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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.
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.
Management Center for HCL Commerce
The Management Center for HCL Commerce, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, Buyer Administrator, Customer Service Supervisor and others).
Marketplace
A marketplace is a web storefront that enables third-party sellers to sell their products on your platform.
Seller Dashboard
When a user with the Marketplace Seller or Marketplace Seller Administrator role logs in to the Management Center, they will see the Seller Dashboard tool from the hamburger menu.
Marketplace Seller Administrator
The Marketplace Operator or Site Administrator can assign the Marketplace Seller Administrator role to the Marketplace Seller while on-boarding a new seller.
Buyer Contracts
HCL Commerce has a new card for buyer contracts for Management Center from version 91120 onwards. The new card is enabled in the Auth environment and disabled in the live environment. The Site Administrator and Marketplace Operator can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard through the Marketplace Tool. The Marketplace Seller Administrator and Marketplace Seller can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard directly through the Seller Dashboard menu item.

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 9.1, 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.
  - Management Center for HCL Commerce
    The Management Center for HCL Commerce, is a suite of tools to support store management, merchandising, and marketing tasks for business users (Sellers, Marketing Managers, Product Managers, Catalog Managers, Buyer Administrator, Customer Service Supervisor and others).
    - 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 HCL Commerce is required, HCL Commerce can be integrated with IBM Web Content Manager. If HCL Commerce is integrated with IBM Web Content Manager, you can use content from IBM Web Content Manager content libraries with Management Center objects.
    - 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.
    - HCL Commerce License Metrics
      A Resource Value Unit (RVU) is a proof of entitlement based on the number of units of a specific resource that are used or managed. HCL Commerce License Metrics is an order line resource where you are able to produce a report of the count of any completed order lines for auditing purposes. For your specific RVU entitlement, refer to your license.
    - 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.
    - Attachments tool
      As a Product Manager, Marketing Manager, or Category Manager, you can use the Attachments tool to manage URLs that point to marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files that you use in marketing campaigns.
    - 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 HCL Commerce Accelerator, except store creation and the ability to suspend and resume stores. Use the Store Creation wizard in Management Center to create new stores.
    - Workspace Management tool
      The Workspace Management tool is a graphical user interface tool that is used to manage workspaces and workspace-related activities. It provides a single view across all workspaces and all tasks in the workspaces where managers can see how work is progressing.
    - Organizations
      An organizational entity is a type of member in HCL Commerce. An organizational entity is classified into one of three types: an organization, an organization unit, or an authorization domain. For site administrators, one of your first tasks after installing and configuring HCL Commerce is setting up and managing access to your e-commerce site. This process involves creating organizations that participate at your site, and defining users that are members of those organizations. After an instance is created, you can publish a starter store that defines the organization structure. Sometimes, organizations joining your site might be buyer organizations. In other cases, you might have customers registering at your site who are engaged in a business-to-consumer relationship with your business. Defining the organizational structure of site is an important step in managing the types of access that members have to your system.
    - Assets tool
      As Attachment Manager, Product Manager, Marketing Manager, Marketing Director, or Category Manager, you can use the Assets tool to manage URLs that point to marketing image files, catalog image files, PDF documents, and multimedia files that you use in marketing campaigns.
    - Analytics Tool
      Management Center now has a new tool called Analytics listed at the top of the menu.
    - Approvals
      Accurate, secure transactions require that a second individual approve some electronic marketplace actions before they proceed. This individual, called an approver, can accept or reject requests to perform a specific action. During the organization registration process, the organization administrator selects the business processes for which they want to enable approval. This is done by signing up for the appropriate approval member group during membership registration. The organization administrator also populates the approver member groups. Only users within these groups have the authority to accept or reject requests to perform those actions for which approval has been enabled.
    - Approving requests
      Submitters and administrators with the appropriate access can view approval requests and verify the status of their associated approval decisions. When an approvable action enters the approval process, the submitter sees it as an approval submission or submission in the user interface. The approver responsible for approving the action sees it referred to as an approval request or request in the user interface.
    - Security Policies
      For enhanced security of your site, ensure that you are aware and up to date on all account related policies.
    - Registries
      The Registries tool allows site administrators to update a registry without requiring a server restart. The Registry Manager maintains a set of registries for catching HCL Commerce runtime data. Each registry provides methods to enable adding, deleting, and refreshing of the registry content. These methods are available to the URL interface by using the ListRegistry and the RefreshRegistry commands.
    - Search Tool
      Management Center now has a new Search tool listed in the hamburger menu.
    - Page Composer tool
      Like the Commerce Composer tool in Management Center, the Page Composer tool lets business users manage store pages. The Page Composer tool is available only on Auth environment and specifically for use with React stores. This tool allows users to create store pages and assign SEO URLs to them.
    - Marketplace
      A marketplace is a web storefront that enables third-party sellers to sell their products on your platform.
      - Enabling a marketplace
        The Management Center allows you to manage Marketplaces through the Marketplace tool. Enabling a marketplace is an IT task.
      - Access control
        HCL Commerce has allowed only the specified roles to access the Marketplace tool. Depending upon the roles that are assigned to you, the functionalities and features you can access also vary.
      - .CSV file for Orders
        The HCL Commerce Marketplace provides a .CSV file for Orders. This file contains all the information related to orders placed in the storefront.
      - .CSV file for Inventory Updates
        T HCL Commerce provides a .CSV file for Inventory Updates. This file contains information related to the number of products that are available for shoppers on the storefront.
      - .CSV file for Catalog Updates
        HCL Commerce provides a .CSV file for Catalog Updates. This file contains all the information related to the products that are available for shoppers on the storefront.
      - Downloading a current catalog
        Management Center allows you to download the current catalog without creating a new catalog entry request.
      - Synchronizing environments using the Stagingprop utility
        When the data loading and search indexing are successful in the Auth environment, the database and Search environments are synchronized from the Auth to the Live environments. This is known as the staging propagation. This propagation transfers the data uploaded in the Auth environment to the Live environment.
      - Marketplace Analytics
        Marketplace Operators can view sales, orders, top products, and other details through the Management Center. Marketplace Sellers and Seller Administrators can only view the data related to the Sellers assigned to them.
      - Seller Dashboard
        When a user with the Marketplace Seller or Marketplace Seller Administrator role logs in to the Management Center, they will see the Seller Dashboard tool from the hamburger menu.
        Marketplace Seller
        A Marketplace Seller is any entity that is hosted in the marketplace and sells products through the Marketplace. Marketplace sellers are considered external organizations, so each seller has an organization created in HCL Commerce for access control purposes.
        Marketplace Seller Administrator
