Before the release of SuiteCommerce Advanced Aconcagua, customizations to the web store are done using the Set Up SCA Developer Tools. This tool allows the user to customize the application directly to the SuiteCommerce bundle/SSP Application. However, customizations done directly to the bundle requires strict maintenance as they need to be compatible with every update of the NetSuite core application. Additionally, when updating the SuiteCommerce bundle's version, the customizations are needed to be applied and tested once again on the new bundle — this creates a vicious cycle of updating and reapplying customizations.
To address these difficulties, NetSuite has introduced a new way of customizing or extending (adding features) to SuiteCommerce Web Stores -- this is through the use of Commerce Extensions. Commerce Extensions, or commonly referred to as Extensions, are bundles that offers a wide variety of features and fuctions that you can add to enhance your SuiteCommerce web store. These extensions can be developed via the Theme and Extension Developer Tools. Users can also choose to install a wide variety of NetSuite created extensions so that they can easily add features to their web stores.
Here are some of the benefits of using extensions over customizing the SSP Application directly:
- Separation of customizations from the Core SSP Application which makes troubleshooting and maintenance much easier.
- Separates the front-end (user interface) from the back-end customizations via Themes and Extensions.
- Modularization of additional features which allows users to create extensions that serve only a specific purpose.
- Easily create web stores with different appearances and features, depending upon the themes and extensions activated on the domain.
- Acquire or purchase extensions from different NetSuite Partners that will allow you to add more features to your web store.
For more information regarding Commerce Extensions, you can refer to this article: Extensions, Answer ID 70965.
NetSuite currently maintains over 30+ extensions that are readily available for all users of SuiteCommerce Advanced Aconcagua and later versions. For the complete list of extensions, you can refer to this article: Commerce Extensions, Answer ID 76381.
To learn more about the NetSuite created extensions, we will be posting an in-depth review of these extensions. For the next discussion, we will be focusing on one of the newer extensions, the SC Advanced Sign Up.
Kindly let us know which extensions you think should be featured in our next discussion.
Please feel free to reply with your suggestions, and we will be reviewing them!
