This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
| Date | Product | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 JUL 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
With this release, CX Commerce Search now utilizes machine learning and decision science to determine the optimal results to present to the shopper, improving the relevance of the shopping experience and increasing the likelihood of conversion. The keyword search results are calculated using a combination of factors, including shopper behavior, shopper purchasing history, trend analysis, and view data.
This new feature works in harmony with dynamic curation and search relevancy. Manually boosted products take precedence followed by products identified by machine learning, with all remaining products ordered by relevancy and dynamic curation criteria.
As this feature impacts the results displayed on the site, it is not enabled by default. The feature needs to be explicitly enabled and will take effect once the overnight process has completed.
CX Commerce storefront’s pre-integrated feature set includes search autosuggest, also known as “type-ahead,” which presents products that match the characters entered by the shopper.
With this release, you can now utilize an alternative autosuggest pattern and present matching searches that are popular on your site, making it more likely for shoppers to find what they are looking for more quickly and improving the shopping experience. For example, if a shopper enters “blu,” you can show “Bluetooth speaker,” “blue dress,” “blusher,” and “Bluetooth headphones.” The automatically generated suggestions can also be supplemented with manually created suggestions.
The feature is currently API only, requiring associated client-side code to display.
This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
| Date | Product | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09 JUL 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
CX Commerce search now provides developers the ability to enhance user experience by customizing faceted navigation. The Facet Management API enables developers to manually order facet values, add metadata to facet values and create custom price range values. The feature also supports custom price navigation requirements.
The following examples describe the capabilities made possible with this feature:
- With facet values such as sizes small / medium / large that should be ordered manually rather than dynamically, you can now sequence them using the API.
- To associate swatch imagery with color values, custom metadata can be added to the values.
- If the out-of-the-box price ranges are not suitable, you can create custom price range values e.g. $0-10, $11-25, $26-$50, $51-$100, $101-200.
NOTE: Changes to facet values require an index to view results, therefore need to be published to take effect.
The Facet Management API feature is currently API only.
This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
| Date | Product | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 JUN 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
Supporting Custom Property for Rich Text Fragments
With this new feature, merchants can now create Audience rules from shopper and account profile data when the customer information is provided in a lengthy XML string (e.g. through SAML response).
The fields provided in CX Commerce may not be enough to hold the XML strings sent to the merchant from an external system, like a third party loyalty, marketing, or SAML identity provider. Storing in a custom RichText property on the profiles allows merchants to create rules to ensure a consistent personalized experience.
This feature also supports both B2C and B2B.
This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
| Date | Product | Feature | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 JUN 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
Bulk Import of Prices (Prices Plug-In)
With the release of our new Prices Plug-in, merchants now have the capability to bulk import prices for products and SKUs from an external system. Existing price list groups can be updated with the latest prices from an external system as well. This is designed for instances when prices need to be imported frequently from an external source.
NOTE: The plug-in cannot be used to create a price list group, as it must have previously been set up in CX Commerce.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 29 MAY 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
New Property in Order Payload: orderDiscountInfos
A new property, orderDiscountInfos, has been added to the Storefront, Admin, and Webhook order payloads and provides a list of the order promotions and discount values that apply to each cart item.
Key benefits
- Provides more granular details about the discounts that have been applied.
- Can be used for reporting purposes as well as sent to downstream systems (e.g. financial systems).
- The order discount values are proportionate at each item level.
New Property in Order Payload: itemDiscountInfos
A new property, itemDiscountInfos, has been added to the order payload providing a list of the item promotions and discount values applied to cart items. The property has been added to the Admin order and SubmitOrder webhook payloads.
Key benefits:
- The information is now presented in an easily consumable format.
- Provides more granular details about the discounts have been applied.
- Can be used for reporting as well as sent to downstream systems (e.g. financial systems).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 22 MAY 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
With this release, merchandisers now have access to new and improved tools for managing and re-ordering products within collections in addition to performing operations on multiple products at one time. Products designated as inactive are now visible at a glance.
Capability highlights
- After selecting one or more products, merchandisers can link to single or multiple collections and select preference for viewing.
- A gear menu has been added to each row in list view and enhanced in the product listing toolbar.
- Merchandisers can reorder multiple products within a collection using drag/drop in list view.
- An inactive badge has been added to the product tile.
With this release, merchants can leverage new Store Extension APIs that have been added to the Store API set, previously only available on Admin. Server-Side Extensions and other integrations can use these APIs to support shopper experiences at scale.
