What’s New in

Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

December 2018
 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Table of Contents
Summary of Oracle Commerce 11.3.1 ................................................................................ 3
Oracle Commerce 11.3.1 Release Approach ...................................................................... 3
Oracle Commerce Platform ................................................................................................. 3
Oracle Core Commerce Engine ........................................................................................... 3
Promotions Engine Performance Improvement ....................................................... 3
Oracle Commerce Guided Search....................................................................................... 4
Classification Synonyms.......................................................................................... 4
Indexing Performance Improvements ...................................................................... 4
Automatic Thread Assignment................................................................................. 4
Data Transforms ..................................................................................................... 4
Auto Wildcarding for Search Interfaces ................................................................... 5
Oracle Commerce Business Control Center ...................................................................... 5
New User Interfaces for Access Control, Preview Users, and External Users ......... 5
New User Interfaces for Preview Components ........................................................ 6
Updates to the Login UI, Home Page, and Project Creation Page ........................... 7
Improvements to Site Administration and Targeting and Segmentation UIs ............ 7
Oracle Commerce Workbench ............................................................................................ 8
New UI for Experience Manager Tree and Better Performance ............................... 8
Column Resizing in Rule List Views ........................................................................ 9
Progress on Consistent UI Paradigm Across Oracle Commerce ............................. 9
New UIs for Experience Manager Dialogs ............................................................. 10
Deletion of Published Experience Manager Projects ............................................. 11
New UI for Thesaurus ........................................................................................... 11
New UI for Keyword Redirects............................................................................... 12
Other New and Updated Workbench UIs............................................................... 13
Oracle Commerce Reference Applications .......................................................................15
Oracle Commerce Supported Environments ....................................................................15

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Summary of Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

With this latest release of Oracle Commerce, Oracle continues the improvements and updates to the
leading on premise commerce solution in the market. Version 11.3.1 of Oracle Commerce provides key
updates to the business user tools, performance improvements to the commerce engine and search
engine, updated supported environments, and additional support for running within containers. Key new
capabilities include:

 Improved tools for Business Users. Both the Business Control Center (BCC) and Workbench
have been updated to remove Flash and Flex from additional areas of the tools, replacing them
with HTML 5 and JavaScript. With these updates, the tools are easier for developers to
customize and extend, are easier to use, and meet accessibility standards.

 Improved performance. Improvements have been made to the pricing and promotions engine to
better handle large amounts of promotions. In addition, changes to the Guided Search indexing
process will result in reduced indexing times for many languages.

 Ease of deployment. In addition to support for new versions of operating systems, application
servers, etc. Oracle Commerce also officially adds support for running the application in Docker
containers.

Oracle Commerce 11.3.1 Release Approach

Oracle Commerce 11.3 1 is released as a minor release, with both a full install and a patch install
provided by Oracle.

Oracle Commerce Platform

The Commerce Platform has been updated in the Commerce 11.3.1 with bug fixes and support for the
new supported environments. See section on updated Supported Environments for the key changes to
the Commerce Platform.

Oracle Core Commerce Engine

Promotions Engine Performance Improvement

The engine that processes promotions, and determines if they apply to the given cart, has been updated
to utilize a new rule engine. This rule engine can determine which promotions may apply and which
promotions do not apply to the current situation and cart, and does so at a rate that is faster than prior
code.

With this change the overall processing speed of promotions is improved, leading to faster page and
service request response times for when a cart pricing operation is required. The improvement will be
most noticeable when the number of promotions is very large and the promotions meet certain types of
criteria.

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Benefits
 Faster pricing of the cart when a large number of promotions are defined
 Ability to determine applicable promotions for the current cart at a faster speed

Oracle Commerce Guided Search

Classification Synonyms

With 11.3.1, when using the recommended CAS-based indexing model, a new Classification Synonyms
feature is available to define all potential synonyms for a list of dimension values, simplifying the list of
values presented the customer, and providing a method of creating synonyms which apply only to this
dimension (as opposed to a global thesaurus rule).

For example, if SKUs are available in different colors, these colors are often defined using descriptive
terms (for example: “Scarlet”, “Raspberry”, “Rose”). To keep the list of colors manageable for navigation,
and to match common customer search terms, it may be beneficial to group these as a single
representative color (in the case of the previous example: “Red”).

Benefits
 Maintain dimension value synonyms via a simple, standardized input file
 Streamline integration with business-managed content
 Various data cleansing and mapping options available

Indexing Performance Improvements

The processing and generation of the search index has been improved, with significantly better utilization
of multi-threading.

