Glossary

Sending events
Sending webhooks
Creating or updating an entity
Creating log events

Admin Console

Glossary termA webapp for managing orders, locations, and inventory, as well as configuring account settings and workflows. Admin Console is deprecated and has been replaced by the Fluent OMS webapp. Please check the deprecation policy for details.

Aggregate Virtual Position

Glossary termAn Aggregate Virtual Position record represents the total sum of inventory available across a network, category, or another grouping.

AlloyDB

Glossary termA high-performance, PostgreSQL-compatible managed database optimized for enterprise workloads.

Article

Glossary termAn article represents the physical container (parcel, crate, envelope etc.) that contains some or all of the items for an order.

Attribute

Glossary termAttributes are the way to extend most entities in the Fluent platform for use-cases beyond the default fields.For example, you may have additional attributes on your Product records, such as Size, Color, or an image URL. Attribute values can be typed as string, boolean, integer, and JSON.

Audit Event

Glossary termAudit Events provide detailed information on the execution flow of an Orchestration Event. Most of these are produced automatically by the workflow engine during execution, but can also be created directly for traceability.

Audit Event Category

Glossary term
Audit Events can be distinguished by their category, each providing different information on what was executed. The following audit event categories are available:

snapshot - the state of an entity before executing an orchestration event
ruleSet - the name and runtime of a ruleset execution
rule - the name, props, and runtime of a rule execution
ACTION - the name, value, and runtime of an action execution
CUSTOM - see “Log Event”
exception - the name, description, and stack trace of an exception that occurred during orchestration event execution

Available to Promise

Glossary term"Available to Promise (ATP)" is the quantity of a product that a company can promise to deliver to customers by a specific date based on the current inventory levels, incoming inventory, production schedules, and outstanding orders.

Available to Sell

Glossary termAvailable to Sell (ATS) is the quantity of inventory that is immediately available in stock and can be sold to customers. It is usually calculated based on the stock on hand and safety stock buffers.

Average order value

Glossary termThe average total value of every order placed over a defined period of time. Calculated by dividing total revenue from all orders by the number of orders.

Base Virtual Position

Glossary termQuantity of inventory that is Available to Promise for a SKU at a specific location after all inventory controls (safety stock buffers and exclusions) have been applied.

Batch Processing

Glossary termIn the context of Fluent Commerce Batch Processing refers to one of the ways inventory gets ingested in Fluent Order Management and Big Inventory, as the batch process utilizes Fluent Batch API.

Big Inventory

Glossary termFluent "Big Inventory" is an enterprise inventory hub provided by Fluent Commerce. Fluent "Big Inventory" is designed to work within your omnichannel ecosystem, managing inventory availability across all your channels to ensure you have a single, unified view of inventory across all of your different go-to-market channels. Dive in deeper in the Getting started with Big Inventory article.

BigQuery

Glossary termA serverless, highly scalable data warehouse designed for fast SQL analytics on large datasets.

Branch location

Glossary termBranch location of a distributor where business to business (B2B) buyers can make purchases or pickup will call orders.

Building Blocks

Glossary termBuilding Blocks represent Fluent's internal pieces; Packages and Modules (Packages include tools like SDKs & Connectors), UI Components, Workflows, Settings, Interface Contracts, and Rules. As a developer, you can use the existing library of blocks to create a tailored OMS experience for your client's unique business needs.

Business to Business

Glossary termSale of goods or services between businesses via an online sales portal.

Business to Consumer

Glossary termSale of goods directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or any other middlemen.

Buy online pickup in store

Glossary termBuy online pickup in store (BOPIS) is a shopping method where customers purchase online and then pick up their order at a physical store location. This service combines the convenience of online shopping with the immediacy of in-store pickup, allowing customers to avoid shipping fees and wait times. BOPIS is an increasingly popular option for retailers and shoppers, offering a flexible and efficient way to shop.

Buy online return in store

Glossary term"Buy online return in store" (BORIS) is a retail policy that allows customers to purchase items online and then return them at a physical store location. This practice provides convenience and flexibility for customers who prefer the ease of online shopping but want the option to return items in person, potentially avoiding shipping fees or delays associated with online returns.

