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WebSphere Commerce business policy framework
Business policies are sets of rules followed by a store or group of stores that define business processes, industry practices, the scope and characteristics of a store or group of stores offerings, and how the store or site interacts with customers and other partners. For example, the site may have business policies determining when and how customers are allowed to return products to a store, or business policies that determine what payment methods the store accepts.
WebSphere Commerce provides a framework that allows you to implement the store's business policies in the online store or site. The business policy framework consists of the following parts:
- Business policies
- Business accounts
- Contracts and service agreements
- Terms and conditions
- Business policies
- In most instances, we will have predefined business policies for the business that implement in the online store or site. WebSphere Commerce provides a set of business policies that you can use as is, or change to meet the needs.
- Business accounts
- Business accounts define the relationship between a customer and the business. Business accounts track contracts and orders for customer organizations and configure how buyers from customer organizations shop in a store.
- Contracts and service agreements
- Before a customer or partner (for example resellers or distributors) can access the store, create a contract or service agreement that defines customer or partner access to the store. In the WebSphere Commerce business policy framework, you create contracts for customers and service agreements for other types of partners.
- Contracts
- A contract with a customer defines what areas of the store the customer can access, what prices the customer will see, and for how long the customer has access to the site and those prices. All stores must contain at least one contract, as without a contract no one but internal administrators can access the store. WebSphere Commerce provides a default contract that applies to all customers shopping at a store.
- Service agreements
- A service agreement with a partner (partners may be resellers, distributors, manufacturers, suppliers, or other partners) defines the arrangement with the partner. For example a service agreement with a reseller may define what access the reseller has to the site, whether they can share the catalog, or whether you host a store for them. A service agreement with a distributor may define how customers to the site can receive quotes from a distributor, or how customers can access the distributors site from yours.
- Terms and conditions
- Terms and conditions define how contracts and service agreements are implemented for a particular customer or partner. For contracts, terms and conditions might define what is being sold under the contract; the price of the items being sold; how the items are shipped to the customer; and how the customer pays for the order. For service agreements with partners, terms and conditions might restrict the products the partner is allowed to sell.
Terms and conditions typically reference business policies as most aspects of a site or stores operations are defined by business policies. Terms and conditions provide standard parameters for the business polices they reference. Providing parameters to the business policies allows you to modify the behavior of business policies for each contract.
- Business policies in sample businesses
- Each of the sample businesses in WebSphere Commerce includes the business policy framework.
- Add business policies to the site
- You can add business policies by implementing the business policy framework in the site.