Benefits
 Indexing times reduced for majority of indexes
 Greatest improvements are to indexes using the Oracle Language Technology parser

Automatic Thread Assignment

With 11.3.1, threads for the Dgidx and Dgraph processes no longer need to be specified. Instead, the
thread setting of “--threads auto” can be used, and both the Dgraph and the Dgidx will assign the optimal
number of threads by inspecting the available CPU cores.

Benefits
 Different environments no longer need to be independently configured
 Ensures deployments take advantage of available hardware

Data Transforms

Two data transform operations have been added – Regex Split and JSON Split. These are for use with
the recommended CAS-based indexing model, and can be assigned to attributes via the Attribute API.
The transforms are used to manipulate source data during the CAS record store merger, and can
transform delimited data or JSON objects into multi-value properties.

Benefits
 Data stored in a PIM or similar system that exports in delimited or JSON format, can now be
easily converted into a multi-value attribute for use in navigation and filtering

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Auto Wildcarding for Search Interfaces

Guided Search 11.3.1 search interfaces have a new boolean attribute of

"isAutoWildcardEnabled". Setting this to true will configure all members of the search interface for
wildcarding, ensuring any search interface used for type-ahead functionality will automatically have all
members available for pattern matching.

Benefits
 Streamlines index configuration by removing requirement to independently wildcard all properties

Oracle Commerce Business Control Center

New User Interfaces for Access Control, Preview Users, and External Users

The BCC’s Access Control, Preview Users, and External Users UIs, previously implemented in Flex, have
been rewritten in the Oracle Javascript Extension Toolkit (JET). The new UIs were developed in
conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines: the 2017 Revised Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0, level
AA (WCAG 2.0 AA). The new UIs represent progress toward a consistent UI paradigm across Oracle
Commerce. In addition to removing Flex, the new UIs incorporate usability improvements.

Benefits
 Moves the BCC closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which are
increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles
 Removes a legacy technology, Flex, from additional areas of the tools
 Clean UI has no hidden states: properties are always available to edit, no need to activate them
 Asset tray supports keyboard operation and has new gear menu with options to move and
combine items
 Sorting options are clearer
 Some operations have moved from top of left-hand navigation pane to new context menus on
individual assets

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 1 – BCC Access Control UI

New User Interfaces for Preview Components

Within the BCC Preview, a number of components that were previously implemented in Flex have been
rewritten in Oracle JET:
 Light Table
 Preview by Date
 Preview As (Preview launcher)
 Toolbar, including the Edit button that turns on hotspots
 Growl messages

The new UIs were developed in conformance with accessibility guidelines mentioned above. (The asset
tray is still implemented in Flex in this release.)

Benefits
 Moves the BCC closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which are
increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Removes a legacy technology, Flex, from additional areas of the tools
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 2 – Light Table

Updates to the Login UI, Home Page, and Project Creation Page

The BCC’s Login UI, Home Page, and Project Creation Page have been updated to conform with the
accessibility guidelines mentioned above.

Benefits
 Moves the BCC closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which are
increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives

Improvements to Site Administration and Targeting and Segmentation UIs

In this release, the rewrite of several remaining Site Administration dialogs into Oracle JET was
completed. In addition, in Version 11.3, with the updated Site Administration and Targeting and
Segmentation UIs in JET, the asset tray always appeared empty in these UIs. In Version 11.3.1, the
merchandiser can see the contents of the asset tray in these UIs.

Benefits
 Moves the BCC closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which are
increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Merchandisers who work across areas of the BCC and have added items to the asset tray in
other areas can have confidence that the items persist there, when working in Site Administration
or Targeting and Segmentation

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 3 – Site Administration: Asset Tray and Site Selector Dialog

Oracle Commerce Workbench

New UI for Experience Manager Tree and Better Performance

With Commerce 11.3.1, the Experience Manager tree has been rewritten in the Oracle Javascript
Extension Toolkit (JET). The new UI was developed in conformance with the accessibility guidelines
mentioned earlier in this document. In addition, technical and design changes were implemented to
improve the performance of loading the tree, as well as the loading of rules in the editor pane.
Specifically, rules are now listed exclusively in the editing pane rather than in the tree. The Find Rules
view still displays all rules from all folders, but selecting a folder in the tree displays only the rules that are
its direct children. The Rule List views (Find Rules, Folder List, Slot Contents, and Audit) now have gear
menus that offer the rule operations previously available in the tree’s context menus.

Benefits
 Significant performance improvements, especially for customers using large numbers of rules
 Moves Workbench closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which
are increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 4 – Experience Manager Tree and Rule List

Column Resizing in Rule List Views

Experience Manager rule lists (Find Rules, Folder List, Slot Contents, Audit) now have resizable columns.
Users can resize columns to view long entries that are otherwise truncated – for example, rule names and
locations.