Buyer

Glossary termEnd customer of a distributor, wholesaler, manufacturer (aka B2B buyer)

Carrier

Glossary termA carrier is the external or internal logistics provider responsible for delivering orders from the point of fulfillment to the customer.

For a B2C order, this typically refers to the last mile (from final hub/fulfilment center to the customer) part of the process. However, in other scenarios such as B2B, backorder or stock transfers, this can also relate to the first mile (e.g. from manufacturer/originating warehouse to local hub) or line-haul part too (between larger regional hubs or distribution centers).

Product Category

Glossary termA collective grouping of products or items. For example, T-Shirts represents all T-Shirt products. Mens Shoes represents all mens shoe products.

Click & Collect

Glossary termClick and Collect Pickup is an effective retail fulfilment strategy that allows consumers to buy online and pick up their orders from a physical store nearest to their location.

Cloud Audit Logs

Glossary termA service that records administrative and data access events for security and compliance.

Cloud Firestore

Glossary termA GCP NoSQL document database for building real-time applications with automatic scaling.

Cloud Key Management Service

Glossary termA service for managing cryptographic keys and encrypting data at scale.

Cloud Load Balancer

Glossary termA fully managed load-balancing solution that distributes traffic across instances or services.

Cloud Spanner

Glossary termA globally distributed, strongly consistent relational database
designed for high availability and scalability running on GCP.

Collection Point

Glossary termLocation where a customer will pick up their order

Connector

Glossary termA Connector is a pre-built integration between two or more systems. Fluent Order Management includes a growing library of Connectors that provide configuration-based integration with well-known 3rd party applications and platforms in the ecosystem. Check all the available packages and modules.

Connector Interface Contract

Glossary termA set of Event Interface Contracts describing a recommended flow between a connector (or any external service) and one or more workflows.

Consignment

Glossary termRepresents a shipping order with a carrier.

Contact center

Glossary termA central point for organizations to manage all customer interactions across channels and provide customers with efficient and effective customer service.

Control Groups

Glossary termThe parent entity of controls, where you can group controls into a Control Group. For example, you can use a "Base Control Group," where a general control could be housed, or an "ATS Home Delivery Control Group," where you have controls for products that are only available for Home Delivery

Controls

Glossary termA Control is a generic mechanism for applying a rule to a calculation or decision. Controls can be used to represent a buffer, safety stock, exclusion, segmentation, allocation, sourcing attribute, lead-time, or other values that may influence orchestration logic or calculated values.

Core model

Glossary termThe core model approach is typically used within multi-retailer / multi-brand organizations. In this approach, the first implementation is used as a core for the next, which speeds up future implementations, reduces costs, and increases quality, resulting in greater Return on Investment (ROI).

Core Reference Module

Glossary termThe Core Reference Module is a foundational Reference Module. It provides a base set of general-purpose Rules that other Modules are built upon or that can be included in your own Workflows. Extensible by design, use this Module as a base to build a solution for your customers' needs.

Correction Stock

Glossary termCorrection Stock is an adjustment quantity for a stock item, typically used to correct an on hand quantity in a location. The correction may be due to various reasons, such as damaged goods, missing or incorrectly recorded sales, etc.

Cost Of Sales

Glossary termAlso known as COGS (typically in a manufacturing or traditional retail firm selling physical units of inventory)

Credit Memo

Glossary termA document issued by the seller of goods or services to the buyer, reducing the amount that the buyer owes to the seller under the terms of an earlier invoice.

Cross Workflow Event

Glossary termOrchestration Events sent from one workflow to another are called Cross Workflow Events. Like other external events, they create a new execution context in the target workflow.

Customer Collection Time Limit

Glossary termThe number of days customers have to collect their Click and Collect order. This time limit will be communicated in customer notifications to encourage on-time pick-up. After this time, the order will be shown as ‘Uncollected’ so that store associates can initiate the refund process.

Dataproc

Glossary termGCP Dataproc is a managed service for running Apache Spark and Hadoop clusters for big data processing and analytics.

