Develop > Controller layer > Order and quote capture integration
Order and Quote Capture Integration in Elite starter store
A site administrator can enable the Order and Quote Capture Integration features in the Elite starter store by publishing the sample EliteExternalIntegrationAddOn.sar file provided with this version of WebSphere Commerce.
Enable the Order and Quote Capture Integration in the Elite starter store enables an enterprise to leverage the combined strength of the intuitive user interface of the Elite starter store and the order and quote management capabilities of existing, external back-end systems. For a customer, this integration does not lead to major deviations from the normal shopping flow of the base Elite store. For a list of changes in the store pages and task flows that the Order and Quote Capture Integration introduces in the base Elite starter store, refer to Changes in Store pages and Order and Quote Capture Integration changes in the Elite starter store topics, respectively.
The implementation of the integration, however, introduces several internal changes when retrieving and serving inventory availability, offer price, order, and quote related information to the customer. Initially, master data related to customers and products is batch loaded into WebSphere Commerce database. Thereafter, when customers browse the catalog, inventory availability and offer price information for a product is fetched from the external system and cached in WebSphere Commerce for subsequent use. The order calculation is performed in the external system. Customers can view all their orders and quotes in the external system from the Elite starter store, regardless of the channel they used to submit these orders and quotes to the external system.
To summarize, the Order and Quote Capture Integration in the Elite starter store enables the following features in the base Elite starter store:
- External inventory integration that enables checking availability of, reserving, and canceling inventory in the external system
- Real-time retrieval of offer price and inventory availability for a product from the external system
- Cache of inventory availability and offer price for products
- Execution of order calculations in the external system
- Quote creation from the current order
- Order fulfillment and quote processing in the external system
- Display of listing and details of orders and quotes from the external system. This listing includes all the orders and quotes created by the customer in the external system, irrespective of the channel used to submit order or quote to the external system.
- Order and Quote Capture Integration changes in the Elite starter store
Certain tasks and site pages in the Elite starter store undergo changes when the Order and Quote Capture Integration is enabled in the Elite starter store.
- Change flow options
The Order and Quote Capture Integration uses several change flow options to enable creation and viewing of quotes, segregation of the Shipping and Billing pages, or to suppress those features of Elite starter store that are not supported within the Order and Quote Capture Integration framework.
- Plan Order and Quote Capture Integration in the Elite starter store
If you are planning to enable the Order and Quote Capture Integration features in the Elite starter store, make a note of certain prerequisites that must be fulfilled and also the restrictions that the Integration introduces in the Elite starter store.
- Enable Order and Quote Capture Integration in the Elite starter store
To enable the Order and Quote Capture Integration features in the Elite starter store, site administrator must publish the sample EliteExternalIntegrationAddOn.sar file over the Elite starter store and make appropriate configuration settings.
Related concepts
Order and quote capture integration