Progress on Consistent UI Paradigm Across Oracle Commerce

The move of the Experience Manager tree to Oracle JET contributes to progress toward a consistent UI
paradigm across Oracle Commerce, since it is consistent with the design of the tree in Site
Administration.

Benefits
 Predictable, consistent UI elements and gestures to simplify interactions for users
 UIs are easier to learn and understand
 Industry-standard designs

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 5 – Consistent UI Paradigm Across Oracle Commerce

New UIs for Experience Manager Dialogs

The Experience Manager dialogs have been rewritten in Oracle JET, in conformance with the
accessibility guidelines mentioned earlier in this document. The Record Browser and Media MDEX
Browser have also been rewritten, with usability improvements in the Record Browser.

Benefits
 Moves Workbench closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which
are increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles
 Clearer labeling and easier viewing of product details in Record Browser

Figure 6 – Experience Manager Record Browser

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 7 – Experience Manager Record Browser – Product Details

Deletion of Published Experience Manager Projects

Experience Manager Projects are now deleted after they are published. This change improves
performance as the accumulation of a large number of published projects could lead to a serious
reduction in performance.
Benefits
 Performance of Workbench stays consistent over time, and does not degrade

New UI for Thesaurus

The Thesaurus UI has been rewritten in Oracle JET, in conformance with the accessibility guidelines
mentioned earlier in this document. The new design combines visual improvements from the Commerce
Cloud Thesaurus UI with the full functionality of Workbench.

Benefits
 UX design enhancements for improved usability
 Moves Workbench closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which
are increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 8 – Thesaurus UI

New UI for Keyword Redirects

The Keyword Redirects UI has been rewritten in Oracle JET, in conformance with the accessibility
guidelines mentioned earlier in this document. The new design combines visual improvements from the
Commerce Cloud Keyword Redirects UI with the full functionality of Workbench.

Benefits
 UX design enhancements for improved usability
 Moves Workbench closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which
are increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 9 – Keyword Redirects UI

Other New and Updated Workbench UIs

The following Workbench UIs have been rewritten in Oracle JET, in conformance with the accessibility
guidelines mentioned earlier in this document.

 EAC Admin Console UI

 EAC Connection Settings UI
 User Management UI
 Automatic Phrasing UI
 Other Workbench dialogs – for example, Deployment Status, Change Password, and About

The EAC Admin Console UI has been redesigned to be clearer and more streamlined. The new User
Management UI also includes usability improvements – for example, better clarity around the difference
between assigning a user to a group and assigning a user the permissions associated with a group.

In addition, the Relevance Ranking Evaluator UI has been updated to conform with accessibility
guidelines.

Benefits
 UX design is clearer and more streamlined
 Moves Workbench closer to conformance with industry-standard accessibility guidelines, which
are increasingly important to merchants from ethical and compliance perspectives
 Implemented in Oracle JET: a modular, open source toolkit based on modern JavaScript, CSS,
and HTML design and development principles

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Version 11.3 Version 11.3.1

Figure 10 – EAC Admin Console UI – before and after

Figure 11 – EAC Connection Settings UI

Figure 12 – User Management UI

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

Figure 13 – Automatic Phrasing UI

Oracle Commerce Reference Applications

Commerce 11.3.1 includes Commerce Service Center (CSC), Commerce Reference Store (CRS),
Commerce Reference Store Mobile Application, and Assisted Selling Application (ASA) with minor bug
fixes and updates. The Commerce Reference Store Mobile Application and ASA also have updated to
provide support iOS version 11.

Note that the Commerce Store Accelerator (CSA) is not included in this release.

Oracle Commerce Supported Environments

Key updates and changes to the Supported Environments for Oracle Commerce include the following:

Operating Systems
- Added support for RHEL and OEL Linux 6.9 and 7.3
- Removed support for SUSE Linux

Application Servers
- Added support for Websphere Application Server 9.0.0.4.
- Added support for WebLogic Server 12.2.1.3

Database
- Added support for Oracle Database 12c (12.2.x) and RAC 12c (12.2.x)

Browser
- Added support for Firefox 60 ESR
- Safari 11

JDBC Driver
- Added support for Oracle thin 12.2.x
- Added support for MySQL Connect 5.1.42
- Added support for MSSQL 6.0
- Added support for iNet Merlia/MSSQL 8.0.8

Containers
- Added support for running Oracle Commerce within Docker containers, 1.11.2

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 What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1

iOS
- 11

Please refer to the Oracle Commerce Supported Environments Matrix located here for the full set of
supported applications:

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1345041.1

All product documentation is located here:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/atgwebcommerce-393465.html
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/documentation/endecaguidedsearch-1552767.html

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Oracle Commerce 11.3.1
What’s New Reference Document
December 2018
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What’s New in Oracle Commerce 11.3.1
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