Importing orders or order history from an old site

[j***@sbcglobal.net]

Is there any kind of documentation on importing old orders or order history from a back-end or old commerce site (not WebSphere Commerce)?

We are replacing an custom built Commerce solution and we need to display order history from the old site in the new Commerce site. I was talking with an IBMer and they said they had imported old orders into Commerce before but I cannot find any documentation in the Infocenter on how it is done.

In the past we have always created external (custom) tables to store order data from third-party systems, but it would be nice if we could somehow import this instead of having to custom code it.

[Robert Brown]

Nope...not much documentation on how to do this out there. WebSphere
Commerce has a strong set of utilities to get data into the schema. It
can take a few days (maybe a week max) to create the XSL and test. You
will likely have JSP customizations to display the data properly to the
shopper too.

Option A: Find someone (like me) who knows the WebSphere Commerce schema
and loader package well and match that person up with a guru who knows
the order data from the external system well. From that point, you can
determine where certain data might either "fall through the cracks". If
there are too many cracks, you probably consider custom tables to store
the info anyway.

Option B: You could look into pulling the order info directly from the
legacy system. No data load required. This implies a network topology
and commerce architecture that facilitates this type of connectivity.

Just a few thoughts at a very late hour...

R

Post by j***@sbcglobal.net
Is there any kind of documentation on importing old orders or order history from a back-end or old commerce site (not WebSphere Commerce)?
We are replacing an custom built Commerce solution and we need to display order history from the old site in the new Commerce site. I was talking with an IBMer and they said they had imported old orders into Commerce before but I cannot find any documentation in the Infocenter on how it is done.
In the past we have always created external (custom) tables to store order data from third-party systems, but it would be nice if we could somehow import this instead of having to custom code it.

[j***@sbcglobal.net]

Yeah, we've done a lot of integration with back-end data. I'm not worried about that. The problem is that the IBM rep made it sound like it was out of the box functionality. In the past integrating back-end order data could take 1-4 weeks depending on the complexity.

I'd hate to quote our customers what it would normally take if there's a simpler way to do it.

[geo]

Use SQL to generate the exports of the order and orderitems to sql. If the
data to import is simple (meaning that it maps to the stock order/orderitems
or ordstat/ordistat schemas) then it should take you a day or two to
complete the work. You are aware that typically offline (old orders) are
loaded to ordstat and ordistat since they have much less overhead and to do
what you mention to the stock schema would require you to resolve the
catentry and offer ids, etc if you want to be able to reorder them.

Yes it is OOTB as far as the tools to do this. If your looking for some
automagic tool that you point at any order schema and it loads to commerce,
obviously that seems like something that anyone would know is obviously
fictional.

We wrote a tool to do what you are working through for order history, but it
is internal use only.

Post by j***@sbcglobal.net
Is there any kind of documentation on importing old orders or order
history from a back-end or old commerce site (not WebSphere Commerce)?
We are replacing an custom built Commerce solution and we need to display
order history from the old site in the new Commerce site. I was talking
with an IBMer and they said they had imported old orders into Commerce
before but I cannot find any documentation in the Infocenter on how it is
done.
In the past we have always created external (custom) tables to store order
data from third-party systems, but it would be nice if we could somehow
import this instead of having to custom code it.

[j***@sbcglobal.net]

Actually I was not talking about loading the data in as old orders, sorry. What I meant was using the ordstat and ordistat. The problem we have had in the past is that the XML integration side of the house (update order status XML messages) will not allow us to add new order statuses for orders that do not exist in Commerce, so I had assumed that the ordstat and ordistat really were designed for COmmerce orders only.

How do you handle the problem of order history information that has information on products that do not exist in Commerce?

When I said OOTB tools, I was thinking of the two primary ways of adding data to Commerce (massloader and XML integration via MQ), I try to stay away from direct SQL when loading data only because of the various other tables involved behind the scenes.

Looks like the best way to integrate old order data is with direct SQL though. Thanks.

[geo]

Hi Jason,

ORDSTAT and ORDISTAT do not enforce keys on the commerce tables and are
typically used to load outside orders including those with products not
available in the Commerce site.

Notice for instance that ORDISTAT.ORDERS_ID is nullable and there is no
CATENTRY column only PARTNUMBER.

Looks like you are still making good progress on your site implementation
from the continuing news stream.

May The Force Be With You.

Post by j***@sbcglobal.net
Actually I was not talking about loading the data in as old orders, sorry.
What I meant was using the ordstat and ordistat. The problem we have had
in the past is that the XML integration side of the house (update order
status XML messages) will not allow us to add new order statuses for
orders that do not exist in Commerce, so I had assumed that the ordstat
and ordistat really were designed for COmmerce orders only.
How do you handle the problem of order history information that has
information on products that do not exist in Commerce?
When I said OOTB tools, I was thinking of the two primary ways of adding
data to Commerce (massloader and XML integration via MQ), I try to stay
away from direct SQL when loading data only because of the various other
tables involved behind the scenes.
Looks like the best way to integrate old order data is with direct SQL though. Thanks.

[j***@sbcglobal.net]

I'll keep that in mind for upcoming engagements. The customer that is looking to do this is still in the beginning stage and has not implemented yet.