.
    - Marketing tool
      Use the Marketing tool in Management Center to create and manage marketing campaigns and other store content, excluding catalog content. You can use the extensive precision marketing features in the tool to deliver targeted marketing messages to customers.
    - Promotions tool
      Use the Promotions tool in Management Center to create and manage promotions that support the marketing campaigns for your site.
    - Assets tool
      As a Product Manager, Marketing Manager, or Category Manager, you can use the Assets tool to upload and manage your store assets. The term assets refers to web content that you use on your storefront and in marketing campaigns, such as marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files.
    - Catalog Filter and Pricing tool
      Use the Catalog Filter and Pricing tool in Management Center to create and manage catalog filters, price lists, and price rules. Sellers, Sales Managers, and Account Representatives can use the tool's flexible features to implement catalog filtering and pricing strategies that meet the site's business needs over time.
    - Installments tool
      Use the Installments tool in Management Center to create and manage installment rules that support the payment methods for your site.
    - Commerce Composer tool
      Create pages and build layouts for your store directly in Management Center without involving IT by using the Commerce Composer tool. Take advantage of the tool's page design and management functions to improve your productivity and give you more control over the customer experience.
    - Store Management tool
      As a Seller, Site Administrator, or Channel Manager, you can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage your stores. The Store Management tool in Management Center replaces all of the store management features in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. Continue to use the Store Creation wizard in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to create new stores; continue to use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to suspend and resume stores.
      - Store Management
        You can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage the stores that you are authorized to work with.
      - Managing stores
        Use the Store Management tool to manage the stores that you are authorized to work with.
    - Workspace Management tool
      You can use the Workspace Management tool in Management Center to manage and edit workspaces and its tasks and task groups that you are authorized to work with.
    - Previewing a store
      Preview your store to ensure that changes made in Management Center show up in your store as expected. You can use store preview in production, authoring, and staging environments.
    - Management Center frequently asked questions (FAQ)
      Find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Management Center.
    - Management Center Troubleshooting
      If you encounter issues with the Management Center that are not related to any specific tool, review this troubleshooting topic to solve common problems.
  - WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
    Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
- 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.
- 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

Store Management

You can use the Store Management tool in Management Center to manage the stores that you are authorized to work with.

The Store Management tool replaces all of the store management features in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. For more information about the mapping between store management features in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator and Management Center, see Store management changes between and.

The Store Management tool makes it faster and easier for Sellers, Site Administrators, and Channel Managers to work with stores, allowing them to view all of the stores that they are authorized to work with at once and to work with multiple stores at a time. For example, you can apply changes to multiple stores at once, such as editing multiple store profiles at the same time.

Store types and categories

The Store Management tool uses the following store types to organize the supported store categories:

Direct
Hub
Asset
Extended Site
Catalog Asset
Auxiliary

The following table shows these store categories and the store types contained within each category:
Store type	Store category
Direct	B2C B2B direct (B2B) Basic B2B direct (BBB)
Hub	Hosting hub (HCP) Supplier hub (SCP) Channel hub (CHS)
Asset	B2C hosted storefront asset store (MPS) B2B hosted storefront asset store (BMP) B2C reseller storefront asset store (RPS) B2B reseller storefront asset store (BRP)
Extended Site	B2C hosted store (MHS) B2B hosted store (BMH) B2C reseller store (RHS) B2B reseller store (BRH) Supplier asset store (SPS) Supplier hosted store (SHS)
Catalog Asset	Catalog asset store (CPS) Supplier catalog asset store (SCS)
Auxiliary	Distributor asset store (DPS) Store directory (PBS) Distributor proxy store (DPX)

The following screen capture shows the supported store types and their associated store categories in the Stores List view within the Store Management tool:
Store List view screen capture

Store List view screen capture

Each store category supports a unique set of features.

The following table shows the features that are supported for each store type:
Feature	Direct	Hub	Asset	Extended Site	Catalog Asset
Update store profile information	x	x	x	x	x
Update supported languages	x	x	x	x
Update supported currencies	x	x		x	x
Edit store style	x	x	x	x
Edit selected store functions	x	x	x	x
Open or close store	x	x		x
Launch store	x	x		x

Limitations

You can only use the Store Management tool in a workspace-enabled environment if you are working on approved content. If you are working on a specific task, the Store Management tool is not available.