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HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
Customizing
The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
Creating your custom store
After you install and set up your programming environment, you can create your custom store and customize your storefront. You must ensure that the store server is properly configured, and that your store assets are moved to the Store server.
Creating a custom store using JSP
This HCL Commerce store uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern.
Customizing your store
After you review the HCL Commerce store architecture and create your custom store, you can use the programming environment to customize your store.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
You can use one of the following solutions to optimize your store for search engine results.
HCL Commerce integration with sitemaps
In the past, to index your store pages, a search engine spider crawled through the website and indexed every page that it found. With the HCL Commerce integration with site maps, you can create a sitemap XML file, sitemap_ storeID.xml that contains a list of URLs for your site. This way, customers are able to easily find your site when they run a search, increasing the probability of sales.
Customizing site maps integration
You can customize site maps integration.

Documentation
HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. 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. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
- Getting started
  HCL Commerce has different advantages for business users, administrators and developers. HCL Commerce targets each of these roles with a tailored set of offerings so that each of your users can get maximum benefit.
- Installing and deploying
  Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to HCL Commerce Version 9, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Operating
  Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  Topics in the Administering category highlight tasks that are typically performed by the Site Administrator, to support daily operations of the HCL Commerce site.
- Customizing
  The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
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  - Managed asset deployment
    Managed assets are files that are uploaded by business users to be used for store marketing, or to supplement products. They are added to HCL Commerce through the Assets tool or the Marketing tool in Management Center. By default, managed assets are extracted and deployed through the HCL Commerce EAR. To maintain performance in a large-scale production environment, site administrators must switch to alternative extraction and deployment methods for managed assets.
  - What's new for developers
    Learn about the new features and functions HCL Commerce offers developers.
  - HCL Commerce development environment
    HCL Commerce Developer is the development toolkit for customizing a HCL Commerce application.
  - 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
    HCL 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.
  - Creating your custom store
    After you install and set up your programming environment, you can create your custom store and customize your storefront. You must ensure that the store server is properly configured, and that your store assets are moved to the Store server.
    - Creating a custom store using JSP
      This HCL Commerce store uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern.
      - Store architecture
        HCL Commerce separates individual front-end storefronts from the servers on which they rely. This architecture increases security, scalability, flexibility in server topology, and improves the ease of development and deployment of stores and store customizations.
      - Creating and configuring your custom store
        You can create and configure your custom store in your Externalized Customization workspace through the configuration and execution of a Gradle script. You can then configure your store assets, sample data, and use your Externalized Customization workspace to customize that store.
      - Customizing your store
        After you review the HCL Commerce store architecture and create your custom store, you can use the programming environment to customize your store.
        Store configuration
        Customize your storefront assets or store functionality by changing the Store server configuration, or by modifying or extending your store JavaServer Pages (JSP files) or Spring-based model-view-controller (MVC).
        Changing static HTML sample store files
        You can use the static HTML store to accelerate your web design cycle. When web designers use the static HTML store as a starting point, the cost of building user interface within the JSP files is reduced. You can modify the HTML and CSS files using your favorite web design tools and without a development environment. The changes can be incorporated into the corresponding JSP files by a store developer at a more convenient time.
        Aurora as a B2B starter store
        You can publish the Aurora starter store as a B2B store and take advantage of features that are offered by the Aurora starter store plus extra B2B capabilities. Get your B2B e-commerce site up and running faster at a lower cost by using the Aurora starter store as your starting point. With B2B-optimized features built right into the storefront, you can minimize the amount of customization that is required to provide an optimal shopping experience to your business customers.
        Store pages and features
        Customize your store's pages by completing the following tasks.
        Email messages
        You can use the provided email template JSP files as a starting point to customize your email content. The templates are provided in the crs-web > WebContent > YourStoreFrontAssetStoreDir > EmailTemplates directory.
        Search engine optimization (SEO)
        You can use one of the following solutions to optimize your store for search engine results.
        SEO
        The SEO functionality improves online search page ranking for your store. The search page ranking is improved by allowing users to create shorter SEO-friendly URLs with meaningful keywords. This version includes enhanced Management Center tools that business users can use to influence page ranking. Users can influence page ranking by changing the URL and metadata information, using an improved Sitemap generator that indexes all the SEO-friendly URLs, and 301 URL redirect rules.
        HCL Commerce integration with sitemaps
        In the past, to index your store pages, a search engine spider crawled through the website and indexed every page that it found. With the HCL Commerce integration with site maps, you can create a sitemap XML file, sitemap_ storeID.xml that contains a list of URLs for your site. This way, customers are able to easily find your site when they run a search, increasing the probability of sales.
        Customizing site maps integration
        You can customize site maps integration.
        Site map integration template
        Use the Sitemap.jsp file to generate all of the URLs that you want a search engine, such as Google, to index. The JSP file is located under the root of each store for which you have generated a site map; for example, workspace_dir/crs-web/WebContent/store_name.
    - Email templates and sitemap generator
      An email template is a pre-designed format for creating consistent emails. Notifications are messages that inform users about events or updates related to a service or application.
  - Presentation layer
    HCL 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.
  - 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. HCL 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 HCL Commerce, you need to determine the business model supported by HCL Commerce that best represents the purpose of your site. Usually sites created with HCL 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 Transaction 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 HCL Commerce
    You can extend the HCL 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 HCL Commerce Developer to take tutorials that guide you step-by-step through various customization scenarios.
  - Run Engine command framework
    The Run Engine command framework provides predefined commands, that you can use to change environment parameters or container configurations. This framework is built into the HCL provided Docker images.
  - Representational State Transfer (REST) services
    HCL Commerce uses Representational State Transfer (REST) services to provide a framework that can be used to develop RESTful applications on several platforms. These platforms can include web, mobile, kiosks, and social applications.
  - Web services
  - Search
    HCL Commerce comes with a powerful and fully integrated search function. The search functions in HCL Commerce provide an enriched customer experience, with features such as automatic search term suggestions and spelling correction. Since it is built on industry standards, HCL Commerce Search is highly flexible and extensible. Starter stores can use the search engine's most sophisticated features without requiring extra customization.
- Tutorials
  HCL Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your HCL Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  Topics in the Samples category highlight the various samples that are provided with HCL Commerce.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage HCL Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of HCL Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of HCL Commerce site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with HCL Commerce, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.

