Product Advisor cycle

Product Advisor creation and maintenance is an ongoing process for the site administrator and the store developer. The cycle loosely follows these listed steps:

1. Create the Product Advisor search space. You can create a separate search space either by using command utilities that require an XML file, using the User Interface from WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, or manually running the SQL files.

   Note: If you are using a separate search space for your metaphor, and product data is changed using the Loader, the Catalog Editor, or the messaging system, the search space will be updated by commands designed to keep the database and search space synchronized. Refer to the command reference links listed in Related tasks.

2. Create an XML input file to import the shopping metaphor definitions for the search space if you are using a command utility.
3. Create metaphors using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or the command utilities.
4. Create JSP files for metaphor display.
5. If you are using the separate search space, update the search space to include new, or exclude existing user defined attributes. This effectively repopulates the search space.
6. Update the metaphors after changing the separate search space to reflect changes such as new or deleted attributes.
7. Include shopping metaphors in the site's navigation.
8. Migrate Product Advisor data from staging server to production server.
9. Customer invokes shopping metaphors.
10. Statistics are collected for the metaphors. To enable this feature, refer to the instructions in configuring Marketing Events statistical counters.

Related concepts

• Product Advisor
• Product Advisor search space
• Shopping metaphors

Related tasks

• Prepare metaphors
• Create search space for Product Advisor
• Create a Product Comparison metaphor
• Create a Product Exploration metaphor
• Create a Guided Sell for a category

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