WebSphere Commerce and the WebSphere Commerce development environment includes a set of Java beans, called WebSphere Commerce data beans, that access information from the tables in the database. Creating store pages using these beans allows you to display information that may change often, such as catalog groups and product lists, or product prices.
The WebSphere Commerce data beans are grouped into the following areas:
- Access control
Approval
- Auction
- Catalog
- Common
Contract
- Coupon promotion, coupon redemption, coupon wallet
- Fulfillment
- Inventory
- Message extension
- Order
- Order management
- Order status
- Payment
- PVC
- Taxation
- User
- User traffic
- Unified Trading Framework
For more information on the beans in each group, see Cross reference of data beans, EJBs and tables.
Each WebSphere Commerce bean accesses information from a particular table. For example, the CatalogGroupDataBean, a catalog bean, accesses information from the CATGROUP table. In that table, the bean accesses information from a particular column through properties. That is, the categoryId property accesses the information in the CATGROUP_ID (catalog group reference number) column in the CATGROUP table. For a list of which bean accesses which table, see Cross reference of data beans, EJBs and tables.
Some WebSphere Commerce beans work in conjunction with others. For example, the CategoryDataBean will return a list of the applicable Product or ItemDataBeans within a particular catalog. The ProductDataBean includes the PriceDataBean, allowing you to display the price for that product.
Using Page Designer or a JSP editor of your choice, you can add the WebSphere Commerce bean of your choice to your store page, and select which properties you want to display from the Bean Property Selection window.