Commerce

7.6.x

Elastic Path 7.6.x Release Notes

7.6.1

January 15, 2020

Release Highlights

Enabled compliance for California Consumer Privacy Act

Elastic Path now supports compliance for California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). With this enhancement, the seller administrator can do the following in Commerce Manager:

  • Delete customers data on customer request.
  • Generate customers data report on customer request.

Fixed Issues

Core Commerce

  • Fixed an issue where confirmation emails were sent only to the email address of the buyer account, not to the buyer. Now, both the buyer account and the buyer get order and shipment confirmation emails. Also, both buyer and the buyer account get email notifications on return and exchange.
  • Fixed an issue where automation tests failed because of expired data policies by extending the expiration date of default data policies.

Cortex

  • Added missing API documentation sections for orders API.

7.6.0

Release Highlights

Multiple carts for each buyer

Buyers have the flexibility to create multiple shopping carts on their accounts. The cart names are user-defined, which means the names can represent the purpose for the cart, such as business division or function. Buyers can create and save an order within each of the multiple carts simultaneously, without the need to complete an order.

Buyer administration tooling

Buying organizations can more efficiently manage the operational tasks associated with their accounts and associates. Buyer administrators can add accounts, sub-accounts, and associates from the storefront. Previously, the seller administrator had to perform these tasks. Administrators can also import a list of associates and their roles from a file, instead of having to enter the associates one at a time.

Cortex Studio Zoom Builder

With Zoom Builder, development teams have a faster and easier way to explore the Cortex hypermedia API, build zoom expressions, and view the contents of resources. Zoom Builder offers an interactive visual representation of API resources, which accelerates understanding of Cortex API and streamlines interactions.

Cortex customer profile attributes

Dynamic attributes for shoppers are now exposed through Cortex. Attributes can be defined as internal-only, read-only, or read/write. Shoppers can update the values of read/write attributes for their own profiles.

Tag management

Tags and tag groups can now be managed by through the Commerce Manager and the Import/Export tool. After tags are defined, values can be passed to Cortex using the X-Ep-User-Traits header, which can be used to determine product availability, pricing, and promotions.

Increase transaction throughput with horizontal database scaling (Beta)

Horizontal database scaling increases transaction throughput by directing read requests to a cluster of read-only database replicas rather than to the master database. It is supported only on Amazon Aurora MySQL databases and can be enabled when deploying an Author/Live environment using Elastic Path CloudOps for AWS. For more information, see Horizontal database scaling.

This a Beta feature that is undergoing further testing and performance tuning.

Announcements and Notices

Removed Features

FeatureNotes
The standalone demo package in the extensions/packager/standalone-demo/ moduleUse Elastic Path CloudOps to deploy demo environments instead of using the standalone demo package

System Requirements and Compatibility

Elastic Path Commerce 7.6.0 is compatible with the following Elastic Path releases:

Elastic Path ComponentVersionsLocationsgit branch or file name
Elastic Path CloudOps for AWS(Amazon Web Service)CloudOps for AWS compatibility matrixcode.elasticpath.comrelease/3.N.x where N is the minor version number
Elastic Path CloudOps for AzureCloudOps for Azure compatibility matrixcode.elasticpath.comrelease/1.N.x where N is the minor version number

New in This Release

In addition to the Release Highlights, this release contains the following updates.

Core Commerce updates

  • Included ShoppingItem fields in ShippableItem to allow shipping calculation plugins to access cart item modifier values for each cart line item.
  • Added custom Shopping Cart fields, which can be created for cart identification or as an option within the checkout flow.
  • Added ability to separate secure production configuration that is managed by operations from non-secure configuration that is managed by development teams.
  • Updated the required Apache Maven version to 3.6.2.

Cortex API updates

  • Updated customer addresses and payment methods to modify the default billing address, shipping address, and payment method on a customer profile.
  • Added links from the item resource to offers to retrieve details about an offer from each item.
  • Added a link on cart lineitem resources to dependent lineitems.
  • Added an order.already.submitted structured message that is returned if the submitorderaction is executed more than once.

Reference Storefront updates

  • B2B barcode scanner
  • Integration with the Reference Chatbot (Amazon Lex)
  • Re-skinnable header icons
  • Dynamic bundle enhancements
  • Request timeouts for Cortex and Account Management
  • Branding and style updates

Upgrade Notes

The upgrading Elastic Path guide provides general instructions on upgrading Elastic Path projects.

Apache Maven upgraded to version 3.6.2

To install Apache Maven 3.6.2 in your local development environment, follow the instructions in Requirements for Setting up your Developer Environment - Apache Maven.

Shopping carts for B2B are cleared during upgrade

When you upgrade Elastic Path Commerce to this release, all carts owned by associates are cleared. Associates are users who log in to Commerce through Account Management.