Direct to Customer

Glossary termDirect to Customer (DTC) is a business approach where companies sell their products directly to consumers, cutting out middlemen like retailers. It's about brands connecting with customers directly through online platforms or physical stores, offering more control over the entire customer experience. This model is gaining traction in various industries, allowing brands to offer better prices, faster delivery, and more personalized interactions.

Dispatch

Glossary termDispatch is the act of sending off goods, resources, or instructions to their destinations. It's about organizing and coordinating shipments or tasks, whether in logistics, emergency services, or other contexts, to ensure timely delivery or completion.

Distributed Inventory Management

Glossary termDistributed Inventory Management involves strategically distributing stock across multiple locations to optimize availability and reduce shipping times.

Distributed Order Management

Glossary termThe orchestration of fulfilling orders across multiple locations.

Distribution center

Glossary termA specialized warehouse designed to store finished goods, streamline the picking and packing process, and ship goods out to another location or final destination.

End User

Glossary termA user who interacts with Fluent web apps (Fluent Order Management, Fluent Store, Fluent Big Inventory)

Entity

Glossary termA structured object representing a concept in the order management domain that can be created, updated, and viewed on the Fluent platform.

Estimated Delivery Date

Glossary termThe "Estimated Delivery Date" is the projected date when a shipment is expected to arrive at its destination. This date is calculated based on several factors, including the shipping method, origin and destination locations, processing times, and any potential delays.

Event

Glossary termFluent is an event-driven architecture. Events are used in Fluent to trigger business logic and to record when things happen throughout the platform. Events triggering business logic are called orchestration events.

Event Context

Glossary termIs the context object passed to rules to give them access to information about the current workflow execution and Rule actions and provide access to the API clients and rule actions. This includes details of the originating event, configuration properties of the rule, and methods to produce new actions.

Event Interface Contract

Glossary termA definition of the Event structure (including attributes) that should be produced and the Trigger information for a specific Ruleset.

Execution Context

Glossary termThe set of Rulesets that run using a single Event Context. See Inline Events.

Extension Module

Glossary termAn Extension Module is a type of Module that is created and maintained by a Customer or Partner as part of a project. The Module can contain data assets, eg roles and catalogues, as well as functional assets, such as rules and workflows. As such it describes a solution. It often depends on one or more Fluent Reference Modules or other Extension Modules. Structurally, Extension Modules adhere to the Module Specification.

External Event

Glossary termExternal Events are generated outside of a Workflow, intended to begin the execution of a Ruleset in a Workflow. They create an Execution Context and may produce subsequent inline events.

Fallback Sourcing Strategy

Glossary termA Fallback Sourcing Strategy is a structured approach to determining the optimal fulfillment Location when an Order can not be fully fulfilled using Primary Sourcing Strategies.It is applied after standard Sourcing fails and enables fulfillment of available Order Items.

Fat Rules

Glossary termA “Fat Rule” is an antipattern in Rule development. It means that instead of the rule being a small building block for logic, it is trying to do too much by itself. This means it is not as reusable, flexible, or maintainable. It typically contains multiple logic branches and might do different things based on the inputs.

Fluent CLI

Glossary termThe Fluent CLI is a command line tool to interact with Fluent Accounts and Modules. It can be used to install or inspect Modules as well as create retailers. The tool is maintained by Fluent.

Fluent Retail Support

Glossary termThe Fluent Commerce support department.

Fulfillment

Glossary termA fulfillment represents one or more items in an order that need to be picked and packed for the customer. A fulfillment is assigned to a location based on the retailer's fulfillment rules and available inventory. If more than one location is used to fulfill an order, multiple fulfillments will be created against the order.

Fulfillment options

Glossary termFulfillment options refer to the various methods available for delivering products or services to customers after they've placed an order. These options can include shipping, pick-up, or digital delivery, depending on the nature of the product or service and the preferences of both the customer and the seller.

Fulfilment Option

Glossary termRepresents a possible way an order can be completed. A fulfilment option contains information such as delivery method, estimated time of arrival (ETA), and pricing. Each option provides alternative scenarios for fulfilling a proposed order.

Fulfilment Plan

Glossary termRepresents the strategy chosen to complete an order. A fulfilment plan defines how the order will be fulfilled, which may involve multiple fulfilments across different locations or methods to complete the order successfully.

