Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date

Feature

Notes

13 NOV 2017

Created initial document.

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in Oracle Commerce Cloud October 2017 Update and describes any tasks you might need to perform for the update. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable or begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.

Give Us Feedback

We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content. Please send us your feedback at oracle_fusion_applications_help_ww_grp@oracle.com. Please indicate you are inquiring or providing feedback regarding the Oracle Commerce Cloud What’s New for October 2017 Update in the body or title of the email.

Feature Summary

We continue to add many new features to Oracle Commerce Cloud and we now give you the option to take advantage of new functionality at a pace that suits you. The following table offers a quick view of the actions required to enable each of the new features.

Action Required to Enable Feature

Feature

Automatically Available

End User Action Required

Administrator Action Required

Oracle Service Request Required

Major New Features

Multisite: Site-Specific Themes

Multisite: UI to Create and Edit Sites

Multisite: Site-Specific Payment Gateways and Methods

Multisite: Extension Settings

Multisite: Additional Site-Specific Settings

Multisite: Marketing Cloud Integration Made Site-Aware

Loyalty: Framework (API Only)

Loyalty: Redemption: Payment Widget

Loyalty: Redemption: Details Widget

Loyalty: Tax Calls by Price Group

Additional Features

B2B: New UI For B2B Multisite Account Management

B2B: Account-Specific Payments and Shipping Methods

B2B: Ability for B2B Buyers to Create Addresses

B2B: Copy an Existing Order

Extensibility: Catalog and Price Group Assignment Webhook

Experience and Design: Developer Proxy

Experience and Design: Modal Stack

Experience and Design: Layout Manager Redesign

Storefront: Popup Stack and Quick View

Storefront: Content and Experience Cloud

Audiences: Custom Account Attributes

Promotions: Support for Discount by Catalog Property

Guided Search: New API: Facet Value Ordering

Integrations: Configurator: Multilevel Hierarchy - Agent Support

Integrations: Recurring Charges

Integrations: Asset-Based Ordering - View Assets

Payments: Zero Value Orders

Major New Features

The major new features released in the Oracle Commerce Cloud October 2017 Update include:

Multisite via One Admin Console

Site-Specific Themes

Multisite for Oracle Commerce Cloud now allows merchants to assign different themes to different sites being run on the same instance. A theme can be associated to one or more sites and merchants can manually build a theme for a site. CSS processing of themes has been improved.

Gives merchants more control over the look and feel of their sites. Also gives users control over Theme compilation and merchants can troubleshoot compilation status and failures.

UI to Create and Edit Sites

Merchants can now create, delete, or designate a site as the default site, directly in the OCC Admin UI. Business users can create a site without using the API and then merchandise and manage the site to ready it for production.

NOTE: Merchants must still work with Ops to make a new site live.

Site-Specific Payment Gateways and Methods

Payment processing settings (e.g. Payment Types, Hold Price, Billing Countries, Default Billing Country per Site) and payment gateways can now be site-specific, allowing merchants to set up sites with differing payment methods or payment gateways. Merchants can also specify a list of billing countries, along with a default billing country, for each site.

Includes the ability to enable or disable payment gateways for specific sites. For example, if a user uploads a payment gateway extension, the gateway type will be available for each site and display all gateway types in the Service Type dropdown of the Admin UI. By default, payment gateways will be disabled for each site.

Multisite Extension Settings

Allows merchants to have site level control over extension-based site settings, global widgets, and application-level JS modules. Users can assign one or more sites to each global widget and application-level JS module.

For example, when a user uploads an extension containing site level settings, the settings will display in the Admin Settings menu under an “Extensions” heading. The site settings will automatically be applicable to all sites, so a checkbox configuration has been added to give merchants the ability to turn it off or on by site.

Additional Site-Specific Settings

The following settings are now site-specific:

This allows merchants to have more control over how they configure each of their sites.

Marketing Cloud Integration Made Site-Aware

Site information (site name and URL) is now included as part of the payload sent to Marketing Cloud for Abandoned Cart and Submit Order.

For Abandoned Cart, the site information is passed to Responsys which allows abandoned cart conversion campaign messages to contain site-specific links. These are outbound communications sent to the shopper when an idle order has been detected.