Previously, all associates in a buyer organization shared a cart. The shared cart no longer exists. Instead, each associate gets their own cart. They can also create additional carts. For more information, see Multiple carts for each buyer.

Note: Users who log in to Commerce without Account Management are not affected.

Improved PersistenceEngine invocation

The following changes to PersistenceEngine invocations were made to support horizontal database scaling and to simplify the handling of load tuners and fetch plans.

  1. PersistenceEngine interface: The interface contains the following new methods: withLoadTuners(), withLazyFields(), withCollectionOfLazyFields(),
  2. JPAPersistenceEngineImpl class: Read operations that don’t require a new session are moved to specialized query executors and no longer throw EpPersistenceException.
  3. OpenJPAFetchPlanHelper class: This class is no longer used for individual load-tuner configuration. Instead, each load tuner is responsible for its own configuration. This class is mainly used as a proxy when calling the new with methods and the final configuration and cleaning of a fetch plan.
  4. PersistenceEngine() methods: EpPersistenceException is no longer part of the method signature and does not need to be caught.

Before the upgrade:

public List<SomeType> findXByY(params) {
    configureLoadTuner();
    try {
        return persistenceEngine.retrieve();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new EpPersistenceException(e);
    } finally {
        clearFetchPlan();
    }
}

After the upgrade:

public List<SomeType> findXByY(params) {
    return persistenceEngine.
    .withLoadTuner(loadTuner)
    .retrieve();
}
When upgrading

For custom code that calls PersistenceEngine methods, remove exception handling for EpPersistenceException and use the following methods to provide load tuners and fetch plans.

  • withLoadTuners()
  • withLazyFields()
  • withCollectionOfLazyFields()

Database Changes

Ensure that the database is updated as required when you upgrade Elastic Path Commerce to the current version. The following database tables are updated:

  • Removed the CATALOG_UID column in the TMODIFIERGROUP table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERGROUP in earlier releases.
  • Changed the column name CART_ITEM_MODIFIER_GROUP_UID to MODIFIER_GROUP_UID in the TMODIFIERGROUPLDF table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERGROUPLDF in earlier releases.
  • Change the column name CART_ITEM_MODIFIER_GROUP_UID to MODIFIER_GROUP_UID in the TMODIFIERFIELD table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERFIELD in earlier releases.
  • Changed the column name CART_ITEM_MODIFIER_FIELD_UID to MODIFIER_FIELD_UID in the TMODIFIERFIELDLDF table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERFIELDLDF in earlier releases.
  • Changed the column name CART_ITEM_MODIFIER_FIELD_UID to MODIFIER_FIELD_UI in the TMODIFIERFIELDOPTION table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERFIELDOPTION in earlier releases.
  • Changed the column name CART_ITEM_MOD_FIELD_OPTION_UID to MODIFIER_FIELD_OPTION_UID in the TMODIFIERFIELDOPTIONLDF table. This table is called TCARTITEMMODIFIERFIELDOPTNLDF in earlier releases.
  • Renamed the column name CART_ITEM_MOD_GRP_UID to MOD_GRP_UID in the TPRODTYPECARTITEMMODIFIERGRP table.
  • Added a unique constraint to CART_ORDER_GUID in the TORDER table.

Fixes Issues

Core Commerce

  • Fixed an issue where multiple orders can be placed from a single cart if the Cortex submitorderaction is executed multiple times
  • Eliminated an unnecessary delay in refreshing the cache for promotion rules
  • Eliminated an unnecessary caching of expired promotion rules
  • Fixed a failure in generating the Customer Personal Data Report when the data point ORDER_PAYMENT_CARD_HOLDER_NAME is included
  • Fixed a stuck thread that occurred when deleting a coupon
  • Fixed a null parentItemUid that occurred when adding a child item to a cart
  • Fixed a problem with authorizing an additional payment amount when processing an exchange in Commerce Manager
  • Fixed an incorrect invoice price on the Commerce Manager order details page
  • Fixed a null pointer exception that occurred when you create a global product attribute and then edit product types for a category

Cortex

  • Resolved the issue that all the RelOS dependencies needed to be specified in ext-cortex-webapp. ext-cortex-webapp was refactored and now contains only the dependencies for resources being loaded in RelOS. By default, all RelOS dependencies are added as shown in the following sample:
<dependency>
   <groupId>com.elasticpath.cortex</groupId>
   <artifactId>ep-relos-runtime-webapp</artifactId>
   <type>war</type>
</dependency>
  • Fixed an issue where null pointer exceptions were not being logged by Cortex ReactiveAdaptor
  • Improved the reliability of Blueprint bundle instantiation vetoes when starting Cortex
  • Removed the linked categories that are marked as excluded from navigation results
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