Fulfillment Type

Glossary termIt is a fulfillment type used to determine which fulfillment rulesets need to trigger in the order workflow. For example:

click and collect pick from collection point PFCP = Pick from Collection Point
click and collect pick from store PFS = Pick from Store

Global Inventory

Glossary termGlobal Inventory provides inventory visibility across channels by managing what is to be sold where, enabling the company to make knowledge-based promises to customers. Read more in the Inventory Module Overview article.

Google Cloud CDN

Glossary termA content delivery network that accelerates content delivery by caching data at edge locations worldwide.

Google Cloud Platform

Glossary termA suite of cloud computing services by Google that provides infrastructure, analytics, machine learning, and developer tools for building, deploying, and scaling applications. It offers pay-as-you-go pricing and global scalability across a secure network.

Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Glossary termGCP Cloud Pub/Sub is A messaging service for asynchronous communication between independent applications. Used for event-driven architectures and streaming analytics.

Google Cloud Security

Glossary termA suite of security services, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), Security Command Center, and more, for protecting cloud workloads.

Google Cloud SQL

Glossary termA managed relational database service that supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.

Google Cloud Storage

Glossary termGoogle Cloud Storage (GCS) is a scalable and durable object storage solution for unstructured data such as images, videos, and backups.

Google Compute Engine

Glossary termVirtual machines (VMs) for running applications with full control over operating systems and configurations.

Google Cloud Functions

Glossary termA serverless compute service for running event-driven functions in response to cloud events without managing servers.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Glossary termGoogle Kubernetes Engine (GKE)is a managed Kubernetes service for deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications.

GraphQL

Glossary termAn API query language that provides a common interface between the client and the server for data retrieval and manipulations. It allows for adjusting the JSON output of an API endpoint. Read more in the GraphQL Overview article.

Gross Merchandise Value

Glossary termThe total value of merchandise sold by a business over a period of time (usually per annum)

Group Product

Glossary termAn entity for recording multi-item products, such as bundles and kits.

Home Delivery

Glossary termHome delivery is when businesses bring goods or services directly to your doorstep, contrary to a click-and-collect service model, saving you the trip. It's a convenient service offered by many retailers and restaurants, often facilitated by fulfillment centers and efficient logistics. From groceries to gadgets, home delivery has become a popular option, providing customers with convenience and flexibility in their shopping experience.

Hubstore

Glossary termA "Hubstore" typically refers to a physical location, often in urban areas, where online retailers or e-commerce companies set up small fulfillment centers or distribution hubs. These facilities serve as convenient pickup points for customers to collect their online orders, offering an alternative to traditional home delivery. Hubstores streamline the delivery process, allowing customers to retrieve their purchases at their convenience while also reducing shipping costs and environmental impact. They're part of the evolving landscape of retail and e-commerce, bridging the gap between online shopping and the physical retail experience.

Identity Provider

Glossary termAn identity provider (abbreviated IdP or IDP) is an entity that creates, maintains, and manages identity information for principals and also provides authentication services to relying applications within a federation or distributed network. An identity provider is a trusted provider that lets you use single sign-on (SSO) to access other websites. SSO enhances usability by reducing password fatigue. It also provides better security by decreasing the potential attack surface.

Independent Software Vendor

Glossary termAn Independent Software Vendor (ISV) is a company that develops and sells software products independently of larger software manufacturers. These companies create software solutions tailored to specific industries, needs, or niche markets. ISVs typically focus on designing, developing, and distributing software applications, often specializing in particular domains such as healthcare, finance, or education. They operate independently from platform providers and may offer their products through various channels, including direct sales, online marketplaces, or partnerships with other technology companies.

Inline Event

Glossary termWhen an Internal Event can be processed immediately, the Workflow engine can “inline” it - that is, process it in the same execution context as the originating external event. This is better for performance, and data consistency and reliability (transactionality).

Integration Event

Glossary termIntegration Events are External Orchestration events that are sent from an external system into the Fluent platform.

Inventory

Glossary termInventory, or stock, is the total amount of goods a company holds for sale or use. Managing inventory involves tracking and controlling these items to meet customer demand efficiently while minimizing excess.