Customizing site maps integration

You can customize site maps integration.

Procedure

Generating site map catalog page URLs does not occur in a JSP file. The URLs are instead generated using the CatalogTreeSiteMapGenerateCmd command. The CatalogTreeSiteMapGenerateCmd command generates the site map catalog page URLs in the XML file. By default, the URLs constructed for products and categories are hierarchical (URL includes category hierarchy), and for top categories, a canonical URL is constructed.

To customize the site map generation utility so that different URL patterns are constructed for the product and category pages, specify a different URL pattern for products and categories:

Extend the CatalogTreeSiteMapGenerateCmdImpl class and override the following methods to return different URL patterns:
- For products: getSEOURLPatternNameForCatalogEntry(CatalogNodeDataBean, Integer)
- For categories: getSEOURLPatternNameForCategory(CatalogNodeDataBean, Integer)
For example to change the URL pattern used to generate category URLs:
```
  protected String getSEOURLPatternNameForCatalogEntry(CatalogNodeDataBean next, Integer languageId) {
    	return "ProductURLWithParentCategory";
    }
```
Where ProductURLWithParentCategory is the name of the URL pattern.
Update the entry in the CMDREG table to use the extended catalog tree site map generate class.
Modify the classname of the interfacename com.ibm.commerce.seo.commands.CatalogTreeSiteMapGenerateCmd, to the name of the extended class, com.mycompany.commerce.seo.sitemap.commands.classname