Inventory Management Using Omnichannel Inventory

Integrating with Salesforce Omnichannel Inventory provides more powerful features for handling inventory data and working with external management systems.

Omnichannel Inventory Integration

When you manage inventory with Omnichannel Inventory, you don’t create or modify inventory records in B2C Commerce. The integration handles that for you by automatically updating availability in B2C Commerce based on data received from Omnichannel Inventory. Reserving inventory for a basket or order is the only way that B2C Commerce can affect inventory levels. Perform all other inventory updates in Omnichannel Inventory.

For information on configuring and customizing Omnichannel Inventory, see the Omnichannel Inventory topics in Salesforce Help.

Location Graph

The location graph is the collection of inventory locations and location groups in Omnichannel Inventory that fulfill orders from your B2C Commerce storefront. A location represents a specific inventory source, usually a physical location like a warehouse. A location group is a related set of locations, such as those covering a defined geographic area or locations that belong to a common brand or storefront. The location group aggregates and exposes the inventory at those locations. Inventory quantities for a location group are calculated as the sums of the corresponding quantities of the locations in that group. For example, the On Hand quantity for a location group is the sum of the On Hand quantities of all the locations in that group.

Note: A location doesn’t have to belong to a location group, but a location group must include at least one location.

B2C Commerce exposes inventory data by associating inventory lists with the locations and location groups in your location graph. Create one inventory list in B2C Commerce for each location or location group in Omnichannel Inventory that you want to directly expose to the storefront. The ID of the inventory list must match the External Reference value of the associated location or location group in Omnichannel Inventory. If a location only fulfills orders as part of a location group, then you don’t have to create a list for that location.

Note: The integration uses the inventory list ID and the location or location group External Reference to transfer data between B2C Commerce and Omnichannel Inventory. For B2C Commerce to interact with an element of your location graph, it must have an inventory list whose ID matches that element’s External Reference.

For each B2C Commerce site, use a location or location group to represent the default inventory available to fulfill orders placed on that site. Assign the inventory list for that location or location group to the site. If you use other inventory lists, such as for a store, associate them with locations or location groups of their own.

Note: You can only associate one inventory list with each site or store. Other inventory lists can expose inventory availability data for individual locations in the group.

Inventory Reservations

When B2C Commerce creates an order, it sends an inventory reservation request to Omnichannel Inventory. Omnichannel Inventory tries to assign the reservation to the location or location group associated with that site’s or store’s inventory list. If insufficient inventory is available, the reservation fails. After Omnichannel Inventory accepts a reservation, it handles any further processing together with your order management system.

Note: When B2C Commerce sends a reservation request for a location group, it can’t affect the way Omnichannel Inventory transfers the reservation to specific locations in the group. Omnichannel Inventory and Salesforce Order Management provide tools for managing and processing inventory reservations.

If you implement a customization that requests temporary inventory reservations for baskets, the integration sends those requests to Omnichannel Inventory.

Considerations and Limitations When Using Omnichannel Inventory

B2C Commerce Inventory Modes

B2C Commerce can be in one of three inventory modes:

Initially, B2C Commerce is in Commerce Platform Inventory mode. When you first activate the integration with Omnichannel Inventory, B2C Commerce changes to OCI Cache Enabled mode. When the cache is ready, it can change to Omnichannel Inventory mode. The current mode is shown on the Omnichannel Inventory Integration page in Business Manager.

Availability Search Index

When B2C Commerce is in Commerce Platform Inventory mode or OCI Cache Enabled mode, the availability index is built using B2C Commerce inventory availability data. When B2C Commerce is in Omnichannel Inventory mode, the availability index is built using cached availability data from Omnichannel Inventory.

Selecting Omnichannel Inventory mode triggers a full rebuild of the availability index. Otherwise, the availability index functions normally.

Note: Building the availability index from the cached Omnichannel Inventory data takes about the same amount of time as building it from B2C Commerce inventory data.

Converting Existing Storefronts to Use Omnichannel Inventory

When integrating Omnichannel Inventory with an existing B2C Commerce storefront, include these steps in your planning process:

Terminology

The following terminology differs between B2C Commerce and Omnichannel Inventory.

B2C Commerce Term Omnichannel Inventory Term Description
n/a On Hand Quantity Current physical quantity
n/a Safety Stock Quantity of physical stock set aside to avoid overselling
Allocation Quantity n/a Calculated as (On Hand Quantity) - (Safety Stock)
Allocation Reset Date Effective Date Date of the most recent inventory data update; when using Omnichannel Inventory, this value can be null
Backorder Allocation Quantity (and Preorder Backorder Allocation Quantity) Future Quantity (if multiple future quantities exist, the value in B2C Commerce is their sum) Sellable expected future restock quantities
In Stock Date Earliest Future Expected Date Date when future restock quantities are expected
Turnover, Reserved, and On Order Quantity Total Reserved Quantity reserved to fulfill orders
Stock Level Available to Fulfill (ATF) Calculated as (On Hand Quantity) - (Safety Stock) - (Total Reserved); with a minimum value of 0
Available to Sell (ATS) Available to Order (ATO) Calculated as (On Hand Quantity) + (Future Quantities) - (Safety Stock) - (Total Reserved); with a minimum value of 0
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