For Submit Order, the site information is passed to Responsys which allows campaigns based on shopper order to be tailored by site. For example, this can be used to include site-specific links in order confirmation messages or targeting campaigns to shoppers whose last submitted order was from a particular site (e.g. emails encouraging shoppers to rate or review a product ordered from a particular site, emails promoting an add-on product or content relevant to a product ordered from a particular site).

Loyalty

Loyalty Framework (API Only)

Loyalty sites can be used to increase customer lifetime value and reward high value customers. The new loyalty framework within OCC enables merchants to set up a loyalty website that allows shoppers to shop and earn or redeem points. Includes ability to:

NOTE: Requires use of an external system to support enrollment, accrual, and redemption.

Loyalty Redemption: Payment Widget

A new Loyalty Payment widget is available out of the box to support payment by points.

This allows shoppers to pay for an order fully in points if they have enough points accrued. Includes built-in verification of a shopper’s points balance against an integrated external loyalty system.

NOTE: Built specifically to support merchants with a dedicated loyalty site with Price List Group currency in points (not mixed currency).

Loyalty Redemption: Details Widget

A new Loyalty Details widget and endpoint is also available out of the box to support loyalty details, such as membership ID, program ID, points accrued, and tier category of the shopper. As with all Storefront widgets, this widget is customizable to display additional loyalty scheme-specific details. This widget can be used to display loyalty scheme details anywhere in the storefront.

Supported in both Storefront and Agent. In Agent, return and exchange processing can be done with orders placed in points.

NOTE: Built specifically to support merchants with a dedicated loyalty site with Price List Group currency in points (not mixed currency).

Tax Calls by Price Group, Including Loyalty Points

Ability to set tax to be calculated per price group, instead of just at the site level. Includes ability to turn off tax calculations for loyalty points if not needed. This allows merchants more flexibility when determining when tax should (or shouldn’t) be calculated and is meant in particular for merchants who want to set more specific tax rules by currency, rather than price group.

For example, this allows a merchant to set up two price groups—one in USD and one in Loyalty Points—and calculate tax on the former, but not the latter.

NOTE: This setting is now in the Price Group configuration area of the Admin UI. Tax will still be calculated if it is set at the site level, but turning it off for certain price groups means that only in those cases will tax calls *not* be made.

Additional New Features and Other Changes

There are also a number of additional new features, changes, and improvements included in the Oracle Commerce Cloud October 2017 Update. By functional area, these include:

Browser Support

Browser support is up-to-date.

Language and Currency Support

Languages: No new languages added.

Thirty-six languages are currently supported: Arabic (ar) (Storefront only), Bulgarian (bg), Chinese—Simplified (zh_CN), Chinese—Traditional (zh_TW), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en), English-GB (en-GB), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), French (fr), French Canadian (fr_CA), German (de), Greek (el), Hungarian (hu), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Latvian (lv), Norwegian (no), Polish (pl), Portuguese—Brazil (pt_BR), Portuguese—Portugal (pt_PT), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Serbian - Cyrillic (sr), Serbian – Latin (sr_Latn),,Slovenian (sl), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv), Thai (th), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk).

Currencies: No new currencies are supported.

Sixty-one currencies are currently supported: AED (UAE Dirham), ARS (Argentine Peso), AUD (Australian Dollar), BGN (Bulgarian Lev), BOB (Boliviano), BRL (Brazilian Real), CAD (Canadian Dollar), CHF (Swiss Franc), CLP (Chilean Peso), CNY (Chinese Yuan Renminbi), COP (Colombian Peso), CRC (Costa Rican Colon), CZK (Czech Koruna), DKK (Danish Krone), DOP (Dominican Peso), DZD (Algerian Dinar), EGP (Egyptian Pound), EUR (Euro), GBP (British Pound Sterling), GTQ (Guatemalan Quetzal), HKD (Hong Kong Dollar), HNL (Lempira), HRK (Croatian Kuna), HUF (Hungarian Forint), IDR (Indonesian Rupiah), INR (Indian Rupee), JPY (Japanese Yen), KES (Kenyan Shilling), KRW (South Korean Won), KZT (Tenge), LBP (Lebanese Pound), MAD (Moroccan Dirham), MXN (Mexico Peso), MYR (Malaysian Ringgit), NGN (Naira), NIO (Cordoba Oro), NOK (Norwegian Krone), NZD (New Zealand Dollar), PAB (Panamanian Balboa), PEN (Peruvian Nuevo Sol), PHP (Philippine Peso), PKR (Pakistani Rupee), PLN (Polish Zloty), PYG (Paraguayan Guarani), QAR (Qatari Riyal), RON (Romanian Leu), RSD (Serbian Dinar), RUB (Russian Ruble), SAR (Saudi Riyal), SEK (Swedish Krona), SGD (Singapore Dollar), THB (Thai Baht), TJS (Somoni), TRY (Turkish Lira), TWD (New Taiwan Dollar), UAH (Ukrainian Hryvnia), USD (US Dollar), UYU (Uruguayan Peso), VND (Vietnamese Dong), XAF (CFA Franc BEAC), ZAR (South African Rand.

