Identifying the business user input for the new promotion type

Examine the runtime promotion XML for your custom promotion type to determine which pieces of data a business user must enter using the Management Center user interface. You can then decide which user interface widgets you need to support your custom promotion type.

About this task

When business users create a promotion, they must fill in data about that promotion. For example, for a gift-with-purchase promotion, the business user must specify the gift and what the customer must purchase to receive the gift, among other details. These details must be captured for the promotion type through the Promotions tool user interface in Management Center. For a custom promotion type, you must determine which pieces of data you need to capture so that you can design the user interface.

Procedure

  1. Examine the runtime promotion XML that you modeled.
  2. Identify the elements that are the inputs required from the Management Center user interface. Focus only on the inputs within the promotion element you are customizing. In most cases, this is the <PurchaseCondition> element.
  3. Create an abbreviated XML structure that contains only the data that must be captured through the user interface.

Example

At the end of the previous task, Modeling the runtime promotion XML, the example showed the portion of the runtime promotion XML for the <PurchaseCondition> element. In that example, the elements highlighted in bold are the inputs required from the user interface.

To determine which user interface widgets you must create for the custom promotion type, you must abstract the relevant sections of the <PurchaseCondition> XML into an abbreviated form, as shown in the following example.

This custom promotion type requires user interface widgets to capture:

<PurchaseCondition>

(a) This purchase condition:

 
   <Currency>USD</Currency> 1
   <FixedCost>200</FixedCost> 2
   <Purchase>
         <Quantity>2</Quantity> 3
         <IncludeCatEntryKey>
            <CatalogEntryKey>
               <SKU>FULO-01</SKU> 4
               <DN>ou=b2c,o=seller organization,o=root organization</DN>
            </CatalogEntryKey>
         </IncludeCatEntryKey>   
   </Purchase>

(b) This reward item:

 
   <Reward>  
         <Quantity>1</Quantity> 5
         <IncludeCatEntryKey>
            <CatalogEntryKey>
               <SKU>FULO-02</SKU> 6
               <DN>ou=b2c,o=seller organization,o=root organization</DN>
            </CatalogEntryKey>
         </IncludeCatEntryKey>   
   </Reward>
</PurchaseCondition>

The following describes the lines with black numbered callouts:

  • 1 Currency of the discount amount
  • 2 Discount amount
  • 3 Quantity of the base catalog entry
  • 4 Code of the base catalog entry
  • 5 Quantity of the reward catalog entry
  • 6 Code of the reward catalog entry