        The Marketplace Operator or Site Administrator can assign the Marketplace Seller Administrator role to the Marketplace Seller while on-boarding a new seller.
        Changing the store status
        The Management Center allows the Marketplace Seller Administrator to change the store status for a specific seller through the Seller Dashboard. If a seller wants to temporarily suspend shopping for their products in the marketplace, their status can be changed to Offline. When they are ready to sell again, their status can be changed back to Online again.
        Updating a seller information
        The Management Center allows the Marketplace Operator to update an existing information related to the seller. The Marketplace Seller Administrator can only view and update seller organization information, seller organization display information, and seller admin details.
        Catalog Updates
        HCL Commerce allows the Marketplace Seller Administrator to search and filter catalog update requests. They can also refresh the catalog updates home page to load the updated information. The Marketplace Seller Administrator can access the catalog entries through the Seller Dashboard. As a Marketplace Seller Administrator, you can only download the .CSV file containing all the information related to the products available for shoppers on the storefront. You cannot update and upload the .CSV file for the latest product attributes.
        Inventory updates
        Inventory is the number of products that are available for shoppers. This number is listed in a .CSV file that the Marketplace Seller Administrator can view, search, and sort using the Seller Dashboard. The Marketplace Seller Administrator can download and view the .CSV file but cannot update and upload the .CSV file.
        Buyer Contracts
        HCL Commerce has a new card for buyer contracts for Management Center from version 91120 onwards. The new card is enabled in the Auth environment and disabled in the live environment. The Site Administrator and Marketplace Operator can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard through the Marketplace Tool. The Marketplace Seller Administrator and Marketplace Seller can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard directly through the Seller Dashboard menu item.
        Listing marketplace seller contracts
        The Management Center allows you to list contracts for the Marketplace Seller.
        Sorting Contracts
        Management Center allows you to sort the marketplace contracts.
        Searching marketplace contracts
        Management Center allows you to search marketplace contracts. You can search for buyer contracts by name or buyer organization. When you enter a search string, it will filter both tabs. The group buyer contracts can use the name of the buyer organizations assigned to the group buyer contracts to search for marketplace contracts.
        Pricing
        The buyer contracts dashboard page has all the price lists. The Marketplace Seller Administrator can only search, view, and sort the price lists.
        Catalog Filter
        The buyer contracts dashboard page has all the catalog filters listed. The Marketplace Seller Administrator can only search, view, and sort the catalog filters.
        Order Management
        The Order Management page contains all the information related to orders that are placed from the storefront. The Marketplace Seller Administrator does not have the access to confirm orders and edit shipping details. If you have logged in as a Marketplace Seller Administrator, you can only download .CSV file but you cannot update and upload the .CSV file.
      - Marketplace Operator
        The Marketplace Operator is the entity that is hosting the marketplace. Anyone with this role can on-board and manage Marketplace Sellers. The Marketplace Operator role should only be assigned to users who belong to Commerce Owner’s Organizations, and Marketplace Operator role is added to Administrators. Managing Orders, Catalog updates, and Inventories is the responsibility of the Marketplace Seller but the Marketplace Operator can perform all the tasks on behalf of the Marketplace Seller. The Marketplace Operator can change the store status (Online/Offline) and update the seller details.
    - Managing shipping
      You can set up shipping at a store-level by using Management Center.
    - Managing taxes
      You can set up taxes at a store-level by using the Management Center.
    - Users
      When a user first accesses an e-commerce site and is browsing product pages, the user is running as a generic user. The generic user has a common user ID (-1002) that is used across the entire system. The use of a common user ID on the site minimizes system resource usage. Once the user performs an operation that requires a unique identity, for example, adding a product to the shopping cart, the user is converted from a generic user to a unique guest user. A guest user has a unique user ID, but no password. This user implicitly belongs to the Default Organization and does not have any roles in the site. Depending on the business model of the store, and the access control policies, the user may be able to do other operations on the site, for example, placing an order. Both the generic user and a unique guest user have the registration type of "G" (Guest user). If the guest user registers to the current store, then the user is converted to a registered user, and any assets that the guest user owned will now be owned by the registered user.
    - Messages
      Site Administrators can use the resend function in HCL Commerce to resend messages that are stored in the HCL Commerce system.
    - Member groups
      A member group is a grouping of members - users, organizations, or other member groups - used for various business purposes. Two kinds of member groups exist: implicit and explicit. An implicit member group contains users that share common attributes and are therefore considered members of a specific member group. An implicit member group specifies criteria or attributes that users must satisfy in order to be considered members of that member group. You can also explicitly exclude certain users although they satisfy the criteria. An explicit member group contains explicitly assigned users, who may or may not share common attributes. A member group can be both implicit and explicit at the same time.
    - Extended Sites Store Management
      You can create store quickly and easily from Management Center Tools. The wizard asks a customer to provide some basic data about their store (name, description, and so on), allows the customer to select the storefront or catalog they want to use, and then creates the store. The resulting store has some unique data, but uses the storefront and catalog data from existing asset stores.
    - Scheduler
      A job is HCL Commerce command that is scheduled to run on behalf of a site or store at a specified time or interval. The three types of jobs are: site level jobs, store level jobs, and broadcast jobs.
    - Message types
      HCL Commerce predefines several message types and sets them as active. You can create or change the parameters for message types from Management Center.
    - Transport methods
      HCL Commerce provides several transport methods. By default, the e-mail transport method is configured and active. You can also use these transport methods: File, IBM MQ, or a sample adapter. You can configure transport methods for the site, or for particular stores.
    - Accounts
      Managing a business account involves tasks that create and modify business accounts. The various tasks that are involved in managing a business account are performed by different roles.
    - 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.You can use store preview within the authoring instances for any of your environments. Do not use store preview within the live instance of your HCL Commerce on Cloud 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.
  - HCL Commerce Accelerator
    Use the HCL Commerce Accelerator to maintain online stores.
  - HCL Customer Service for HCL Commerce JSP stores
    HCL Customer Service for HCL Commerce provides customer service enhancements that enable a customer service representative (CSR) to resolve common issues and capture orders. These capabilities are built into the HCL Commerce Aurora storefront and enable a CSR to complete key tasks on behalf of a guest and registered customers for both B2B and B2C stores. Customer Service for HCL Commerce is offered for Enterprise edition.
  - HCL Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce React stores
    HCL Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce provides customer service enhancements that enable a customer service representative (CSR) to resolve common issues and capture orders. These capabilities are built into the HCL Commerce Reference Store application and enable a CSR to complete key tasks on behalf of guest and registered customers for headless stores that are built based on the Emerald and Sapphire reference stores. Customer Service Hub for HCL Commerce is offered for Enterprise edition.
- 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.
- 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.

