Inventory Management Using Omnichannel Inventory

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

• Visible inventory availability data is eventually consistent, meaning that an update can take time (usually a few seconds) to be reflected in the UI or API. Therefore, when B2C Commerce makes an inventory reservation in Omnichannel Inventory, you can’t assume that availability data immediately reflects the quantities assigned to that reservation. This delay affects all B2C Commerce functionality that relies on availability data, such as Script API customizations that use inventory availability queries. However, Omnichannel Inventory processes reservation requests sequentially, so a reservation request only succeeds if inventory is actually available to fulfill that order.
• If your custom code requests temporary reservations for baskets, those temporary reservations affect visible inventory availability. (When not using Omnichannel Inventory, the Commerce platform considers existing temporary reservations when creating reservations, but doesn’t include them in visible availability data.)
• You can’t enable the On Order Inventory feature.
• You can create up to 20 location groups.
• The IDs of inventory lists associated with locations and location groups have the following restrictions:
  • They must be 2–128 characters in length.
  • They can only include the following characters: A–Z, a–z, 0–9, _ (underscore), - (hyphen)
• You can’t create or update inventory records in B2C Commerce. You can import inventory lists into B2C Commerce, but must import product inventory data directly into Omnichannel Inventory.
  Note: Attempting to import an individual inventory record into B2C Commerce causes this warning: Omnichannel Inventory does not support the import of inventory records. Skipping element.
• Don’t export inventory data from B2C Commerce. It exports stale data from before the integration with Omnichannel Inventory. To export inventory data, export it from Omnichannel Inventory.
• You can’t use custom properties on inventory records.
• You can’t use B2C Commerce APIs to modify individual inventory records. Otherwise, inventory-related script API methods work the same as they do when not using Omnichannel Inventory.
• You can’t make OCAPI calls to the inventory_lists/{inventory_list_id}/product_inventory_records endpoint.
• Because Omnichannel Inventory releases inventory reservations for unplaced orders after 30 days, keeping unplaced orders (in status Created) in B2C Commerce can cause availability discrepancies. To avoid this issue, use the Auto-Fail Orders setting in the site-level order preferences.
• Omnichannel Inventory doesn’t support explicit preorders. Instead, it represents expected inventory restocks with futures. Each future has a quantity and an expected date.
  • If a product has any futures in Omnichannel Inventory, then in B2C Commerce, its backorderable flag is true. Otherwise, that flag is false.
  • In B2C Commerce, product preorderable flags are always false.
  • In B2C Commerce, a product’s BackorderAllocation quantity is the sum of all existing future quantities for that product, and its inStockDate is the expectedDate of its earliest future. Its PreorderAllocation quantity is always zero, so its PreorderBackorderAllocation quantity always matches its BackorderAllocation.
  • Omnichannel Inventory futures require expectedDate values. When not using Omnichannel Inventory, B2C Commerce backorder and preorder quantities don’t require inStockDate values.
• Perpetual availability isn’t supported for individual inventory records. However, you can implement similar functionality using an inventory list’s Default In-Stock setting. When an order uses an inventory list with Default In-Stock turned on, products that don’t have inventory records on the list are automatically available. Also, they aren’t included in reservation requests. If you use Default In-Stock this way, customize your order workflow to create and manage reservations for those products.
• B2C Commerce builds its Availability Search Index using the cached availability data received from Omnichannel Inventory. Remember that this data is considered eventually consistent.
• For best performance when implementing Omnichannel Inventory customizations, use the headless Commerce API. The corresponding Salesforce core Connect APIs and actions simply call the Commerce API under the hood. Updating the location graph is an exception, since the Commerce API doesn’t provide that functionality.
  CAUTION:
  Attempting to upload large inventory data files using the Salesforce core Connect APIs can greatly affect your org’s performance. When using the Connect APIs, an inventory data file must be in JSON format and is limited to 10 MB. When using the headless Commerce API, a file can be in JSON or GZIP format and is limited to 100 MB.

B2C Commerce Inventory Modes

B2C Commerce can be in one of three inventory modes:

• Commerce Platform Inventory: B2C Commerce handles availability and reservations internally. The integration isn’t active.
• OCI Cache Enabled: Omnichannel Inventory is populating the availability data cache. However, B2C Commerce still handles availability and reservations internally.
• Omnichannel Inventory: The integration is active and B2C Commerce exclusively uses availability data in the cache and sends reservation requests to Omnichannel Inventory.

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.

Converting Existing Storefronts to Use Omnichannel Inventory

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

• Map your existing sites, stores, and inventory locations to locations and location groups in Omnichannel Inventory.
• Determine which locations and location groups to expose in B2C Commerce with inventory lists.
• Identify any inventory lists used for orders but not assigned to a site; for example, lists assigned to a store. Associate each one with a location or location group in Omnichannel Inventory.
• Create a plan to transfer existing inventory data import processes from B2C Commerce to Omnichannel Inventory.
• Identify any existing customizations that are incompatible with Omnichannel Inventory and decide whether to modify or replace them. That includes any customization that modifies product inventory records.

Terminology

The following terminology differs between B2C Commerce and Omnichannel Inventory.