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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).
Promotions tool
Use the Promotions tool in Management Center to create and manage promotions that support the marketing campaigns for your site.
Managing promotions
Promotions are managed by Marketing Managers, to keep a site's promotional efforts organized.
Promotions
Promotions provide you the ability to offer customers incentives to purchase. WebSphere Commerce supports numerous types of promotions. For example, price promotions that include offering simple discounts; merchandise specials such as gifts with purchase and buy-one-get-one. More service promotions are available that include offering reduced shipping costs.
Simple system-generated unique promotion codes
Simple system-generated unique promotion codes are created by specifying a simple set of inputs.

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.
      - Promotion type feature matrix
        The following table lists the promotion types that are supplied with the Promotions tool. For each promotion type, the table identifies the options and features of the promotion.
      - Managing promotions
        Promotions are managed by Marketing Managers, to keep a site's promotional efforts organized.
        Promotions
        Promotions provide you the ability to offer customers incentives to purchase. WebSphere Commerce supports numerous types of promotions. For example, price promotions that include offering simple discounts; merchandise specials such as gifts with purchase and buy-one-get-one. More service promotions are available that include offering reduced shipping costs.
        Simple system-generated unique promotion codes
        Simple system-generated unique promotion codes are created by specifying a simple set of inputs.
        Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes
        Advanced system-generated unique promotion codes are created by specifying an advanced pattern of characters.
        Coupon promotions
        Coupon promotions are a special promotion. Coupon promotions are designed to mimic the experience of when a customer clips a coupon from a newspaper, or something similar, and redeems it at a store. A coupon can apply to specific catalog entries or to the total purchase, depending on how the promotion is defined. Only the owner of the coupon can redeem the coupon.
        Best deal support for promotions
        You can enable a best deal feature to ensure customers who qualify for more than one promotion in the same promotion group receive the best deal. The promotion engine supports an optional best deal feature that automatically compares promotions with the same priority. The promotion engine applies them in the sequence that offers the lowest overall purchase price.
        Creating promotions
        Use the Promotions tool to create promotions that offer your customers incentives to purchase. You can create a wide variety of promotions to meet the promotional needs for your store.
        Archiving promotions
        You can archive inactive promotions and remove the promotions from displaying when you browse the Promotions tool to make finding new, active, and any remaining inactive promotion easier. When you archive a promotion, the promotion is automatically removed from the list of promotions for your store and from any promotion folder that included the promotion.
        Importing promotion codes
        You can import your own set of unique promotion codes from a comma-separated values (CSV) file.
        Exporting promotion codes
        You can export your own set of unique promotion codes into a comma-separated values (CSV) file.
        Exporting promotion codes to IBM Marketing Center
        You can export promotion codes from Management Center into IBM Marketing Center for use in campaigns and digital communications to customers.
        Creating campaigns in IBM Marketing Center for promotions
        You can open IBM Marketing Center from Management Center to create a marketing campaign for a WebSphere Commerce promotion. By creating a campaign within IBM Marketing Center, you can use the precision marketing capabilities in IBM Marketing Center to manage the campaign and send personalized communications to your customers.
        Finding promotions
        You can find promotions in the Promotions tool by browsing the promotions list for your store, the promotions calendar, and promotion folders. You can also find a promotion by searching for a specific promotion.
        Copying promotions
        You can duplicate promotions to quickly create similar promotions. After you copy a promotion, you must give the copied promotion a new name before you save it.
        Changing promotions
        You can update your promotions to correct errors, adjust strategy, or to realign dates. You can change any promotion property, including the promotion name.
        Viewing which activities and folders reference a promotion
        Certain promotions might be referenced directly in marketing activities. You can open a promotion and click the References tab to view a list of those marketing activities that reference the promotion. You can also change whether the promotion is referenced directly from this References tab, if required.
        Deleting promotions
        You can delete promotions from Management Center if they are no longer used on your store, or if the promotion is incorrect.
        Activating or deactivating promotions
        (Promotions Manager) Activate the promotion to have the promotion take effect in the store.
        Advertising your promotions on the storefront
        You can advertise promotions on your site by using web activities. Advertising promotions can help drive business by raising customer awareness.
        Working with IBM Digital Analytics promotions reports
        In Management Center, you can open the promotions web report from IBM Digital Analytics. After you open the report, you can view any other reports and dashboards that are available to you in IBM Digital Analytics.
        Organizing promotions with folders
        As a Marketing Manager, you can group promotions in folders within the Promotions tool to make browsing for and managing your promotions easier.
    - 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.
    - 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

Simple system-generated unique promotion codes

Simple system-generated unique promotion codes are created by specifying a simple set of inputs.

The following inputs are required to generate simple system-generated unique promotion codes:

Prefix

Fixed characters located at the beginning of each promotion code.

Unique system-generated code length

The number of system-generated characters that are in each promotion code. These characters consist of uppercase alphanumeric characters.

Suffix

Fixed characters located at the end of each promotion code.

Number of unique promotion codes to generate

The total number of generated promotion codes to create, based on your business needs.

Code generation status

The status of the system generation of the unique promotion codes for the promotion. When you activate the promotion, the promotion codes are generated.

Note: Your promotion codes can fail to generate in the following situations:

The promotion codes are already populated in your store database.
There is insufficient space available on your system for generating the number of codes specified.

If your promotion codes fail to generate and are not already populated in your store database, contact your system administrator.

The maximum number of possible unique promotion codes to generate is calculated and displayed for reference, based on the unique system-generated code length input.

Each unique promotion code is stored in its own database table row. If the number of unique promotion codes to generate or populate is large, for instance over 100,000 codes, your database must be optimized to handle the processing of this data. Your database must have the required database space allocated to store the generated codes.

Sample output

Simple system-generated unique promotion codes resemble the following form when generated:


Prefix + Generated code + Suffix

Where, for example, the unique promotion codes sample results:

Sample simple system-generated unique promotion codes
Prefix	Unique system-generated code length	Suffix	Sample unique promotion codes
IBM	3	EVENT	IBM65BEVENTIBMJK7EVENTIBMXWTEVENT
SUMMER-	5	-SPECIAL	SUMMER-ABC12-SPECIALSUMMER-B88BL-SPECIALSUMMER-LMMKJ-SPECIAL
WINTER2010	2	-SALE	WINTER201055-SALEWINTER2010H9-SALEWINTER2010MC-SALE