B2B

New UI for B2B Multisite Account Management

New UI in OCC Admin allows merchants working on an account to select which site they want to work on. Includes a new “All Sites” tab where the user can see all sites available for an Admin to attach to an account. Once a site is selected, configuring the items for that account in the various tabs (e.g. addresses, contacts) is in the context of that selected site.

For accounts that span multiple sites, this new UI provides an easier, more streamlined way to work on the configuration for an account on each site.

NOTE: This is a B2B feature specific to B2B Accounts, so the selector includes all published sites that are configured for B2B.

Account-Specific Payment and Shipping Methods

Allows merchants to selectively choose which payment and/or shipping methods to allow individual accounts to use. For example, one account can be configured to use credit cards and pay by invoice, while another account can only use credit cards. Another example: one account is in a geographic area where same-day shipping is supported, but another is not, so that shipping option is not assigned to that account.

Includes a checkbox for “Use all of the site payment methods” under Payment Method Types to allow merchants to quickly select all methods for an account.

Ability for B2B Buyers to Create Addresses

Allows merchants to configure which buyers can create shipping and/or billing addresses for orders and which buyers can only use preconfigured addresses for their account.

This feature gives merchants more control over which individual buyers (if any) have the permissions to create addresses for orders on their own.

New roles have also been added that allow and disallow this capability:

Both roles can be assigned to any contact, giving them both capabilities.

NOTE: Merchant Administrators or Delegated Administrators cannot see another contact’s profile addresses—they are unique to that contact.

Copy an Existing Order

Allows a buyer to quickly create or place a new order from a previous order. All items from a previous order are added to cart and the customer is notified if certain line items are no longer available or temporarily out of stock.

The shopper can use the “Copy Items to Cart” or “Copy Order” link on multiple orders sequentially before submitting the resulting order. Each use of the link adds more items to the cart. For the new (copied) order, pricing will use the shopper’s current price list group and catalog.

Extensibility

Catalog and Price Group Assignment Webhook

New webhook provides the ability for merchants to personalize the product catalog and primary and secondary price groups available to a registered shopper based on external rules, including loyalty level, geographic location, shopper preference, or event.

The catalog and price groups returned by the webhook override the values configured in site settings in the Admin UI or specified by a B2B contract. Useful for instances when a merchant wants to set up event-specific catalogs, offer an extended product selection or preferred pricing to a shopper based on loyalty level, and/or offer products for purchase using loyalty points. In the last case, setting up a dedicated points based catalog and corresponding points based price group is an alternative to creating a dedicated points site and would allow a shopper to start a shopping session using standard monetary currency and then switch to shopping points.

Experience & Design

Developer Proxy (DCU Facility)

Allows storefront developers to view updated code from their local environment in OCC preview and conduct basic testing of code changes without needing to push the code to their OCC environment. Developers can now do this testing without having to package and upload the widget, element, or other code changes in an extension.

This function can be invoked from the Design Code Utility tool.

Modal Stack

Allows storefront designers/developers to use a stack component to more easily manage modals on their site. Users can control the shown content and modal content by placing desired widgets in the appropriate sub-regions of the modal stack. They can now easily deploy widgets and render them in a modal UI component—just add the stack to the layout and add any desired widgets.

Layout Manager Redesign

The Layout UI has been redesigned to include filters which make it easier to work with large numbers of layouts. Includes a new Components tool to manage all of the components used to design layouts in Design Studio—includes all types of components, including slots, global widgets, and application level JS modules.