The following new Store Extension REST APIs are now available:
- /ccapp/v1/profiles
- /ccapp/v1/organizations
- /ccapp/v1/organizationRequests
- /ccapp/v1/orders
These new APIs at /ccapp replace calls to /ccadmin/ and offer greater scalability and performance.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 15 MAY 2020 | Created initial document. |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.
DISCLAIMER
The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.
Calculate Tax Refunds Based on Date of Original Order
Tax refund amounts can now be calculated more accurately based on the actual tax rate charged for an item. The date of the original order can be used to calculate tax refunds for returns and exchanges. This ensures that the tax refund amount corresponds to the actual tax amount charged instead of a potentially different current rate.
A new merchant setting – useOrderSubmittedDateForTax – has been introduced to control this behavior.
- The setting is enabled for new customer implementations and disabled by default for existing customers.
- The setting applies to all sites.
- The setting can be updated using the Admin merchantSettings endpoint.
- The setting affects tax calculation for out-of-the-box Avalara and Vertex integrations, as well as custom tax integrations implemented using the External Tax Webhook.
With this release, CX Commerce provides functionality that allows the shoppers to initiate cancellations, returns, or exchanges on orders placed through their account. This feature builds on the previously introduced concept of cancel in-flight, the process of cancelling an order after it has been submitted to fulfilment.
Capability Highlights:
- Cancels orders when items have passed the ‘point of no return’ in fulfillment.
- Automatically generates return requests and service terminations.
- Executes cancel/return/terminate as required for each element of a configured item.
In the Admin settings, merchants can enable Extended Remorse Period specifying the number of days from the date of submission during which orders can be cancelled. Unlike the Remorse Period implementation there will be no delay in the order process and orders will be sent to fulfillment immediately on submission
NOTE: To implement this feature merchants will be required to download and install a few new and updated Server-Side Extensions; and also required to build a new Order Details Cancel widget or, if using the current cancel in-flight feature, update their Order Details Cancel widget.
With this release, when a shopper purchases a non-shippable item such as a download or warranty, the item will now automatically be assigned to a virtual shipping group thereby ensuring no shipping charges are applied to the purchase at checkout time.
This new feature provides for a flexible structure for selling services, allowing merchants to decide how and when shoppers pay for shipping for physical items.
The ability to assign items to the virtual shipping group and assign each item in a configuration hierarchy to a shipping group enables CX Commerce to implement the new ‘Cancel In-flight Order’ feature.
Adjustments to tax calculation and shipping charge calculations work out-of-the-box.
To implement the assignment of shipping groups at the sub item level, customers will be required to build their own ‘Shipping Options Sub-Item Widget.’
Pay an Order with Points and Currency (API Only)
With the latest release, merchants using our generic loyalty framework may now offer product redemption in loyalty points (points as a pricelist group) with payment for the full order in points or a mix of points and monetary currency. This allows shoppers to pay in a mix of loyalty points and currency or monetary currency by itself, so that they do not have to limit what they buy based solely on their available points. Loyalty shopper cards can also now be used.
Merchants may launch a separate site to offer products to be sold in points only, with taxes and shipping payment separated by points or currency. The feature enables integration with payment gateways and loyalty engines in parallel.
NOTE: Products cannot be offered in a mix of points and currency. The price list is still in one currency. Integration with a loyalty engine is required. This is an API only feature with no out-of-the-box widgets included.
Dynamic Content allows merchants to display relevant content based on shopper behavior – specifically, via navigation location and search – allowing merchants to capture and focus the shopper’s attention, convey a message specific to shopper intent, and direct the shopper to a desired location.
Capability highlights:
- Display an image from the Media Library along with the product listing when the shopper enters specific search terms or navigates to a specific collection page.
- Display promotional images targeted to specific searches or collections.
- Make the image a clickable link taking the shopper to a relevant landing page.
- Preview the results of your rule.
To use the feature, two key steps must be completed. One is to create a Dynamic Content rule. The other is to create a custom widget to display the content and place the widget on the Search Results and/or Collection layouts – including the Agent layout.
New in Search Administration is the ability to create site-specific rules. A Dynamic Curation, Facet Ordering, or Dynamic Content rule can be defined for one or more specific sites. This feature allows the merchant to tailor the results for a given search term or collection to meet different requirements on different sites.
A merchant can define a rule for all destinations on a specific site. This rule is essentially a default rule for the site. The default is for a rule to apply globally (on all sites). When you upgrade, all existing rules will continue to be global, unless and until you change them.