HCL Commerce Version 9.1.12.0 or later

Buyer Contracts

HCL Commerce has a new card for buyer contracts for Management Center from version 91120 onwards. The new card is enabled in the Auth environment and disabled in the live environment. The Site Administrator and Marketplace Operator can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard through the Marketplace Tool. The Marketplace Seller Administrator and Marketplace Seller can access the Marketplace Seller Dashboard directly through the Seller Dashboard menu item.

The Buyer Contracts feature is only applicable to B2B stores. Once you log in to the Management Center, from the hamburger menu, select Seller Dashboard tool. On the Seller Dashboard home page, select the Extended Site Catalog Asset Store to enable the Buyer Contracts functionality for the selected B2B store. Click on the Access Seller Dashboard button in the same row as seller name, the Buyer Contract card is displayed.

See Listing marketplace seller contracts to view the list of contracts. The list has two sub-tasks, Individual Buyer Contracts, and Group Buyer Contracts. By default, the Individual Buyer Contract list is displayed on the screen.

These tabs include the number of contracts that match the current search and filter criteria. This list consists of contracts created for the seller across all the B2B marketplaces. The Contracts table has the following columns:

Contract Name / Buyer (the name of the Contract and the Buyer)
Marketplace (the marketplace where the Contracts apply)
Date Range (the start date and expiry date of the Contract)
Status (the status of the Contracts – active/inactive)
Actions (delete)

Note: The Marketplace Seller Administrator can not create, edit, copy and delete the contracts, price lists, and contract filters.