Develop > Controller layer > Application developer > Business relationship assets
Develop business policies
In WebSphere Commerce, business policies are enforced with a combination of one or more business policy commands that implement the rules of the business policy. Each business policy command is a Java class. A business policy command can be shared by multiple business policies. The behavior of the business policy command is determined by the parameters passed to the command.
Parameters affecting the function of a business policy command can be introduced in three places:
- the contract term and condition referencing the business policy
- the business policy definition
- the business policy command itself
The business policy definition may specify a set of parameters that are automatically fed into each invocation of any of commands associated with the policy. A business policy command may specify additional parameters when it is invoked. Finally, a contract term and condition may proved extra parameters for a business command unique to the term and condition.
Business policy commands for the same type of business policy must have the same interface.
The following categories of business policies are provided in WebSphere Commerce:
- Catalog business policies
- Catalog business policies define the scope and characteristics of the catalog of products for sale in a store including prices and the categorization of products in a store's catalog.
- Payment business policies
- Invoicing, payment, and refund business policies define how a store accepts payments, pays refunds, and the format of a store's invoices.
- Returns business policies
- Returns business policies define if refunds are accepted, the time period they are accepted for, and any re-stocking fees applied to returns.
- Ship business policies
- Ship business policies define the shipping providers a store can use and the charges associated with each type.
- Referral interface business policies
- Referral interface business policies define the relationship between a proxy store and a remote store.
Many contract terms and conditions reference business policies. This provides a measure of control over the nature of contracts a store enters into while still providing flexibility in creating the contract terms and conditions.
- Catalog business policies
Catalog business policies define how we will sell products available in a store. You can create price list and product set catalog business policies.
- Defined catalog business policies
Catalog policies are defined for the store group or the store. A catalog policy defined for a store group is available to all stores within that store group. WebSphere Commerce defines the following catalog policies:
- Payment business policies
Payment business policies define various aspects of receiving payments and paying refunds.
- Referral interface business policies
Referral interface business policies define the relationship between a proxy store and a remote store. It defines the functions supported by the remote store. It also defines the parameters to be sent in any messages sent to the remote store. You create and publish referral interface business policies by creating and deploying a ReferralContract.
- Returns business policies
Returns business policies define how the store will handle returns and refunds. You create and publish returns business policies using the loading utilities.
- Defined returns business policies
Returns business policies are defined for the store group or the store. A returns business policy defined for a store group is available to all stores within that store group. These policies are defined in the language-independent bootstrap file, wcs.bootstrap.xml file.
- Ship business policies
Shipping business policies define how the store will ship items and how we will charge for shipping. Shipping business policies are created when you create the shipping database assets in the store archive for a store.
- Defined shipping business policies
Shipping business policies are defined for the store. These policies are defined in the language-independent bootstrap file, wcs.bootstrap.xml.
- Business policy objects and commands
A business policy object contains policy information.
- Trading agreements and business policies
One of the key elements of B2B direct commerce is relationship management. A trading agreement is used to manage a business relationship between a buyer and a seller organization. The trading agreement model used by WebSphere Commerce supports various types of trading agreements, such as business accounts, contracts, and RFQs.