Why no BCC UI for inventory management in ATG?

Question

As per my understanding, inventory of SKUs should be maintainted by business users. But, I don't see option(UI) for that in BCC. Is my understand wrong? If not, what is the strategy Oracle/ATG recommending business users to maintain inventory management? Why no UI given for business users for the same? what is the reason behind it?

Answer 1

But default inventory administration is done via dyn/admin. The reason for this even i donno.ACC and dyn/admin are legacy modules of ATG.So may be when BCC came in picture they just left inventory as is.If u see even ACC is capable of doing almost all things what BCC does.Infact it also additionally configures scenarios for ATG.So all i could say there may be a reason behind all this.Infact they(Oracle) are the market leaders. In http://hostname:8080/dyn/admin go to Commerce Administration->Inventory Administration.or just http://hostname:8080/dyn/admin/atg/commerce/admin/inventory/index.jhtml assuming 8080 is publishing port.You can also view inventory in production server also. This page allows an administrator to view the results of the inventory query operations, to manipulate the various properties of each item, and to notify the system of inventory updates. Out-of-the-box, the interface allows the administrator to set, increase, or decrease the stockLevel, backorderLevel, and preorderLevel of any item in the inventory. This page also allows the administrator to set the stockThreshold, backorderThreshold, preorderThreshold, availabilityStatus, and availabilityDate for each item. is configured through The properties files of the servlet beans described below configure the updated inventory.

But to be honest we can override this behaviour by doing the following.

you can add the Invenory repository as a separate tab in bcc as follows by doing the following changes.

config/atg/remote/controlcenter/service/ApplicationConfigurationManager.properties (OOTB)

applicationFiles+=/com/remote/controlcenter/service/inventory.xml

config/com/remote/controlcenter/service/inventory.xml (Custom)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE application-configuration
PUBLIC "-//Art Technology Group, Inc.//DTD BCC Application Configuration //EN"
"http://www.atg.com/dtds/application-configuration/application-configuration_1.0.dtd">
<applications>
     <application id="editInventory">
          <resource-bundle>com.webui.WebAppResources</resource-bundle>
          <display-name-resource>editInventory.displayName</display-name-resource>
          <destination-page>
               <url>/AssetManager/assetManager.jsp</url>
               <query-parameter key="project" value="-1" />
               <query-parameter key="activity" value="editInventory" />
          </destination-page>
          <acl>Profile$role$epubAdmin:read;Profile$role$epubSuperAdmin:read;Profile$role$epubManager:read;Profile$role$epubUser:read</acl>
          <initializer>
          </initializer>
          <sort-priority>30</sort-priority>
          <category>yourProjectExtras</category>
     </application>
</applications>

config/atg/web/assetmanager/configuration/taskConfiguration.xm (OOTB)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>

<!DOCTYPE task-configuration
PUBLIC "-//Art Technology Group, Inc.//DTD Asset Manager Task Configuration//EN"
'http://www.atg.com/dtds/web/assetmanager/taskConfiguration_1.0.dtd'>
<task-configuration>
     <!-- Define an activity for editing the inventory repository -->
     <activity id="editInventory" inherit-from="assetManager.defaultEdit">
          <activity-name>editInventory</activity-name>
          <!-- Configure the buttons on the toolbar -->
          <operations>
               <operation>create</operation>
               <operation>delete</operation>
          </operations>
          <!-- Define tabs for the left pane -->
          <tabs>
               <tab-order>
                    <tab-id>browse</tab-id>
                    <tab-id>search</tab-id>
               </tab-order>
               <initial-tab>browse</initial-tab>
               <!-- Configure the Browse tab with a list view of inventory items -->
               <tab id="browse">
                    <display-name-resource>assetManager.tab.browse</display-name-resource>
                    <page>/browse/browseTab.jsp</page>
                    <views>
                         <view-order>
                              <view-id>editInventory.inventory</view-id>
                         </view-order>
                         <initial-view>editInventory.inventory</initial-view>
                         <view id="editInventory.inventory">
                              <resource-bundle>com.webui.WebAppResources</resource-bundle>
                              <display-name-resource>editInventory.browseTab.view.inventory</display-name-resource>
                              <configuration>/com/web/assetmanager/InventoryViewConfiguration</configuration>
                              <page>/browse/list.jsp</page>
                         </view>
                    </views>
               </tab>
               <!-- Configure the Search tab to allow searching for inventory items -->
               <tab id="search">
                    <display-name-resource>assetManager.tab.search</display-name-resource>
                    <page>/search/searchTab.jsp</page>
                    <views>
                         <initial-view>form</initial-view>
                         <view id="form">
                              <page>/search/searchForm.jsp</page>
                              <item-types>
                                   <item-type>/atg/commerce/inventory/InventoryRepository:inventory</item-type>
                              </item-types>
                         </view>
                         <view id="results">
                              <page>/search/searchResults.jsp</page>
                         </view>
                    </views>
               </tab>
          </tabs>
     </activity>
</task-configuration>