Inventory Catalog

Glossary termInventory catalogs consist of inventory positions that can be aggregated from multiple sources. Inventory catalogs hold on-hand inventory of products, variants, and groups.

Inventory Position

Glossary termIt is a specific sku/product at a location. The position of inventory is the amount at a location. For example: for a product Green broccoli, and a location of Fluent HQ (Sydney). The current active position is 42. (we love broccoli)

Inventory Position Change

Glossary termThe number of changed on-hand positions after batch pre-processing.

Inventory Position Update

Glossary termAn Inventory Position Update is a measurement of how many Inventory Positions, Inventory Quantities, or Virtual Positions have been updated or created within your Fluent Account.This is measured by usage of the Update & Create APIs for each of the 3 entities and any inventory batch items which were processed that don't trigger API usage. Read more on Getting IPU/IPC visibility.

Last On Hand

Glossary term"Last On Hand" (LOH) is an inventory management term referring to the most recent quantity of a specific item available in stock at a given time. It is essentially a snapshot of the inventory count for a particular product just before a new transaction (such as a sale, purchase, or transfer) is recorded.

Location

Glossary termA physical place where items you are selling can be shipped to or from.

Log Event

Glossary termAn audit event of category “CUSTOM” that can be produced directly from a rule to log important information that resulted from workflow execution. These are commonly used for exceptional cases, e.g. recording the reason that a rule did not perform its standard action.

Logical Gate

Glossary termA Logical Gate is where the direction of the workflow execution depends on specific conditions being met, i.e. some kind of a logical condition that needs to be satisfied- so that the workflow knows which branch to execute next

Long Object Value

Glossary termLong Object Value JSON, often referred to simply as "LOV JSON," is a format used to structure data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) where the values within the JSON objects are particularly lengthy. This can occur when the values contain large amounts of text, extensive arrays, or nested objects with considerable depth.

Manifest

Glossary termHas 2 meanings in Fluent. A Manifest is the name of the JSON document that describes the UI configuration for a Fluent Web App. A Manifest is also a document describing the shipping details (items, parcels, etc.) for a carrier.

MemoryStore

Glossary termA managed in-memory data store service supporting Redis and Memcached for low-latency applications.

Module (Connector)

Glossary termComponent of a connector built with connect sdk

Module Archive

Glossary termThe Module Archive is basically a zip file that contains one or more Module Assets organized in the Module Structure. Reference Modules are hosted by Fluent, whereas Extension Modules are hosted outside of Fluent. This archive can be installed into a Fluent Account using the Fluent CLI.

Module Asset

Glossary termThe Module Assets are contained in the Module Structure and can have a range of types. For example, a workflow, setting, rule, catalogue, or manifest.

Module Project

Glossary termThe Module Project is checked into a project's source control and contains the sources to any workflow rules and any other Module Assets. The build step will assemble the Module Structure and create the Module Archive. This archive then can be installed into a Fluent Account using the Fluent CLI.

Module Structure

Glossary termThe Module Structure describes the layout of a Module and types of Module Assets it contains. This is the directory structure that is combined into the Module Archive. Both Extension Modules and Reference Modules adhere to the same structure.

Module Template

Multi-factor Authentication

Glossary termMulti-factor Authentication (MFA) is an authentication method that requires the user to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource such as an application, online account or other app requiring sign-in. MFA is a core component of a strong identity and access management (IAM) policy. Rather than just asking for a username and password, MFA requires one or more additional verification factors, which decreases the likelihood of a successful cyber attack.

Multi-tenant

Glossary termA multi-tenant environment refers to a software architecture where a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers, known as tenants. Each tenant operates in a virtually isolated environment, yet they all share the same application and infrastructure. This model is common in cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Mustache

Glossary termMustache templates are a logic-less template syntax used for generating dynamic content. Named after the appearance of curly braces that resemble a mustache, these templates allow developers to create views by inserting data into predefined placeholders. Mustache is language-agnostic, meaning it can be used in various programming environments, and it emphasizes simplicity and separation of logic from presentation.

Mystique

Glossary termCode name for the UX Framework.

