WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0.3.0 or later

Enabling Intelligent sequencing and featured image features for Commerce Insights

To change either the sequence of your products or the featured image in Commerce Insights, you must take steps to enable these options before you can use them.

Before you begin

  • WebSphere Commerce DeveloperFor development environments that are using Db2 or Oracle databases, you must create a staging trigger before you do this procedure.
    DB2 For Db2 databases, use the following SQL files:
    • WCBD_installdir\schema\db2\wcs.stage.sequence.sql
    • WCBD_installdir\schema\db2\wcs.stage.trigger.sql
    For example:
    db2 connect to db_name user db_user using db_password
    db2 -tvf WCBD_installdir\schema\db2\wcs.stage.sequence.sql
    db2 -td# -vf WCBD_installdir\schema\db2\wcs.stage.trigger.sql 
    Oracle For Oracle databases, use the following SQL files:
    • WCBD_installdir\schema\oracle\wcs.stage.sequence.sql
    • WCBD_installdir\schema\oracle\wcs.stage.trigger.sql
  • If you are working in the authoring environment, you must disable the Solr document, filter, and query-result caches while performing the steps described below. To disable the Solr caches, edit the solrconfig.xml file and set the values of the following parameters to zero.
    • solr.documentCache.size
    • solr.documentCache.initialSize
    • solr.filterCache.size
  • This feature requires that you use the Master/Subordinate/Repeater deployment topology. For more information, see ../concepts/csdsearchbuilddeployadv_dup.html.

About this task

To enable Intelligent sequencing you must edit two wc-component.xml files, configure a scheduled job, and setup your search index.

Procedure

  1. Edit the component configuration file to include the following EnableProductDisplayConfiguration search property. You can edit the component configuration file in both the authoring server and live environment. For more information about editing the component configuration file, see Changing properties in the component configuration file (wc-component.xml) (Search EAR).

    Edit the following file: WCDE_installdir\workspace\Search\xml\config\com.ibm.commerce.catalog-ext\wc-component.xml

    Add the following code inside the <_config:extendedconfiguration> element:
      <_config:configgrouping name="SearchConfiguration">
         <!-- 
           EnableProductDisplayConfiguration
    			
           This configuration defines whether to allow configuring product display properties such as 
           overriding product image or product sequence in a category.
           Default is false. Change this to "true" if required to enable this feature.
          -->
            <_config:property name="EnableProductDisplayConfiguration" value="true" />
      </_config:configgrouping>
  2. Save and close the file.
  3. Edit the component configuration file to include the following BACSFTPServerSetting search property in your authoring server environment. For more information about editing the component configuration file, see Changing properties in the component configuration file (wc-component.xml) (Search EAR).

    Edit the following file: WCDE_installdir\workspace\Search\xml\config\com.ibm.commerce.foundation-ext\wc-component.xml.

    Add the following code inside the <_config:extendedconfiguration> element:
    