config/com/web/assetmanager/InventoryViewConfiguration.properties (Custom)

$class=atg.web.assetmanager.configuration.FilterableBrowseListViewConfiguration

# The path to the repository from which to draw the items
repositoryPath=/atg/commerce/inventory/InventoryRepository

# The type of items to display
assetTypeName=inventory

# Types the user is allowed to create in this view
createableTypesList=inventory

# Number of items to show per page
itemsPerPage=50

/config/atg/bizui/activity/ActivityManager.properties (OOTB)

activitySources+=/com/activity/ActivitySource

config/com/activity/ActivitySource.properties (Custom)

$class=atg.bizui.activity.PortalActivitySource

# The name and description for the entry that appears on the left side of the home page.
activitySourceResourceBundle=com.webui.WebAppResources
activitySourceNameResource=activitySourceName
activitySourceDescriptionResource=activitySourceDescription

# Generic activity definitions
genericActivityDefinitionFiles=/com/activity/genericActivities.xml
genericActivityFileModificationInterval=every 300 seconds

securityConfiguration=/atg/dynamo/security/SecurityConfiguration
XMLToolsFactory=/atg/dynamo/service/xml/XMLToolsFactory
scheduler=/atg/dynamo/service/Scheduler

#defaultCreateWorkflowURL=/atg/bcc/process
defaultCreateWorkflowURL=/atg/bcc/process?successURL=/AssetManager/assetManager.jsp

# Default URL for the main project page.
defaultProcessURL^=/atg/bizui/activity/PublishingActivitySource.defaultProcessURL

# Default URL for the workflow task page. All tasks use the AssetManager UI.
defaultTaskURL=/AssetManager/assetManager.jsp
fallbackPriority=2

/config/com/activity/genericActivities.xml (Custom)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE gsa-template
PUBLIC "-//Art Technology Group, Inc.//DTD General SQL Adapter//EN"
"http://www.atg.com/dtds/activitymanager/activitymanager_1.0.dtd">
<generic-activities>
     <!-- Add a link named "Edit Inventory" -->
     <activity>
          <id>editInventory</id>
          <resource-bundle>com.webui.WebAppResources</resource-bundle>
          <display-name-resource>editInventory.displayName</display-name-resource>
          <description-resource>editInventory.description</description-resource>
          <destination-page>
               <!-- This link takes the user to the AssetManager UI -->
               <url>/AssetManager/assetManager.jsp</url>
               <!-- The clear-context flag clears any active Content Administration project references out of the user's session. -->
               <clear-context>true</clear-context>
               <!-- The ACL is optional. This ACL limits the visibility of this link to people with any of the epub roles. -->
               <acl>Profile$role$epubAdmin:read;Profile$role$epubSuperAdmin:read;Profile$role$epubManager:read;Profile$role$epubUser:read</acl>
          </destination-page>
     </activity>
</generic-activities>

Restart the publishing server if it is already running.

source: https://community.oracle.com/thread/2354883