Legacy platform

Browsing catalog in IBM® Sterling Field Sales

There are multiple ways that a Field Sales Representative can browse the catalog. Each way provides a different avenue for the Field Sales Representative to get the answers they need from the catalog quickly.

A Field Sales Representative may want to browse the catalog to search for and view the details of an item a customer has shown interest in purchasing. For example, let us suppose that a Field Sales Representative has a prospective customer who wants to purchase office furniture for a new office that the customer wants to set up. In such a scenario, the Field Sales Representative may want to browse the catalog to see the furniture items that are available.

Solution

Sterling™ Field Sales enables a user to browse the catalog, search for items in the catalog, and view the details of the items. A user can either browse the catalog from one of the home pages or from the Quote Details screen. When browsing the catalog from the home page, if a user has access to multiple enterprises, the user can select the enterprise that owns the catalog. The getOrganizationList API is called to retrieve the enterprises the user has access to.

A user can search for an item within the search results by providing a search term. You can configure the search terms that can be used by a user to search for an item. The search terms are configured in the CatalogSearchConfigProperties.xml file that is located in the resources.jar/template/resource directory. For example, to enable a user to search for an item by the Item ID, you must set the XMLName attribute to ItemID, and Searchable attribute to Y.

In the out-of-the-box implementation, a user can search for an item by providing any of the following search criteria:

  • Item ID
  • Short Description
  • Long Description
  • Extended Description
  • Item Keywords
  • Manufacturer Name
  • Manufacturer Item ID
  • Manufacturer Item Description
  • Category Keywords
  • Datasheet Content

Based on the search criteria, the items and the categories they belong to are displayed. The searchCatalogIndex API is called to retrieve the items and the categories. A user can search within the search results by entering the appropriate search criteria in the Search in Results box under the Search panel. Additionally, the user can further narrow down the search results using the Browse Categories panel and the Narrow By panel. The user can click the <category> hyperlink under the Browse Categories panel or the <attribute value> hyperlink under the Narrow By panel to narrow down the search results by the item's category or attributes. The searchCatalogIndex API is called to retrieve the items.

As a user narrows down the search, bread crumbs are generated at every step. Clicking a bread crumb navigates the user to that step of the search and removes the subsequent bread crumbs.

A user can view an image adjacent to the corresponding item in the Search Results panel if you have associated an image with the item in the Sterling Business Center application.

In the Search Results panel, a user can select the number of search results to be displayed on each page. A user can also sort the search results by Relevancy, and the Product ID and Short Description in either an ascending order or a descending order. The sorting criteria displayed in the Sort By drop-down list are configured in the CatalogSearchConfigProperties.xml file. The getSearchIndexFieldList API is called to retrieve the sorting criteria. The searchCatalogIndex API is called to sort the items based on the sorting criteria.

A user can view the details of an item, such as the item's description, unit of measure, unit price, whether the item is configurable, and so on, by either clicking the item's image or the <short description of the item (Item ID)> hyperlink. Additionally, a user can view the following information based on the item type:

  • The Overview tab displays the Extended Description of the item.
  • The Specifications tab displays the attributes and values associated with the attributes, and the physical dimensions associated with the item.
  • If the item is a bundle, physical kit, or logical kit item, the Components tab displays the components of the item.
    Note: The Components tab is not displayed for a configurable bundle item that does not contain any configurations.
  • If the item is a variation item, the Variation tab displays the details of the variations assigned to the item.
  • If the item has any related items associated with it, the related items are displayed in separate tabs based on the configuration. For example, if the item has cross-sell items associated with it, the Cross-Sell tab displays the details of the cross-sell items based on the configuration.

The getAssociationRelationshipList API is called to verify which association types have the Show In UI rule enabled. The getCompleteItemList API is called to retrieve the details of the item.

Solution for pagination when browsing a catalog

When browsing the catalog, if the number of items matching the search criteria is spread across multiple pages, the page numbers are displayed as hyperlinks. A user can navigate to any of the pages by clicking the corresponding <page number> hyperlink. The searchCatalogIndex API is called to retrieve the page to be displayed. The value of the PageSize attribute passed in the searchCatalogIndex API changes dynamically based on the value selected in the Results per page drop-down list.

End-user impact

This section explains the end-user impact of this functionality:

  • An image is displayed for an item only if an image has been associated with the item when defining the item in the Sterling Business Center application.
  • The related items of an item are displayed only if the Show In UI rule is enabled for the applicable association types in the Channel Applications Manager.

Implementation

This section explains the configurations for this functionality:

  • To generate the catalog search index, you must configure the Catalog Index Build transaction, run the agent server, and then trigger the agent configured for the transaction. The Catalog Index Build transaction builds the catalog index file that is used during catalog search. This index file ensures that item searches are accomplished with fast response time.
    Note: Ensure that the searchindex.rootDirectory property is set appropriately to point to the directory in which the generated search index files are located.
  • You can associate an image to an item using the Sterling Business Center application to enable a user to view the item's image in the search results.
  • You can configure the search terms that can be used to search for an item in the CatalogSearchConfigProperties.xml file.
  • You can configure the sorting criteria to be used for sorting the items displayed in the search results in the CatalogSearchConfigProperties.xml file.
  • You can configure the related items that should be displayed for an item. For example, to display the alternative items of an item, you must enable the Show In UI rule for the Alternative association type in the Channel Applications Manager.