Opening the Management Center

Access the Management Center to work with the business functions for your site, such as catalog, marketing, assets, and promotions management.

Before you beginOn the machine where you are using Management Center, ensure you have completed the following prerequisites:

  1. Display:

    • Set the screen area to a minimum of 1024 x 768 pixels.

    • Set the color depth to a minimum of 256 colors.

  2. Installed Flash 9.0 or higher.

  3. Web browser:

    • Installed Internet Explorer 7.0 or FireFox 2.0.

    • Disabled or removed any pop-up blocking software. Pop-up blocking software prevents the display of Management Center.

Do not reload a page or return back to a previous page while using the Management Center. That is, do not use the refresh keyboard shortcut (F5) or right-click and select the Refresh or Back options for the browser while using the Management Center. If you reload a window after you have entered some data, data will be lost.

About this task

To open the Management Center:

  1. Access the following Web address in your browser: https://host_name:8000/lobtools, where host_name is the fully qualified host name of your WebSphere Commerce Server machine (for example, wcserver.mydomain.ibm.com is fully qualified).

  2. Log onto the Management Center:

    Option Description
    User Name Type your WebSphere Commerce user name.
    Password Type your WebSphere Commerce logon password for this user name.

  3. Click Log On.

    If single sign-on is enabled, your user authentication is preserved and you do not need to log on again when you open WebSphere Commerce Accelerator.

  4. The available Management Center tools depend on the access you have. With the proper access control, from the Management Center menu select the name of the tool you want to work with; that is select Catalogs, Marketing, Promotions, Assets, or Tasks.

  5. Specify the store that you want to manage:

    Option Description
    You have specified a default store within your Management Center user preferences Your default store is pre-selected. You can use the selected tool to manage your tasks. Note that the tools are store-specific. If you open another tool, your default store will also be pre-selected for this tool. You can optionally select a different store from the Store list.
    You do not have a default store set up From the Store list, select the store that you want to manage. Note that the tools are store-specific. If you open another tool, also select a store name from the Store list.

What to do nextOnce you have completed your Management Center tasks, you should save your work and log out of the Management Center rather than simply closing the browser. (If you forget to save your work, you will be prompted to do so.) To close the Management Center, select the Log Out link within the Management Center banner. If you have made changes while logged on, ensure you save your changes before logging out.