Workspace example scenario: Seasonal changes

The following scenario is an example of a workspace, task group, and task lifecycle for seasonal changes to a store. In this scenario, the store is preparing the introduction of new products for summer, while removing winter products from the store.

The changes for summer involve a number of different people:

• Two Product Managers: One Product Manger will create the new summer products and remove the old winter products. The other Product Manager will add merchandising information about the new products and classify the new products into the sales catalog for the store. This Product Manager also removes old merchandising information for the winter products.

• A graphics designer who works on the images of the new summer products.

This scenario assumes that workspaces are already enabled, as workspaces must be enabled when the authoring server instance is created.

To complete the seasonal changes:

1. The Workspace Manager creates a new workspace.

2. The Workspace Manager creates new task groups.

3. The Workspace Manager creates new tasks.

4. The Workspace Manager creates a task group template.

5. The Workspace Manager activates the new task group.

6. The Workspace Content Contributors work on their tasks.

7. The Workspace Content Contributors test their changes.

8. The Workspace Content Contributors mark their tasks as complete.

9. The Workspace Manager schedules the commit of changes to the production-ready data.

10. The Task Group Approver approves the completed task group.

The Workspace Manager creates a new workspace

The Workspace Manager creates a new workspace for the summer changes. Because it is unlikely that these changes will occur again next summer when the products will probably be different, the workspace manager creates a new, single-use workspace. When all the work in this workspace is complete and all changes have been committed to the production-ready data, this workspace will be complete.

Only one workspace is used. This keeps all changes for summer in one location and only allows people working on the summer changes to see the updates.

Task groups and tasks from this seasonal change might be used for future seasonal changes or they are similar to task group or tasks from past seasonal changes, so the Workspace Manager can create new templates for future changes or use templates from past seasonal changes.

 

The Workspace Manager creates new task groups

The addition of the summer products and the removal of the winter products requires approval by different people. To accommodate this need for different approvers, the Workspace Manager wants to create two different task groups: Add summer products and Remove winter products.

If approval was only required from one person or group of people for the seasonal change, the Workspace Manager would create one, new, single-use task group. This allows the Workspace Manager to avoid managing any issues around the timing of committing multiple task groups.

The Workspace Manager creates the Add summer products task group from a template. All the Workspace manager has to do is change the task group name to reflect how this task group will be used, all of the information, including the approver, remains the same as in the template.

There are no template task groups for removing a product, so the Workspace manager creates a new, single-use task group for removing the winter products. Although removing products is a process that recurs, the Workspace Manager waits until after creating the tasks within the Remove winter products task group to save the task group as a template. The task group template contains the tasks. If the Workspace Manager were to save the task group as a template now, any new tasks added to the task group would not be part of the task group template.

 

The Workspace Manager creates new tasks

The Add summer products task group already contains two tasks: Add new products to catalog and Add merchandising information for new product. These tasks were part of the template from which the Add summer product task group was created.

The Workspace Manager adds another task to the Add summer products task group for the graphic designer to add images for the new products to their catalog entries.

The Workspace Manager adds two tasks to the Remove winter products task group:

• Remove winter product catalog entries

• Remove winter product merchandising information

The Workspace Manager creates a new task group template

The Workspace Manager believes that the information in the Remove winter products task group can be reused later. The Workspace Manager saves the Remove winter products task group as a template.

 

The Workspace Manager activates the new task groups

Now that the Workspace Manager has the workspace, task groups, and tasks in place, the Workspace Manager activates the task groups so that the Workspace Content Contributors can work on their tasks.

An e-mail message is sent to each Workspace Content Contributor.

 

The Workspace Content Contributors work on their tasks

After receiving e-mail notification that their tasks have been activated, Workspace Content Contributors log on to WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, select their tasks, and work on them.

 

The Workspace Content Contributor tests their changes

While working on their tasks, Workspace Content Contributors can test their changes using the Preview function available in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

 

The Workspace Content Contributor marks their tasks as complete

When Workspace Content Contributors have finished all the work required to finish their assigned tasks and they have tested their changes, they mark their tasks as complete.

When all tasks are completed, an approval task is generated and assigned to the Workspace Task Group Approver.

 

The Workspace Manager schedules the commit of the task groups

The changes are completed before they are needed, so the Workspace Manager schedules the commit of the task groups for a later date and time.

The Workspace Manager must schedule the commit of the task group before the task groups are approved otherwise the task groups will be committed right after they are approved.

 

The Task Group Approvers approves the completed task group

The Task Group Approvers receive an e-mail indicating that the task groups are ready for approval.

Before granting approval, the Task Group Approver reviews the changes made and confirms they are correct. Before granting approval, the Task Group Approver reviews the changes made and confirms they are correct. The Task Group Approver uses the store preview function to check the store.

When the Task Group Approver is satisfied that the changes are correct, the Task Group Approver approves the changes in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

Related Concepts

Workspaces, task groups, and tasks
Store preview
Sales catalogs

Related tasks

Enabling Workspaces
Create a workspace
Create a task group
Create a task
Activating a task group
Previewing a store
Marking a workspace task as complete (Workspace Content Contributor)
Approving or rejecting a workspace task group (Workspace Task Group Approver)