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2.5.2 ContractsThere are three types of active contracts associated with stores: base contracts, deployed or customer contracts, and default contracts. A customer contract can refer to a base contract to share terms and conditions from the base contract. For example, contract A can refer to contract B. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to contract A will be entitled to all the terms and conditions from contract A, as well as to all the terms and conditions in contract B. Multiple customer contracts can refer to the same base contract so that all the customer contracts can share a set of terms and conditions. There are no restrictions on what types of terms and conditions can be contained in either the base contract or the customer contract. Base contracts do not have to follow the set of contract minimum rules; that is:
For the terms and conditions where there must be one and only one per contract (for example, in the case of an order approval term), the order approval term can be in either the base contract or the customer contract, but not in both. A shipping charge term may be specified in both the base and customer contract; however, the customer contract shipping charge term will override the base contract shipping charge term. The customer contract does not have to have a shipping charge term if there is one defined in either the base contract or the business account. The shipping charge term in the business account will also override a shipping charge term defined in the base contract. For the terms and conditions where there must be at least one per contract (for example, one pricing term), the pricing term can be in the base contract or the customer contract, or in both. For a customer who is entitled to a customer contract, the customer is entitled to all the terms and conditions in the customer contract, as well as all the terms and conditions in the base contract. Customer contracts entitle specific buyer organizations or individual buyers and can be created using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator after you have created the store. A customer contract is associated with one business account. A customer contract is one that is created between a buyer and a seller; in the case of the B2B direct model, that supersedes the default contract. A seller can create multiple contracts with a single buying organization as well as other buying organizations. A default contract defines the default behavior of the store for buyers who do not have any other contracts with the store. A default contract can only be created using XML and only one default contract may be defined for a store. The default customer entitlement is defined by a store's default contract. This default contract usually specifies that customers can access the master catalog and purchase products at standard prices. Other aspects of store behavior are also covered by the default contract, such as what payment methods the store accepts and what shipping providers are used to send orders. A typical contract consists of the following elements:
The contract profile contains the identifying information for the contract. This information includes a unique name for the contract, a short description, and a time period for which the contract is valid.
Contract participants are the organizations that take part in the contract. There is a buyer organization, a seller organization and contacts at both organizations.
Contract terms and conditions are the rules that cover the actual implementation of the contract. Contract terms and conditions cover such information as product pricing, returns and refunds, payment, shipping, and order approval.
Contract attachments cover any information not covered by the previous elements such as file attachments that provide additional information about the contract and any general remarks about the contract. WebSphere Commerce stores Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs) for contract attachments, not the actual attachments.
A contract can refer to another contract to share its terms and conditions. For example, contract A can refer to contract B. Thus, a buyer who is entitled to contract A will be entitled to all the terms and conditions from contract A, as well as to all the terms and conditions in contract B. |
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