Create an authoring environment

We can run an authoring environment on a separate system or machine partition from the production environment.

Procedure

1. Deploy a new environment for authoring purposes.

   Ensure that when the running the initdb_db2_sample.sh or initb_oracle_sample.sh script, the staging option is specified to create the schema and triggers required for a staging environment.

2. Perform one of the following tasks:

   • If you have a production environment available:

     1. Ensure that we can connect from the WebSphere Commerce authoring environment node to the production database.

     2. (DB2) Catalog the remote production database so that it is accessible from the authoring environment.

     3. Ensure that you have the following information about the production environment available:

        • Database name (DB2) The database name must be the database name as cataloged on the authoring environment.

        • Database user name (user ID)

        • Database user password

        • (Oracle) Fully qualified database server host name

        • (Oracle) Database server port

        You might need to provide a name for the JDBC data source created for the production database.

        This information is used to create a data source used by the quick publish function in workspaces.

   • If you do not have a production environment available, we can wait until a production environment is available and update the authoring environment with the production environment information by following the instructions in Updating the quick publish target.

3. Configure the authoring database and the production database for use with the staging utilities.

4. Synchronize the new, empty authoring environment instance with the production environment.

5. Optional: Enable e-mail notification in workspaces.

   Enable email notification in workspaces allows WebSphere Commerce to sent email automatically in the following situations:

   • Workspace Content Contributors receive email notification when a task they are assigned is part of a task group that is activated.

   • Task Group Approvers receive email notification when a task group for which they are an approver is ready for approval.

   • Workspace Content Contributors receive email notification if a task group approval request is rejected and their assigned tasks are reactivated.

6. Create users and assign the users Workspace Manager, Workspace Content Contributor or Task Group Approver roles.

7. Stop and restart the Transaction server Docker container in the authoring environment.

Related concepts
Authoring environment schema update tool

Related tasks
Enable Workspaces
Synchronize an authoring environment with a production environment
Run the authoring environment update scripts on the WebSphere Commerce Server
Update the quick publish target
Update the JDBC provider setting for the quick publish target
Enable retry for quick publish
Enable e-mail notification for workspaces
Enable shopping flow preview for workspaces
Change workspaces locking policy

Related reference
Ant target: CM_updateWorkspacesTable
Ant target: CM_updateWorkspacesSchema
Troubleshooting: Update Workspace failing to update the workspace because of missing column for primary key