Product Advisor cycle

Product Advisor creation and maintenance is an ongoing process for the Site Administrator and the Store Developer. The cycle loosely follows the list below:

Create the Product Advisor search space. You can create a separate search space either by using scheduler commands that require an XML file, using the User Interface from WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, or manually executing the SQL files.
Note: If you are using a separate search space for your metaphor, and product data is changed using the Loader, the Catalog Editor, or the messaging system, the search space will be updated by commands designed to keep the database and search space synchronized. Refer to the command reference links listed below.

  1. Create an XML input file to import the shopping metaphor definitions for the search space if you are using a scheduler command.
  2. Create metaphors using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator or the scheduler commands.
  3. Create JSP files for metaphor display.
  4. If you are using the separate search space, update the search space to include new, or exclude existing user defined attributes. This effectively repopulates the search space.
  5. Update the metaphors after changing the separate search space to reflect changes such as new or deleted attributes.
  6. Include shopping metaphors in the site's navigation.
  7. Migrate Product Advisor data from staging server to production server.
  8. Customer invokes shopping metaphors.
  9. Statistics are collected for the metaphors. To enable this feature, refer to the instructions in configuring Marketing Events statistical counters.