        <!--
           BACSFTPServerSetting
           BAC SFPT Server settings This section defines the communication settings 
           with the Commerce server.
         -->
        <_config:configgrouping name="BACSFTPServerSetting">
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/port" value="29001"/>
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/hostname" 1 value="hostname"/>
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/username" 2 value="username"/>
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/userPassword" 3 value="password"/>
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/remoteDirectory" value="inbox/metrics"/>
           <_config:property name="BACSFTPServerSetting/localDirectory" value="localFileCopyDirectory"/>
        </_config:configgrouping>
    Where
    1 Hostname
    Define the host name of your Commerce Insights server.
    2 Username
    Define the FTP downloading user name for your Commerce Insights account.
    3 Password
    Define the FTP downloading password for your Commerce Insights account.
    Notes:
  4. Save and close the file.
    Note: If you are configuring multiple environments, for example a staging environments and a production environment, you can create targetable versions of your wc-component.xml files to deploy to these environments. For more information about this advanced deployment feature, see Support for multiple target environments.
  5. Deploy the customized wc-component.xml files for the search and foundation components to your environments.
  6. In your authoring server environment, configure the TriggerMetricFileDownload scheduled job in the WebSphere Commerce Administration Console to download metrics to the search server.
    Note: For testing purposes you can configure this scheduled job on your development environment; otherwise, configure the schedule job on your runtime environment.
    1. Open the Administration Console and select Site.
    2. Click OK.
    3. From the menu, click Configuration > Scheduler.
    4. Click New. The Schedule Job window opens.
    5. Configure the scheduled job with the following value:
      Parameter Value
      Job Command TriggerMetricFileDownload
      Job parameters Enter the following job parameter:
      storeId
      Specify your storeId. For example, storeId=10201.
      Note: If you have multiple stores, set up this job for each store.
      Start date Enter the current date.
      Start time Enter a time that you want to start the job for the first time.
      Schedule interval This job should run hourly. Set the value to 3600.
  7. Update the Search index schema on your runtime environment.
    1. Open a command line on your runtime environment.
    2. Go to the following directory:
      • WC_installdir\components\foundation\subcomponents\search\bin
    3. Update the Search schema. Use one of the following options:
      1. For an existing Search index, update the schema:
        • For a Staging server with a workspace:
          ./setupSearchIndex.sh -instance instance_name -masterCatalogId masterCatalogId -dbuser db_user -dbuserpwd db_password -dbauser db_user -dbauserpwd db_password
          -createAll true -action "configWCforSolrUpdate,configSolrCoresUpdate"
          
        • For a Production server:
          ./setupSearchIndex.sh -instance instance_name -masterCatalogId masterCatalogId -dbuser db_user -dbuserpwd db_password 
          -action "configWCforSolrUpdate,configSolrCoresUpdate"

        For information about the detailed usage of the setupSearchindex utility, see setupSearchIndex utility.

      2. To create a Search index with the update, use the following steps:
        • For a Staging server with a workspace
          
          ./setupSearchIndex.sh -instance instance_name -masterCatalogId masterCatalogId -dbuser db_user -dbuserpwd db_password -dbauser dba_user -dbauserpwd dba_password 
          -createAll true -includeUpdate true
        • For a Production server
          
          ./setupSearchIndex.sh -instance instance_name -masterCatalogId masterCatalogId -dbuser db_user -dbuserpwd db_password -includeUpdate true

        For information about setting up the search index, see Setting up the search index.

    4. Optional: Verify that the Solr index schema is updated.
      1. Open your conf folder, such as solrhome/masterCatalogId/en_US/CatalogEntry/conf.
        Note: The example path is for a master node in a non-cluster environment. Your path can vary depending on what type of environment you have.
      2. Check to see whether confFiles.xml is added to the conf folder.
      3. Ensure that the schema.xml file contains the following entries.
        • <dynamicField name="*reseq" type="displayproperty"/>
        • <dynamicField name="*kpi" type="displaymetric"/>
  8. Optional: Enable the feature in the Features.xml file.
    Note: This step is necessary only if you previously disabled the enhancement to enable product sequencing and featured image options. If you have not disabled this enhancement, continue with Step 4.
    1. Open the Features.xml file from one of the following paths:
      • WebSphere Commerce DeveloperSearch_eardir\xml\feature\Features.xml
      • LinuxAIXSearch_eardir/xml/feature/Features.xml
      • WindowsSearch_eardir\xml\feature\Features.xml
    2. Add the following entry:
      <wc:name>CategoryConfigurability</wc:name>
                <wc:version>1.0</wc:version>
      
    3. Save the file.
  9. Restart the search server for the changes to take effect.
    For more information about restarting the search server, see Starting and stopping WebSphere Commerce Search.

What to do next

When the product display configuration for product sequencing and featured images is enabled, increase the Solr JVM maximum heap space by a minimum of 15 MB per category. For more information about increasing the Solr JVM maximum heap, see WebSphere Commerce Search performance tuning.