The key benefit of this feature is that it allows merchants to refine their product listings to support the business goals of specific sites. The feature addresses situations where, for example, different sites have different sales goals, marketing approaches, or target audiences.
Merchants can now define specific prices for particular products and SKUs, while the rest of the prices are inherited from its parent price list group. This allows them to define the relationship between price list groups and customer-specific prices at the child price list level, as well as define price list groups that are applicable for a specific purpose (e.g. pricing for select promotional products, special pricing for a particular customer or multiple accounts). Not only does this provide increased flexibility and targeting, but it helps improve maintenance and management of price list groups.
With release of the Price Group Inheritance feature, changes can be done directly in the new price group, resulting in faster pricing calls, faster publishing and search, and improved performance.
This feature is applicable for both consumer-based (B2C) and account-based environments (B2B).
Item Back in Stock Event Webhook
Back in stock notifications were previously available, but now, merchants can leverage our new Item Back in Stock event webhook to customize their website when notifying shoppers that an item they are interested in has come back into stock. This webhook allows the back in stock notification to be sent by an external system.
To implement this feature, merchants can notify shoppers when items are back in stock by:
- Customizing the storefront to allow shoppers to choose “notify me when this item comes back into stock”.
- Tracking the list of subscriptions externally.
- Listening for the Item Back in Stock event webhook.
- Implementing a service to notify subscribed shoppers when their item of interest is back in stock.
The new webhook can be enabled in the Oracle CX Commerce Admin and the end to end process developed as a customization.
NOTE: This feature provides the webhook only, so that a back in stock notification can be sent by an external system. Does not include the user experience for shoppers to opt in to notifications, ability to track the list of shopper subscriptions, or the ability to send the email itself.
Support for /ccstore Context Root
Previously, wish lists only supported /ccstoreui API. We now support /ccstore context root, particularly useful for implementing CX Commerce wish lists using a headless approach where our out-of-the-box Storefront is not the client. When a JWT token created by the /ccstore REST API is sent to the wish list (SWM) server, verification will be successful.
Behavorial Audiences: Current Session Page Views
With this release, powerful new Behavioral Audience rules can now be used to drive improved personalized experiences for shoppers. Merchants can build audience rules based on a shopper’s current session page views to collection or product pages and combine those with other criteria. This is useful for providing a more contextual experience for shoppers in terms of the content, promotions, and tests they see, as well as contributing to driving increased conversions and sales.
We currently support product and collection page views from a shopper’s current session and specifically the following behavioral audience types:
- Collection name (e.g. Collection name contains “Men's”)
- Product name (e.g. Product Name starts with “Running”)
- Collection page (e.g. Collection is “Accessories”)
- Product page (e.g. Product is “Trail Men's Running Shorts”)
- Product criteria (e.g. x products in “[camera brand name]”, “Cameras” collection, and “Camera” product type)
With the latest reporting update, it’s now possible for merchants to create individual user accounts so they can set their own customized filter values in each report. Merchants can maintain the reporting filter values commonly used across sessions (e.g. selected site, date range, currency), making the reports easier to use and more applicable to how an individual typically wants to see the data.
This feature is useful when, for example:
- A merchant requires a sales report to run daily at 8:00 am with the prior day’s results delivered to an email inbox.
- A merchant wants to update locale within the Commerce reports to ensure that the dates are in the preferred format.
Regional Address Format Flexibility
With this release, merchants can now customize address formats to be country-specific and define Address Types to categorize addresses, such as shipping and billing. Merchants can associate the custom address with a specific country or countries so that it is used only on storefronts (and administration and agent interfaces) with that locale.
Key benefits
- Merchants can make use of flexible custom address formats, including country-specific addresses.
- Endpoints are available for countries and region/states.
- Merchants can define custom/enhanced validations for address fields.
- Merchants can mark address fields as mandatory or non-mandatory based on their usage.
Visitor Type: Differentiating between Recognized and Authenticated Shoppers
With this release, merchants can now personalize their sites for registered shoppers who are currently logged in (authenticated) separately from registered shoppers who have previously registered on the site, but are not currently logged in (recognized). Being able to distinguish between authenticated and recognized shoppers allows for targeting content, promotions, and offers based on whether a shopper is actively logged in or just “soft-logged-in.”
Extending visitor type in our commerce personalization capabilities to differentiate between registered shoppers who are actively logged in or not allows CX Commerce Audience rules to be built to target anonymous shoppers, registered and authenticated shoppers, and registered and recognized shoppers.
This functionality applies to both B2C and B2B shoppers and is turned on by default.