Storefront

Popup Stack and Quick View

This new Popup Stack type in Design Studio allows widgets in the main sub-region to pass information to the widgets in the popup sub-region. Popup Stacks can help to manage and configure hidden content, such as what is necessary for login/registration modals and Quick View.

Out-of-the-box Collection and Search Results layouts include this new Popup Stack to provide Quick View functionality. Quick View enables shoppers to view essential product information and add the product to cart without needing to navigate away from Collection or Search Results pages.

To utilize Popup Stacks for data that is dynamically loaded, such as products, within the main component of the Popup Stack, the code needs to be configured to pass product information. This will ensure the correct item is launched.

Content and Experience Cloud Integration

Displays content managed within CEC within OCC. This new content item widget allows for selecting an asset from Content and Experience Cloud (CEC) for display.

All attributes of the content item, including images, are displayed in the Storefront without having to configure each attribute displayed. Includes support for standard image types (e.g. png, gif, jpg). Integration details are maintained within Oracle Integrations in the Admin.

NOTE: Requires Content and Experience Cloud. Also, none of the display logic of CEC is used, so the content needs to be formatted and styled, typically using a merchant’s website styling.

Audiences

Custom Account Attributes

Allows merchants to create audiences based on custom B2B account attributes, in addition to the out of the box attributes available. Allows the merchant to support custom string, date, or number account attributes, such as Customer Size is “Medium” and “Customer Business Type is “Consumer Electronics.”

Allows alternative content to be dhown to different accounts using content variation slots.

NOTE: For custom attributes to show in audience rule builder, the audienceVisibility attribute needs to be set to “All.”

Promotions

Support for Discount by Catalog Property

Allows merchants to offer promotions on specific SKU properties or variants. Also useful for catalog property exclusions. Now available in all promotion templates. Users can match ALL rules or match ANY rule.

This feature is useful for instances when a merchant wants to offer a promotion on a collection or product with the exception of a catalog property, for example, excluding specific brands from a promotion on a collection or excluding certain sizes.

Allows merchants to create more granular requirements for promotions to be applied to an order.

NOTE: Does not support SKU properties other than variants, so does not include pricing, inventory, or properties for collections.

Guided Search

New API: Facet Value Ordering

Provides the capability to change the order of facet values alphabetically (A to Z) or by frequency (most or least). For example, this API can be used to change the order of brands, so they are listed alphabetically.

By default, all facets, except for Category and Price, are returned in frequency order.

NOTE: Manually ordering facet values is not currently available. The choice is between alphabetical or frequency.

Integrations

Configurator – Multilevel Hierarchy – Agent Support

Support for integration with third party configurators that employ Bill of Materials based multilevel hierarchical configurations is now supported in the OCC Agent Application in addition to the Storefront.

Supports Bill of Materials (BOM)-based and Recommended Items configuration models, as well as support for sub-item pricing for configured items. Adds the ability for merchants to sell complex, multi-level hierarchical configured items in OCC.

Pre-built integration with CPQ supports post-pay telco-like product structures and bundles. Provides comprehensive view of complex pricing structure. Out-of-the-box Storefront widget support includes updates to cart, order confirmation, and order details, to support this feature.

While OCC supports complex, multi-level configured items up to ten levels deep, recommendation is to have items requiring no more than five levels.

Recurring Charges

Provides ability for shoppers to add recurring charge items (e.g. amount, frequency, duration) to the cart and check out. Passes those charge details to downstream billing systems. Allows merchants to sell subscription-based services.

Includes sample (not out of the box) widgets for Shopping Cart, Order Summary, and Order Details, as well as Storefront API support.

NOTE: Only supports items added to the cart by an external system, such as CPQ, and requires customization of OCC payment processing. Does not include Agent support.

Asset-Based Ordering – View Assets

Allows for the ability to retrieve a list of assets owned by the shopper from an external system and display the details for each asset. The asset information displayed is read only.

Includes sample (not out of the box) page types, page layouts, and widgets for Asset List and Asset Details, as well as a sample widget that includes a View Services link (e.g. My Services) for the shopper profile layout and necessary ICS flow with CPQ.

Payments

Zero Value Orders

Provides ability for merchants to take zero value orders without requiring any payment information from the shopper. Useful for instances when free samples are being offered or a coupon or discount used results in a zero value order.

Supported in both Storefront and Agent out of the box.

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