Network

Glossary termA network is a group of locations for the purpose of separating them into logical or geographic categories.

Orchestration

Glossary termThe coordination of logical decisions to facilitate a desired outcome. For example, Order Orchestration is the coordination of logical decisions to facilitate the best, most efficient way to fulfill an order for a customer. Orchestration in Fluent is implemented using Workflows that contain business logic stored in the Workflow as rules and rulesets.

Orchestration Entity

Glossary termAn entity that can be assigned a Workflow to manage its lifecycle.

Orchestration Event

Glossary termAn event of type ORCHESTRATION intended to execute a Ruleset in a Workflow when processed by the Workflow Engine.Orchestration Events contain a name matching a ruleset name, information about the target Entity, and optional custom attributes for any extra information needed to process.

Orchestration Modeler

Glossary termThe user interface of the Orchestration Engine which provides visualization and management of all configured workflows, including rule sets, rules, and user actions.

Order

Glossary termCreated after a shopper completes the checkout and contains one or more products from a retailer. One or more fulfillments are created against the order to be services by locations.

Order Management Experience

Glossary termOrder Management Experience is the ability to be consistently and constantly flexible and agile in optimising order management processes within a business, for competitive advantage, economic adaptability, and market expansion.

Order Management Experience Frameworks

Glossary termThe OMX Frameworks are the three software frameworks provided by Fluent, including the Workflow Framework, UX Framework, and Connector Framework.

Order Management Experience Platform

Glossary termThe OMX Platform is the Developer platform, frameworks, and tooling provided to developers to build and deliver complex and unique implementations of Fluent solutions for our customers to realize order management experience quickly and easily. It includes a rich domain model, APIs, Workflow Framework, UX Framework, Connector Framework, SDKs, CLI, and best practice assets and documentation for developers.

Overselling

Glossary termShowing and selling stock to customers you don't have.

Permission

Glossary termPermissions can be assigned to users. A permission enables the role to perform associated actions.

Pick and Pack

Glossary termThe process of collecting and then packing products which are part of one fulfillment at one location.

Pick and Pack Time Limit

Glossary termThe amount of time allocated to a store to complete the pick and pack process for an order. Once a fulfillment has expired, it will either be reassigned or canceled. Pick and Pack Time Limits exclude non-trading hours.

Pick by item

Glossary termPick by item refers to a method of order fulfillment where individual items are selected from inventory to assemble a customer's order, typically used in warehouse management and logistics.

Pick from collection point

Glossary termFulfilling from the same location as the customer will pick up from.

Pick from store

Glossary term"Pick from Store" refers to the process where customer orders placed online are fulfilled directly from the inventory available at a retail store, rather than from a centralized warehouse. This approach helps in faster delivery and leverages local store stock, often used for services like curbside pickup or same-day delivery.

Pick to tote

Glossary termPick an item into a box when accumulating all items shipped from a specific location (e.g., store) to fulfill an order.

Plugin

Glossary termA collection of rules for a retailer.

Point of Sale

Glossary term"Point of Sale" (POS) is the location and system where a retail transaction is completed. This is where customers pay for their purchases, either physically at a store counter or online, and the POS system typically includes hardware (like cash registers and card readers) and software to process sales, manage inventory, and handle payments.

Preorder

Glossary termA "Preorder" is when customers can place orders for a product before it is officially released or available in stock. This allows retailers to gauge demand and secure sales in advance, often providing customers with incentives like early access or guaranteed availability upon release.

Primary Sourcing Strategy

Glossary termA Primary Sourcing Strategy is a structured approach for determining the optimal fulfillment Location in response to a sourcing request, such as an Order (or a parts of an Order).

Process

Glossary termA segment of workflow that represents a business outcome. This typically involves several rulesets contributing to the same stage of an entity's lifecycle.Example:

Cancel Order (Process)
- Cancel Fulfilments (Sub-Process of Cancel Order)
  - Release Inventory (sub-Process of Cancel Fulfilments)
Order Sourcing (Process)
- Assign Fulfilment (Sub-Process of Order Sourcing)
  - Reserve Inventory (sub-Process of Assign Fulfilment)